you'd already be dressed.

This story is about going on a date, but it’s not actually about that. It’s about much more than that — listening to your gut, burrowing deep into your knowing, and being sure enough of it to trust it.

It was the fall of 2018. I’d recently moved to the Fargo-Moorhead area, I’d started a new job, and I’d re-downloaded Tinder for the who-knows-how-many-ith time.

This “download, swipe, delete” is a common storyline for women in their 20s. It’s a throughline that connects every single millennial woman and the reality that showcases the complicated ways we try to find connection in this world. Download, swipe, delete. Pause. Download, swipe, go on a date, delete. Repeat.

We hear this story from another woman. We nod. We understand. It’s rough out there, especially on the screens. There are men with large fish and men with large egos, men with only shirtless selfies and men surrounded by other men so you don’t actually know which man is the one named Derek or Zach or Joe. So when you find someone you’re excited to talk to and get to know, it feels rare. Because it is.

One weekend while visiting Megan in the Twin Cities, I was in a “download” phase. I had Tinder on my phone and swiped a bit. I matched with someone and felt that excited buzz. I did not live in the Twin Cities at the time, but I was upfront about that. We texted quite a bit on the app. Then we moved to actual texting. Then we added Snapchat to the mix and the fact that we can communicate with humans in our lives on countless apps is one of the most exhausting parts of being human in this era.

Jack (we’ll call him Jack) was funny and witty and kind. He had a socially-conscious job. He had hobbies that were intriguing — hiking and board games and listening to NPR. He seemed to exhibit emotional intelligence and there was not a single fish in his profile photos. I thought, “Huh!”

So, the next time I was in the Twin Cities, I decided to meet Jack. We’d go out for dinner and drinks that evening, around 6:00pm. It was a plan. It was a date!

Except, all of a sudden it was 4:30pm, and I was still sitting on Megan’s couch. I hadn’t showered, though I desperately needed one. The five outfit options I’d brought with me were still tucked away in my suitcase. My nails, which I’d vowed to paint before this date, were still chipped.

I told Megan that I wanted to go, but I was still sitting here because I was just nervous! And because it’d been a while since I’d dated! And because the last person I’d talked to on this dating app had sent me not 7, not 8, but 13 messages in a row once before I finally responded. I told Megan that I’d get up and start getting ready so soon. I’d get up in just a few. It was only 5:15pm at this point; I still had a solid 30 minutes!

Her reply? 

“If you wanted to go, you’d already be dressed.”

As soon as Megan said these words to me, I nodded and thought, “Huh.” Because how many times in my life have I been so excited for something, so ready to go, that I could hardly wait another instant? The night before school when it’s impossible to go to bed. The moments before publishing something on my blog. Even other dates, where I showed up 15 minutes too early and awkwardly waited in my car for 21 minutes so I could walk in a casual and acceptable five minutes late.

But there I was, unprepared and unshowered and, apparently, unenthused about this date. My body and my gut were telling me that I didn’t want to go; I had to let my mind catch up before I accepted it.

Now, I’m sure if I had gone on that date, it would have been fine. I did feel like a bit of an asshole for cancelling so soon before. I apologized profusely and explained what was my truth: I thought I was ready and feeling it, but I was wrong. My body was telling me so. I couldn’t show up and fake it.

And that’s become the threshold — reminder — for trusting my gut. Would I already be dressed? Because in this decade, I’ve learned that my gut is almost always right — especially with romance. 

It’ll tell me when I should keep moving forward even when it doesn’t make sense, like dating someone who was moving across the country two days later. “Do it,” my gut said. It’ll be worth it!” And it was.

It’ll tell me when I should step back or stop, like when I went on a blind date with someone who spent 45 minutes telling me about how the Illuminati was controlling the Earth (and that the Earth was actually a snow globe!). “Evacuate!” my gut said. “You do not have to stay and listen to this!” So I left.

I’m amazed at how often I try to convince myself the opposite of what my body and my gut tell me. It’s not always that simple and laid out there for us, but sometimes — it just is. Sometimes all we have to do is get quiet, listen, and ask our own version of the question:

Would I already be dressed?

30 before 30 :: the songs

These are the defining songs of the last decade of my life.

They aren’t necessarily my favorites. There’d be some overlap but, mostly, that would be a different list. These are the songs that shaped me, that found a spot in my heart and stayed. These are the songs I have a visceral reaction to — they bring me back to moments, remind me of places, or make me think of humans who, even if they’re not in my life anymore, helped create who I am.

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There’s Hamilton. Of course. For half of this decade, I listened to this album more than anything else. I know every word and I worked embarrassingly hard to be able to kind of rap ‘Guns and Ships.’ I sobbed to ‘Burn’ in the back corner of a theatre in Chicago, fresh off the biggest heartache of my decade. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or where I am, ‘Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story’ will make me cry every time. This musical has pushed me to write, create, and take chances I didn’t think I could (or should).

There are the songs from college: ‘I Won’t Give Up’ is a song I can’t *stand* now but was all I listened to when my college boyfriend and I broke up. ‘Call Me Maybe’ brings me back to the middle of the crowded Old Broadway dance floor, buzzed on Wonder Woman shots and hoping I’d run into Cute Justin, my rebound crush. ‘Some Nights’ reminds me of the endless runs that Megan and I went on the summer before our senior year, and the talks we had as we tried to sort through what the hell we were going to do with our lives.

There are the Portland songs: ‘This Is The Beginning’ is Steph and I in our empty apartment, before we brought in our haphazardly-assembled furniture and before we made a life in that city. ‘There Will Be A Light’ is sitting in the pews at Salt & Light Lutheran Church, a building that became my community.  ‘Rivers and Roads’ is my final drive away from Portland, through the Columbia Gorge when I wondered what the hell might be waiting for me in Minnesota.

There are the songs that accompanied me on the big lessons of this decade: ‘The Climb’ reminds me that I shouldn’t run a half-marathon if I haven’t run a single mile in a long while. And that I don’t actually like running long distances at all. ‘Give Me Everything’ by Pitbull and ‘Bitch, I’m Madonna,’ ironically, remind me about deep friendship and the lifesaving role of my circle. ‘Heavy’ reminds me not to abandon myself for anyone or anything that makes me feel inferior.

I could add 31 more songs to share stories about from this decade. I could make lists of lyrics or books or quotes or places or even the food I’ve consumed that’s somehow shaped me these last ten years. Maybe I will, and maybe you should too, even if you’re not turning 30 on April 1st. If anything, this exercise has reminded me that everything has purpose. I believe it’s all part of shaping who we are, even if it feels small or insignificant at the time.

When I listen to ‘I Can Change’ on repeat for a month straight? That’s probably going to help me believe that I’m capable of change. When I reread ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ every year? Those words are going to stick close to me and come to me when I need some wisdom. The fact that I’ve had the same salad for most weekdays of the past four years? Well, at least I’m getting my vegetables. It all stays with us, inside of us somewhere.

And. One last thing. It’s not a fair question to ask of myself, and yet, my very favorite song on this list? ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ by Whitney Houston. There are so many core moments from the past ten years connected to this song: it’s been my karaoke selection in so many cities, singing my heart out to a crowd of strangers and watching them sing along with me. It’s the song I dance to in my bathroom as I get ready for an exciting or hard day. It’s an immediate mood booster when I hear it out in the world, like in the grocery store or in the middle of a workout class.

And while this song is lighthearted, its words are also a reminder of a journey I’ve been on this past decade. Because I do wanna dance with somebody, and I do want to find someone who loves me. But another journey I’ve been on in my 20s? I’ve learned how to love and dance with myself — and that’s been just as worthwhile.

hello, my name is...

“I have to think about it.”

I stared at him and kept my mouth shut. I thought, “Maybe he means he has to think about what he wants to say to me right now. He wants to really get it right and so he’s taking time to think about it.”

Silence.

I kept staring at him and kept keeping my mouth shut, though my eyes were slowly narrowing and my lips sucking themselves right back into my mouth to keep myself from talking. I thought, “Okay! He’s still thinking. That’s fine. I am a human who is full of patience and understanding. I am not annoyed or sad, but I am actually glad he’s taking the time to really think about his response to my question.”

Silence, still.

The question I asked wasn’t, “What’s your favorite song in Hamilton?” or “What should we cook for dinner tonight?” or “What are your thoughts about aliens or God or the concept of mass incarceration?” These are the questions you’d need some time to think about. 

The actual question I asked doesn’t matter that much. It may have been, “What is this relationship for you?” or “Are you willing to show up for me?” or “Do you care about me?” I had asked all of those and then a few more vulnerable ones. His answers were all something similar:

“I don’t know.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“I have to think about it.”

Regardless of the wording of the question, those are not quite the words you expect to hear from a human with whom you have any sort of romantic relationship. Or any meaningful relationship, for that matter — friendship, coworker, or otherwise.

First: What?! Second: Ouch.

While there is not a one-size-fits-all, step-by-step guide, Merriam-Webster definition of love, or dating, or relationships, I sense that there are at least a few shared truths that we hold as important. We want someone who we like spending time with and who likes spending time with us, too. We want someone to talk and listen to and who will listen to us, too. Someone who makes our lives better than they were without them, whatever our definitions of “better” may be. We want someone we can show up for, and someone who shows up for us. We want someone who is steady in how they feel about us, is clear about much they care for us, and someone who takes in all the complicated parts of us, the good and the bad and the weird, and responds accordingly.

We want to be seen.

I have an embroidered patch on the whiteboard above my desk. It looks like one of those name tags you get at a networking event:

Steph sent me a digital mock-up of this patch last August, during a moment when I was at my wit’s (wits’?) end. Later, in a ridiculous, sleep-deprived, lightning-speed text message thread, we dreamed up a life where one day, when we’re roommates in a nursing home, we’ll wear matching denim jackets with hundreds of matching, embroidered patches. Patches that represent our friendship, our lives, and the cores of who we are. This patch would be our first, capturing so many of those complicated parts of us.

So I bought a real-life version of that patch for Steph and then bought one for myself, too. We said that we should wear these words as a name tag every day so that anyone who encountered us would know who we were, and would be invited to respond accordingly.

Hello, I know who I am in my body and my soul (and I hope you see that knowing, too). Hello, I am not only comfortable with feelings but I’m going to TALK about them (and I hope you’re willing to, too). Hello, I drink a dangerous amount of coffee each morning and yet I am level-headed and can get shit done and am calm in a crisis (and I hope you recognize my contributions, too). Hello, I know my worth (and you should recognize my worth, too).

Hello. This is who I am. See me, or I’ll see you riiiiight out the door.

Because when someone sees you, they don’t need time to think about things like if they want to text back or make time to see you or how they feel.

And the people we invite into our sacred lives -- the family we stay connected to, the friends who become our chosen family, and especially the people we invite into our calendars and beds and hearts -- they need to see us. Every single one of us deserves that from the people we hold near to us.

He and I were talking through a screen when he couldn’t answer my questions. I was at my desk, looked up at my whiteboard, and saw that name tag in my line of vision. Bright red, staring me down, nudging me to come back to myself. And I thought, “He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t know who I am. And it seems that he doesn’t want to try. So why am I?”

I took a deep breath. And I told him that no, actually, he didn’t need to think about it. That in itself was an answer. And I wasn’t willing to wait for someone who didn’t know, on a gut-level reaction, that they wanted me. 

And while I’d like to say it felt immediately empowering to realize and name that, I hung up and cried -- the shoulder-shaking, are-these-tears-or-is-this-snot? kind of crying. Just sobbed into my lap for a good 10 minutes because -- despite what I knew deep in my core about worthiness and despite looking up and whispering to myself, “Hello, my name is Sexy Empowered Emotionally Mature Caffeinated Calm Woman!!!” -- it hurts when someone you’ve opened yourself up to, who you want to see you, is unwilling or unable to do that.

Even if it breaks our hearts and makes us cry or scream, we must walk away from those who do not see us, and those who aren’t willing to try. Even if we’re tempted to, instead, change ourselves because maybe that version will be seen -- to dye our hair or to not ask the question or to pretend we like the things they like that we actually do not like  -- we have to leave. We have to cancel the happy hour or skip the holiday gathering, have the breakup conversation or another hard one, put distance between them and us, or -- in this case -- hang up for the last time. 

I got out of my chair and went to get a Kleenex to sop up the tear-snot. I looked in the mirror and, despite the blotchy face and hazy eyes and achy heart, saw myself. That hurt, yes, but I looked in my own eyes and knew it would hurt even more to have kept going on like nothing was wrong. To keep going without being seen.

And then what? What do we do in the wake of not being seen?

We find those who do see us. We must hold on tightly to those who really, truly see our whole selves, who are willing to sit in the muck of life with us as we navigate our own, forever-changing versions of “Hello, my name is…” The ones we call in the aftermath of a conversation like this, who can grieve with us in the pain and celebrate with us for trusting our knowing, our worth.

They are the moms and sisters and best friends and maybe even the lovers, the mentors and bosses and sometimes even the unexpected ones (the baristas or the writers or the long-lost-loves who show up again, years later). They are the ones who want to bear witness to all the complicated, wonderful, raw parts of us. They tell us that they do, and they show up.

And they don’t have to think about it. Not for one second.

this is a story.

This is a story of the closest thing I’ve had to love-at-first-sight paired with the biggest heartbreak I’ve yet to know. The feelings are years old now; I wrote most of this in late 2016, when the breakup was raw but my memory was clear. I added a few things in early 2017, after time had passed and I saw Hamilton and my feelings morphed from anguish to acceptance. This story is years old, though I’ve returned to it a few times each year, wondering if this was the time to finally hit “Publish.”

And now is the time. Not because of any anniversary or revelation or resurfacing feelings, but because these words do no good sitting with the other 21 drafts I have in my “Writing” folder. Though these feelings and this story are old, they were mine. Are mine, still. And putting them into the world is a reminder — to me and to you — that there is no shame in loving hard, hurting deeply, and the work it takes to pick yourself up from that. I reread this story and see — I can feel — who I was that summer, that season of love and heartbreak, that October night when I wrote most of this.

Maybe you will find a piece of yourself in these words, too.

//

I walked into my apartment after work and it felt void of him. The lights were off and it was already dark outside; I worked well past five-’o-clock to avoid this exact moment. The floor was clean; I power cleaned last night, when I’m stressed or sad or need something I can control. It was as if, through last night’s fervid vacuuming and dusting, I could will any trace of him from this place.

He was the first guest in my home. He came to visit two weeks after I moved in, ten days after I started a new job.

“Is that going to be okay?” he asked, cautious and careful of providing space, allowing time to settle and be alone. 

“Of course,” I replied. “I want you here. I want you to be a part of this.”

He was the first to see my color-coordinated books on their shelves. He crouched over to read all of their spines before taking off his jacket, turning back to me to ask when I had gotten this one, how I had liked that one. He raised an eyebrow when he saw I owned “My Struggle” by Karl Ove Knausgaard, found the spine of “Becoming Wise,” the book we had both been reading when we met. His one carry-on bag for the weekend, which I’d learn was typical of his minimalism-except-books lifestyle, was the first thing to sit in my mustard chair, spilling open with the four books he brought for the plane.

He was the first to sleep in my bed; it had been delivered just hours before he arrived, which was not the plan. It should have arrived a week or so before, but a mix-up with the IKEA order and the IKEA delivery company brought it to my apartment during my lunch hour on the day of his arrival. I scrambled to put on sheets and a comforter, pretending like I had not been sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor for two weeks. He crawled into this new bed even before I did, while I was washing my face at the sink and feeling self-conscious about my choice of sleeping attire, and my whole life he was witnessing.

We hadn’t seen each other since the beginning of June, and even then we hadn’t spent more than 80-some hours together. We had been far from our homes, across the country for a conference unrelated to our day jobs. We were pulled together in a sterile, fluorescent-lit classroom by an icebreaker, a meet-and-greet game where everyone in the room stands up, the facilitator asks a question, and you travel to either side of the room based on your answer. This side for Coca Cola, the other side for Pepsi. This side for waking up early, the other for staying up late.

The third or fourth question was, “Are you planning to go to seminary?”; this side for yes, that side for no.

Our answers led us to the middle of the room. We found ourselves in a circle with two other faces I will never remember because I only saw him. 

“I’m not sure,” I said. 

“Me neither,” he said. “Maybe.” 

I talked about why, he talked about why, and I tried to remember the last time I made such prolonged eye contact with someone. The next question was asked. I don’t remember it, but I know we moved to opposite sides of the room. 

But we were pulled together again and again. We were signed up for the same breakout sessions. We ended up in the same small group for discussion. We sat near each other during presentations and meals and – finally, on the last night of the conference – at a bar with the rest of our newly-made friends.

We walked there together, slightly behind everyone else, talking and asking questions and digging deeper into who the other was. He wrote; I did, too, but not with as much discipline as him. I went to school in the Midwest; so had he. We cared about books and coffee and our families, had a complicated relationship with the church and God, and searched for (and usually found) meaning everywhere and in everything.

We arrived at the bar. A drag queen was singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” and we took shots of whiskey. We danced to Whitney Houston and drank gins. We danced to every song in a circle with our larger group until, finally, we found each other face-to-face. The music was still blaring, the drag queens singing another song, but it went silent for me as we left the bar so we could talk without the strobe lights. We found a bench and talked for almost four hours. We kissed a bit, too, but mostly talked and talked and talked until it was five-’o-clock in the morning and breakfast was at 7:30. I snuck back to my hotel room, my conference roommate peacefully asleep, and willed myself to obey the drag queen’s lyrics as I tried to fall asleep: Hold on to that feeling...

We sat next to each other at the final session the next morning. I remember nothing of what was said, but I remember when our knees moved from three inches to one inch away from each others’. He bought me a coffee before we left for the airport and asked if he could write to me, if we could stay in touch through letters. We did. He sent me letters and poems and his favorite book. I wrote back.

He came to visit.

He quickly became a home for me, for my heart and soul after weary days. I loved him so quickly, so deeply, so fully. That’s how love happens sometimes. It sneaks up on you and hits you over the head with the best kind of frying pan — but one that spits out cartoon hearts and unicorns and, instead of giving you a bump on the head, fills it with the reality of your love for this other being and their love for you. His was the conversation I looked forward to each night. Our trips to see each other were the highlight of each month. It was the kind of love that felt like home, that made me want to stay in each present moment because it was so, so good, but that also made me want to fast forward to see where it would lead us.

But sometimes, a different kind of frying pan sneaks up on you -- heartbreak. We did not last past fall, after secrets surfaced and I learned new truths and had to come to terms with a different reality of our time together. We broke up over the phone; he offered to fly to me, to work on this in person, but I went dancing with friends instead. I had a plane ticket to visit him booked for later that month, purchased the day before but already past the 24-hour refund deadline. I went anyway, saw Hamilton, visited friends, and didn’t reach out to see him.

I will see him in my kitchen, standing at my counter and making a pour over for me; standing at my bookshelf, quietly brushing over each title; reading in my bed, lying on “his” side. He was here, had been here, and will always be a part of this time of my life, this home. But, slowly by slowly, I’ve been removing the traces of him: the photo of us taken at the bar pulled off the wall; the postcard he sent from a trip removed from the nightstand; the last of the coffee he brought for me gone. Those memories and traces have been pulled into a folder and tucked away in a corner of a closet.

And tonight, with the lights off and the quiet and few traces left of him, I could catch a glimpse of how this could be okay. How I will be okay, how my home will be my home, even without him. After I turned the lights on, and the reality reemerged – he is not here – I whispered:

But I still am.

i do.

“My friends and I don’t belong to each other by blood, by marriage, by law, by ceremony.
We owe each other nothing. Yet we DO take care of each other in sickness and in health.
Till death do we part, apparently. Because we just love each other. We just DO.”
-Elizabeth Gilbert

These words, from Elizabeth Gilbert, have been sitting with me for a full week. They’ve been rattling around in my bones, showing up behind my eyelids as I drift off to sleep. She posted an update on her Facebook page, which I didn’t even know I followed until it popped up on a recent scroll, though I’m guessing I liked it during the “Eat Pray Love” times, or when my own interpretations of that novel led me to make some major life changes (well, as many “major” life changes as a 21-year-old college student at a liberal arts college in Minnesota can make). She had surgery recently and posted an ode to her friends as they helped her come back to health. It is an ode to the voluntary love they share, the unspoken vows they have with another, to care for and be present with and to love, always. If you want to read the full passage, it’s here.

I’ve got a pretty weird and random faith in the divine; I don’t believe that God makes things happen or not happen for us, and don’t you dare console me about a breakup or a diagnosis or any shitty thing (or any good thing, for that matter) with the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason.” And yet! I still believe that words -- books or poems or posts by Elizabeth Gilbert, for example -- come to us when we most need to hear them. That words show up in the display section of the library, or as a gift in the mail, or on our Facebook scrolls for a divine reason. This post and these words struck a particular chord with me (see: bone-rattling and eyelid-movie-screening mentioned above). I needed these words this week, and there they were.

If you’ve been around my Instagram this past year, you may have seen that in the course of a few months in 2019, I became an ordained minister and officiated not one but two! weddings of some of my dearest friends. It was the greatest honor of my life to stand with them, to speak to them, as they made hopeful, deliberate promises to one another and the life they share together. I rehearsed the ceremony in front of my mom for each wedding, getting all of my ugly tears and snot out in her living room instead of in front of Owen and Marilee and Ben and Natalie and their closest friends and family. I believe in their love -- and their love has given me further belief in marriage, partnership, and love in general.

And, if you’ve been around my Instagram this past year, you may have also noticed that there are lots of pictures of me. Just me! I am single, without a partner, though I’ve gone on dates (one day I’ll write a post about the hilarious blind date I went on where a man tried to convince me that the Earth is, in fact, a snowglobe) and actually dated (like boyfriend-girlfriend-level dated) someone this year. But, I’m not near the kind of romantic love that leads to a decision to enter into a lifelong partnership involving the government and a marriage license, or a party involving dancing and free wine. 2019 has been a year full of marriage for me -- writing sermons about love, choosing poems to read that represent that love, crafting vows to carry that love beyond a ceremony and into life -- but it hasn’t led me closer to my own kind of partnership. My family has not-so-jokingly mentioned that they’re going to create a Bachelor audition video for me titled “Always The Officiant, Never the Bride.” (At this point, who knows! Hey, Chris Harrison...?!)

I write about that -- the gentle irony of a human who’s been single for most of her 20s ushering people into marriage -- not to gain sympathy or to have you set me up with your boyfriend’s cousin’s older brother (though online dating is a bit of a drag so maybe I will take that blind date), or even for the unsolicited “You Do You, Girl!” encouragement so often bestowed upon 28-year-old single gals. I write about that because one does not need to be married, or even close to it, to understand the concept and philosophy of marriage, of love, to have the capacity to hold two souls in your heart as they make promises to each other and to those in their circle, to wholeheartedly rejoice with them as they say, “I do.” And I write about this because this year has caused me, like Elizabeth Gilbert’s surgery caused her, to think about all of the other marriage-like relationships I have in my life, particularly those with dear friends.

My friends and I haven’t stood up in front of our loved ones and make vows to one another, though a strong argument could be made that vows are embedded throughout our friendship -- in every action we do, in every word we say to one another. They’re in the Instagram posts I write, the karaoke duets I sing, the weekly phone calls, the cards sent just because, the Venmos sent for coffee on Friday mornings, the gifts outside of birthdays. They’re in the promise to show up when shit gets hard and messy and sometimes a little weird, and the follow-through of that promise.

The vows are in the listening to understand even when the idea or thought being shared is a little bonkers, in the holding space for one another as we get to that realization on our own, in the calling each other out on our unhealthy enneagram-type bullshit when necessary. They’re in sharing a bed when we stay at each other’s homes, even though there’s a guest room or a couch and we are in our late 20s, so we can fall asleep debriefing the night’s wild adventures or giggling over the song we sang in our 8th-grade choir. The promises are in the crying and laughing and praying and dancing and hugging, in the FaceTimes and cross-country flights and the postal service’s delivery of word after word of gratitude, strength, inside jokes, love. 

The vows are this Elizabeth Gilbert post, sent and shared with a little heart emoji. The vows are lived, every day. And these friendship vows are just as valid as romantic love vows, even without rings or a priest or a DJ to mark them.  

At both weddings I officiated, I tried to say something like this. How these couples were gathered on one particular day to make these vows, but that this ceremony -- these words they were about to speak -- were just the start of this love-filled life together, of promises to show up and love and be there for each other, through the best and worst of it. That the not-so-glamorous, everyday living that came after this Big Exciting Day, was what mattered. “I do” is a verb. 

And that’s true for any kind of relationship. Vows be damned, words written in cards or typed out on Instagram or spoken over coffee or wine be damned, too, if they’re not put into action. Words matter, but what matters more is how we make those words come alive, take on meaning with our partners and friends and chosen loves of all sorts. 

Just like I believe something divine planted these words in front of me, I also believe in some kind of magical divine that has connected me to my dearest loves. I hope that, one day, I’ll have a ceremony with a partner where I can write my own vows and ugly cry in front of a bunch of people and dance my ass off and -- above all else -- promise to love and try, and to keep trying even when those vows are broken and get a little beat up over the years.

And though I probably won’t throw a ceremony for me and each of my friends to celebrate our chosen unions (though that sounds like an amazing use of my time and expendable income), let this little blog post be a reminder to all of us -- single, married, coupled, humans in love and searching for love, humans who have given up on love -- that other kinds of love abound, if we choose to see it. That our lives and every relationship we have can be our own ceremonies, our own vows. 

That each day can be a reminder to everyone in our circles: “I do.”