Vol. 24: "What wasn't a possibility is present in our arms."

Written July 29, 2021
 
In the book Pleasure Activism, in an essay called “Politics for Liberated Relationships,” adrienne maree brown wrote that we have to relinquish Frankenstein. We can’t change our partners, instead we get to witness their journey.
 
When I think back on our relationship, that is one of the pieces of advice that stuck with me the most. We have been on a journey, and we have grown together as individuals and as a couple. Witnessing the way you live your life, and being part of it has been the biggest blessing of my life.
 
I was not expecting to meet my wife at 22, but I found you and I fell in love with you quickly and knew we had something special that I wasn’t going to give up, whether due to distance or our beautiful differences or whatever life threw our way. One thing that falling in love with my future wife at 22 has taught me is just how young and stupid I was at 22. I look back at our early relationships and I have to laugh by how much I did not know. All my insecurities. And you still loved me.
 
Before you, I was always very self assured that the right, independent way to do things was to love yourself first and then you could be in a serious, committed relationship with someone else. I loved myself as a single person but had never known what it was to be so terrifyingly in love with someone, and how that exposes all your vulnerabilities and insecurities. I had a lot to learn when we first met, and we grew up together. What I love about us is we’re still whole people without the other. You don’t complete me. You complement my whole, true self. More than anything, when I’m with you, I feel like I can be truly myself. And, even better, I get to witness your full self.
 
We laugh together. We learn together. We hold each other accountable.  
 
You are so soft and so brave. You are the bravest person I’ve ever met. You have been with me through some of the hardest times in my life, the biggest losses, the triumphs and the failures. And you still love me. You always make me laugh.
 
I fell in love with you because you are beautiful and funny and honestly, I was drawn to how mysterious you were. You were reserved. After I first told you I loved you in 2015, you told me it takes you more time than me to open up to someone else. I wrote in my journal, “I want to be with her for five years so she opens up to me.” Well here we are, six and a half years later.
 
And the more I get to know you, the more I fall in love with

Photos by our amazing photographer Mariah Miranda

Subject line from Joseph Legaspi's "Vows (for a gay wedding)."

Dear readers: Your love & support over the past 8 months of writing (and years of IG) has meant so much to us both. While Bae is a more private person than I am, I wanted to share news of our special day with all of you! If you'd like to help us celebrate our marriage, you can buy us a glass of champagne on our honeymoon via Paypal, Venmo (@Allison-Punch) or CashApp ($AllisonPunch). You can also make contributions in our honor to Black Mamas Matter or the Ruth Ellis Center