Yesterday I celebrated WifeDay, a roving holiday where my friend T. and I go to lunch and otherwise love on each other. (Commander Logic and I also have this holiday, we just refer to it in text messages as “Doug’s?” “Doug’s!” until such time as I can create a powerful sausage-shaped beacon to flash in the sky.)
The “Wife” designation comes from when T. and I were roommates during her divorce and my last year of grad school/Darth Vader detox. We were broke and miserable – ”Ok, we have potatoes, onions, oil and $3.50 in loose change between us. Should we go soup or latkes this time?” – but we took fierce care of each other while respecting the other person’s space and autonomy in a way that I’d really never experienced before in any kind of relationship. One of my funniest memories of that year is the two of us commuting downtown, standing on the Belmont platform and realizing that we were both dressed in black turtlenecks/olive/khaki pants/cat-eye glasses/dark hair in ponytails and carrying camera equipment. When did we turn into cartoon copies of each other? We were both in the sort of “DUDES, UGH” headspace that made the prospect of signing up for “domestic partners” health insurance from her job at the S*bucks and registering for nice dishes seem like a good idea, and somewhere in there we started referring to each other as “Wife.”
Last time my folks came to visit we hung out with Logic and Wife, and my mom expressed marvel that I had such good friends. She isn’t someone who has a lot of close friendships or does much socializing, though she is very close to her sisters, so I said: “I didn’t grow up with sisters, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have sisters. They are to me what Aunt B. and Aunt M. are to you” and the lightbulb went on.
I know many of us are strongly drawn to “chosen family” narratives (I just mainlined a shitload of Fringe* on Netflix for just this reason), and I also know many of us have felt the power of re-defining family in a way that supports and nurtures us as adults or are looking to do that. So I’d love to hear – Who is or would be in your chosen family, if it were yours to choose? Real-life people, fictional characters, qualities you admire and desire and search for = all are welcome.
Moderation Note: I am going to ask very specifically that people keep stories of rape & abuse out of this thread. I don’t want to silence victims, but I also cannot read about these topics right now. To clarify, “my actual family is/was abusive, so I look outside them for love and support…” = TOTALLY OKAY. That is factual and gives context. Elaborating on and describing details of that abusive experience = I really can’t. This is not the thread where we bond over the horrors we’ve survived; this is the thread where we’ve survived them, or soon will have, or believe we’re going to.
Mad love and happy weekend to all of you.
*Totally enjoyable if you just repeat to yourself that “on this show, science is the same thing as magic.”
