Loisfoeribari: Platonic love, self love, heartbreak & romance

Hello and THANK YOU for subscribing. I got so much positive feedback about the first newsletter for its reasonable length; this week’s is much longer. :) My plan for the newsletter is to do an every other week cycle: last week’s structure was the “slice of life” newsletter, much briefer, and today is my longform newsletter. I hope you enjoy.

I’m fascinated with thinking through what makes me me and how my past shapes who I am today. I’m sure everyone experiences this, so I can’t tell if telling you this makes me trite or overly earnest. I live in a perpetual state of nostalgia. This must be why I love writing: the craft behind sharing a memory so a reader can experience it just right, and connecting a past moment with its current meaning. 

I know by the time you’re reading this, Valentine’s Day has passed, but it's my newsletter so I talk about what I want. I was hesitant to share a sappy post about my fiancée on social media this year when I’m cognizant of how challenging and isolating this pandemic has been for so many. I am heartened this year (pun?) by seeing the emphasis on celebrating love beyond romance. Today’s newsletter will share three memories of three valentine’s days: heartbreak, platonic and self-love, and romantic love.

Valentine’s Day 2008: Heartbreak

I had my first boyfriend at 15. Like many teenagers, I cared a lot about external validation, appearances, and what I “should” like, so it was not the actual boy himself (a redhead I met through high school theater) as it was having a boyfriend, or perhaps my status as a girlfriend. In hindsight, we rarely hung out after school alone or talked on the phone but I believed I loved him.

I spent the night before Valentine’s Day carefully making chocolate-covered rice krispy treats. I wasn’t sure what our plans were for the evening - a movie had filmed at our high school and there was an advanced screening for it that night, so I thought maybe we’d go to that. I tried calling him, but he texted me saying “we’ll talk tomorrow.” I didn’t have a texting plan, and he sent me three texts that cost me ten cents each.

We met up at lunch on Valentine’s Day, and he gave me a typed and printed, size 12, Times New Roman letter breaking up with me. I wish I still had the letter - I remember it said we were at “an impasse” because I wanted to wait until marriage to have sex and he didn’t (it’s a lot easier to want to wait when you’re looking at the wrong gender).

I arrived late to my fifth period, where my teacher saw me crying and asked kindly, “Valentine’s Day trouble?” I later turned my heartbreak into a slam poem and slapped him across the face in a crowded hallway, but that’s a story for another day.

Valentine’s Day 2014: Platonic & Self Love

My senior year of college, I lived in a house with six girls: Elise, Hannah, Kaci, Diana and Maia, and we clicked magically. There’s no way to put it other than we fit, individually, in pairs, and in a group. Our friendship blossomed as we navigated our impending adulthood and the end of college together. While surrounded by loving friends, I was also dealing with deep loneliness that I now understand was rooted in a private struggle with my sexuality. 

We decided to spend Valentine’s Day making fondue and doing an at home spa night with my mom’s paraffin wax bath, aka a “Dipping Things in Things” party. That day, Elliot Page’s coming out speech went viral. At that point, I’d opened up to three friends about my sexuality but not to anyone in the house. I didn’t have the words to describe myself but I knew I desperately wanted to be with a girl. Somewhere between watching the speech and our Valentine’s Day plans, I decided to tell the girls that night.

Elise, Diana and I were the only ones home making the fondue when Elise asked if we’d seen the speech. We were standing in our kitchen, clustered around the melting cheese on our stovetop. “Actually,” I said, “there’s something I want to tell you.”

I told the rest of the girls as they came home over the course of the evening and the following morning. Everyone was supportive, as I knew they’d be, and telling them allowed me space to witness a quiet desire shift into more of a real possibility.

When I told Hannah, who I’d known since age 5, she responded, “Allison, you already told me - at brunch, remember?” The month before, Hannah, Kaci and I went to a buffet brunch and over lox and eggs, I’d said to them: “Everyone always says they’d date a girl except they don’t think they could go down on a girl. I could TOTALLY go down on a girl! I would do it!” I was dealing with so much compulsory heterosexuality that I told my best friends I wanted to have sex with a girl and didn’t even register it as coming out.

Elise was the wild card of the group: I knew she was okay with queer people in theory, but wasn’t sure if she would feel comfortabl living with a queer woman. Elise’s bedroom was in our basement and we’d frequently sleep in each other’s beds. Earlier that day, Elise and I had agreed that I’d sleep in her bed that night, but after my revelation, I didn’t want to go down there and make her feel uncomfortable, so I slept in Hannah’s bed. The next morning, Elise said to me: “Allison, where were you? I slept with the light on because I thought you were coming downstairs!”

Calling friendship like that “platonic love” almost seems to downplay its meaning. I started to love who I am - proudly & openly - and the girls affirmed me and shared in my excitement as I became more myself.

Valentine’s Day 2015: Romantic Possibility

One year after coming out, I had a brief relationship with a girl under my belt and was “talking” to a former coworker: a tall, beautiful retired college basketball player with the most incredible dimples I’d ever seen. She lived in Michigan. I’d moved to D.C. in December and was trying to make connections on the apps but only ever wanted to talk to her.

Valentine’s Day was a Saturday; on Tuesday, she told me she was coming to D.C. I didn’t know then her intentions were to see what was between us and make a decision about long distance. All I knew was it was my first Valentine’s Day with a date but it was way too late to get any type of dinner reservation. I googled to see where we could go out to eat without reservations and decided we’d go to Busboys and Poets, named after the poet Langston Hughes. 

I remember the date being quiet and tentative. At Busboys, she ordered a banana Nutella sandwich and we sat together listening as Lauryn Hill played over the speakers. I’m bubbly, she’s introverted and we were slowly getting to know each other beyond our physical attraction. As we walked home to the row house I shared with two roommates, it started to snow.

When she left D.C. two days later, we hadn’t had “the talk.” And again, that is a story for another day. I spent the weekend, and our first Valentine’s Day, totally smitten, but full of the trepidation that comes from an obvious connection with an unclear future. 

Valentine's Day 2021

I spent my seventh Valentine’s Day with her, and I can’t wait to marry her.

And with that, I’m closing out with a poem. I first heard Aracelis Girmay read “For Estefani Lora” in high school and it’s played a role in each phase of my life and my understanding of all forms of love. I highly recommend listening via audio, and the video does have closed captioning if needed.

Baby Allison, age 15

The girls of 716. L to R: Diana, Hannah, Elise, Kaci, Maia, Allison

Us, shortly after she proposed in Hawaii

Thank you to Katie for editing today’s newsletter and also for being present for every single one of these moments. I love you! All typos my own.