Originally published in January 2020.
Twenty years ago I wore low rise jeans and drove a Honda Civic and didn’t have bangs or a cell phone. I rarely washed my face and glitter counted as makeup and I owned bathing suits secured with a string. I was, by and large, a moron, and have since absorbed lessons and experiences that have turned me into a human being worth knowing. But a few people liked me back then anyway. Twenty years ago, I met my friend Barbara.
I met her the first night I moved to Austin, my first night in a home with no parents, the day before classes started at the University of Texas at Austin. We would become and remain friends for the next two decades. I have no reason to expect any different of the decades to come. Despite spending most of these last twenty years several states apart, we’ve managed to save a front row seat for the other in our lives, always. It’s the kind of friendship you don’t stress out about. I credit her with setting most of that pace. She’s quite chill. I’m a lunatic.
Last weekend was one of the rare occasions when she and I found ourselves in the same locale. It happens several times a year because we’re lucky, either she’ll come to New York for work or I’ll go to Texas to visit family. In prior years we’ve even take trips together, who can forget our adventures in Germany clad in excellent millinery? We travel together less these days, you’re about to see why.
We’ve spent the vast majority of our twenty years as friends also as single women. To add to that, we also haven’t really dated a ton. We’ve either been highly selective, unlucky, or smart, and I’m leaning toward the latter. But awhile ago my friend Barbara fell in love, and last weekend, she got married.
I don’t write about love much. My work tends to take place in its absence. My goal is to change the way being single is seen, to make it a positive word, and a positive way of life. My friend Barbara was perhaps the my first real example of a single life lived in wholeness, lived without lack, celebrating individual interests and desires and facing the world as a complete person, partner or not. In all the time we spent together I never knew she’d be a blueprint for the work I do now, but I struggle to think of a better example of someone not necessarily choosing to be single, but certainly choosing to be happy in the meantime.
One of my favorite things she did as a single woman was Christmas cards. Barbara always sent out solo Christmas cards, highlighting her year in a collage of photos of adventures and good times and triumphs of all sorts. In fact, receiving her card this year, consisting of an engagement photo of the beaming couple, was quite a shock to the system. Who’s this dude?? (I’d obviously met him before I’m just using this for dramatic effect.) Who is this dude and where is my Barbie collage? I look forward to it every year! Hello? May I speak to the manager?
She wasn’t sending the cards in defiance of her singleness. She was sending them in joyful celebration of her life. In all the years I’ve known her I’ve never heard her complain about being single. Instead it was very clear that she was simply living her life, leaving room in it for someone awesome to show up, without an apparent lack of any kind. Maybe she felt it at one time or another, but it didn’t show.
I always knew she would get married before I did. I knew the inner light of her would result in exactly this outcome. I have inner light too, I’ve just had a terrible habit of using a dimmer switch, I’m working on it. Barbara shines. She is also beautiful and tall and does calligraphy and makes kombucha and loves Wes Anderson movies and cycling. Honestly every guy on the planet who didn’t marry her needs to know he fucked up.
It starts with her smile and laugh which are a treat and should honestly hang in a museum someday but it’s also the ease with which she operates. I’d call our friendship low maintenance but that sounds like we’re lazy. We’re not, we’re just effortless. Our friendship is effortless. I never feel like I’m letting her down, I never worry about whether or not she’ll FaceTime me soon (she always will), and I’ve never felt unsure of our relationship. It is firm friendship ground and that’s because of her. You can imagine how scared I was of this man. Don’t take my Barbie.
He’s going to take her away, isn’t he? I’m never going to see her again, travel with her again, her weekends will be spent with him, not on her couch or in her kitchen FaceTiming with me where she should be, dammit. You can understand the source of my fear. It’s happened before. I’ve been made to feel less than before. Friends go away when they partner, they prioritize you less, single women have a way of falling into forgotten. I get it, it’s a natural shift of focus. I’m not angry with friends I’ve lost, I’ve simply made more friends. But there are friends I’m unwilling to let go of, and she’s one of them. The other one is Swathi, who will read this. Hello, I love you both very much.
Barbara is on Day Six of her marriage, but I feel confident my friend hasn’t been stolen from me. Check back at their fifth anniversary, but I like our odds. I think she married someone who adds to her life, without trying to change it. He came into her life and I only saw addition, not alteration. He made a happy person a whole extra kind of happy. Honestly I’ve never seen a relationship like theirs this close up, but it’s amazing to know that a perfect match, as eye-rolly as it sounds, is possible.
His name is Will Stark. I adore him. Everyone adores him. But most importantly, he adores her. He respects her. He enjoys her company, creates a home with her, fucking kayaks with her for goodness sake and still gives her space to be the wonderful brand of human being she is all on her own. Sometimes I feel like a selfish asshole, but my favorite thing about Will is that in loving him, Barbara hasn’t changed a bit. I haven’t lost her. Instead, we’ve all gained him.
I knew this day would come, and I’d always thought it would feel like an alien invasion, but you know what? I actually enjoy having dinner with the two of them as much as having dinner with her alone. Do you know he makes his own dairy-free milk? I don’t know where this guy came from (yes I do, Beaumont), but he’s welcome to stick around as long as he likes.
Barbara does not fake her laughs. If you are not funny, she will not laugh at you. She will, instead, roll her eyes at me when you are not looking. Will makes Barbara laugh. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. There is a unique confidence that comes from knowing someone you love loves someone who very effortlessly and naturally makes them laugh. This man has my gratitude for letting me know that for the rest of her life, my friend will never go too long between decent chuckles. He also knows how to compost things and make gumbo, two skills that I’m confident my friend will benefit from forthwith.
It’s gross, but they’re perfect. They have a variety of complementary if not identical interests. When they cook together, they play to each other’s strengths like a goddamned sailing team. I have never known this woman with a pet but she instantly became a cat mom when Will’s bright orange feline moved in. Their personalities and temperaments are very similar. (Her and Will, not her and the cat.) They like and dislike the same things. You know when I knew I wanted these two people to marry? When he went to a yard sale of some kind without her and came home with a set of awesome vintage straw bowls and knew exactly where in the house they’d look best. He did something he wanted to do, that he knew she’d also like. Are you hearing me? He thinks about what she’d like and then does it. I want to make him an engraved plaque.
This love is grown up. It’s a love that doesn’t appear to be filling an emptiness in the other, I see no possessiveness or need for validation here. Instead, from where I sit, I see genuine, thoughtful, warm, affectionate love. I see two human beings who are grateful they’ve found each other, and very willingly and effortlessly seem to be making a conscious choice every day to share a home and happiness together. I know, I didn’t think I could write sentences like that either, but here we are. Love is real. Who knew?
It exists, grown up love exists. And I’m just spitballin’ here, but I think it’s the kind of love that lasts. We’re in our mid-30s (I’ll start saying late 30s this June, when our birthdays are 13 days apart), and I think there’s something you know at this age that you don’t know when you’re a decade younger. I think you know respect, space, and gratitude as they relate to partnership in a way that will make it last. I think you know yourself in a way that makes you a more confident and conscious partner. I look forward to knowing what love is like at this life stage, and I am endlessly grateful to the Universe, God, whoever you thank when you narrowly avoid a car accident that my friend has gone ahead and found it.
In a way, maybe I do have proof that this kind of love lasts. Because Barbara and I have lasted. We have lasted because we love each other for who we are, we’ve come together and parted when we’ve needed to, and maintained a friendship that’s very calm, natural, and easy. It’s not that different from what she’s found romantically. She and I have made it 20 years, I’d expect a relationship that also includes diamonds and sex to, at the very least, double that.
On the morning of the wedding, I got to her house at 7:30 am, to help her get ready but also because I’ll be damned if I miss a second of the action. I rang the doorbell, not knowing it didn’t work. I looked through the window to get someone’s attention, and the only thing I could see was Will, tying his tie in a mirror, in preparation to marry my friend. No one got to see that but me. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I waited until he was finished before I knocked.
The wedding date was February 16th but the weather was clear and 75 degrees Fahrenheit in a part of the country known for literally raining on any kind of parade you have an inkling to plan. From my seat at the ceremony I could see both the sun and a beautiful crescent moon, literally smiling down on the proceedings. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was happy.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to go to weddings. I’m always alone, and it’s hard to celebrate love when you’re alone, over and over and over again. But there are some weddings that aren’t hard to attend at all, because you need to see it.
You need to see someone you love align and celebrate with someone you, as their friend, know will be their company, comfort, and compassion for the rest of their lives. It is a gift they give you, the knowledge that they’re this happy. Barbara was always complete and individual and whole. But her wedding was a reminder to me that we can join together, retain our individuality, and gain love and support that make life even more full. It was her wedding, and for those who love her, it was our gift.
Congratulations Mrs. Stark. You are, and always have been, loved.