good morning yall,
i’m writing this to you from my sister’s house in Nashville. she designed these gorgeous little quotes from yesterday’s episode of boysober:
i love that quote. it’s so hopeful. you can see them all on IG :)
episode four of the boysober podcast is out now (listen here <3) — it’s a collection of messy, juicy, funny summer love stories.
in the intro we go around new york asking the question, “what kind of summer are you having?” wondering if the girlies are looking for a hot girl summer, boysober summer, or brat summer (part two).
i’ve been having a hard time answering this question myself. technically, summer doesn’t start until tomorrow (june 20th), so I guess today’s the day that I need to decide.
June so far has been bittersweet and mostly spent down south.
my first weekend in Nashville I was with an old friend whose second baby inspired me to redownload hinge.
“how could a baby inspire you to redownload hinge?” thank you for asking.
i’ve decided i’d like to have a baby by 32. I’m turning 29 next week. She has two kids, a husband, a salary, a house in the suburbs. Meanwhile, I told her about planning to have a one-night-stand baby. No husband necessary.
looking at me, not like she was confused, but like I was … stupid? delusional? clinically insane? (fair) she said, “how are you going to do that?”
“are you going to tell the guy?”
“why don’t you just adopt?”
I don’t Honestly think i’m going to find the father of my child on hinge, but I thought… shouldn’t i at least be trying?
a few days later, i was telling my mom about the conversation between this old friend and me, and she asked, “do you want a husband?”
“i mean,” i struggled… threw the idea of having one around in my head… “no.”
when i think of having a husband i kind of think, why would i ruin my life like that?
and i know, i know, not all men, but it’s not even about the men. every time i see a couple, a married couple, watching them i’m kind of thinking, “do y’all even like each other?” sometimes the hate between them radiates across the room. sometimes you can tell a married couple loves and likes each other, but imo that’s a rarity.
and the thought of having a husband just gives me the ick.
it might be the fear of divorce that gives me that feeling. divorce has been present in my life since I was in my mother’s womb. raised with three sets of grandparents (two on my mom’s side), divorce never seemed like a big deal, but my parents’ divorce was gnarly and definitely left me and all my siblings with a bad taste in our mouths when it comes to the idea of getting hitched.
my mom alludes to this in episode two of boysober, where i had to ask everyone in my family, “why do you think i’m still single?”
this week i was taking care of mimi. taking care of her means sitting next to her, making her lunch and dinner, and helping her to the bathroom when she needs to make a pit stop. In between all that, we simply sit together and watch TV.
flipping through cable news, we stopped on The Notebook— a movie that’s undeniably perfect. perfect in every sense of the word.
looking at rachel mcadams, i wondered, “where’s she been?” so many artists from the early oughts have made a come back— sometimes cringe (Blake Lively), sometimes iconic (Emma Stone)— WHERE is Rachel? (hoping if she does come back it would be more Stone than Lively, but we may never know.)
i’ll tell you where she’s not— in a marriage.
a woman as beautiful as her, never married? the old, internalized messaging of the patriarchy danced in my head. she has a partner— a screenwriter who, when i saw his picture, decided he must have an incredible personality. rachel mcadmas and i seem to have the same Type and a similar disdain for marriage.
so, i’ve redownloaded hinge (i’ll surely delete it soon), i don’t want a husband (i’m sure i’ll eat these words one day), and summer starts tomorrow. so what kind of summer is it going to be? i haven’t been able to answer the question for myself.
I’m open to finding the love of my life, but I’m inspired by Melissa Febos’s new book The Dry Season to give up sex for a year again. (I’ll talk more about this next week when my interview with her comes out <3).
In this week’s episode, there was one answer to the question, “what kind of summer are you having?” that I can’t get out of my head.
“it’s a summer of resistant love. Love in spite of the world, against doomerism and depression.”
I’m still deciding what Resistant Love means for me. In some ways it feels obvious: resist the knee-jerk urge to hate my enemy (republicans). Resist the temptation of quick, consuming love (situationships). Resist my vices that allow me to escape and numb, rather than experience and metabolize. And, most importantly, resist fascism, together — by protesting, working with DSA, and voting for Zohran. I’m still figuring it out, but Resistant Love will be the phrase that colors my summer.
I’ll be writing these little letters to you every week. Hopefully on wednesdays, when the boysober podcast episodes officially drop. but maybe sometimes thursday, or maybe even a friday (scandalous).
let me know what kind of summer you’re having in the comments below. let me know what you want to hear from me in this newsletter. thank you for subscribing and thank you for listening.
sending you love,
Hope
Resistance love ftw !