Who Do You Love?
The relationship edition.
Every Valentine’s Day, I think of the Cheryl Strayed line, “My mother was the love of my life.” No romantic or sexual relationship has come close to the deep love I felt for her. Valentine’s Day in our household was like a feminist holiday—it was all about celebrating the intense non-romantic bond between two females. We didn’t need men, we had duty and laughter and admiration and intimacy—we were each other’s life partners.
Like many daughters of single mothers, I grew up seeing romantic relationships as a source of disappointment. Instead, I looked up to my mom’s deep bonds with her friends—whom we both turned to (and I continue to lean on) in times of need—as the kind of relationship that fostered real, lasting love.
As a little girl, I’d don a tiara and stage imaginary weddings with my mom, my uncle, my friends. Valentine’s Day was a day for decorating doilies and filling out a stack of mini-cards for everyone in my elementary class, not for boys, they had cooties…