Like Daylight

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Love is in the air these days. Many have offered thoughts about this powerful emotion. This week, several of our readers share their thoughts in a series of guest essays.]

by Sean Weaver

The entirety of my life has been a search for validation, love a form of currency that was given as an exchange. If I gave enough of myself, I could be loved in a way that proved both my value and my worth. And while this might wrongly be asserted as narcissistic behavior, I have grown to learn that it is a product of my upbringing, a cycle of abuse perpetuated by a certain person in my family. 

Growing up as a closeted Gay man in a conservative family alongside siblings who fit the norm, I always felt that I needed to work harder at love. No one saw the true me, they only saw who they wanted and expected me to be. It is still something I am working through, remembering all the derogatory slurs some of my family members used to describe people like me; I often find myself examining my sexuality and the way I love because of it.  Much of the last few weeks, given the slew of executive orders and conversations about the LGBTQ+ community, have brought up the pains and angst of growing up in the closet longing for love and acceptance in a world where hate defined a sacred part of myself. However, that is a different story of a different me, a story of a different kind of love. 

While I am defined by what has come before, I do not want it to define the way others see me. In one of my favorite songs by Taylor Swift, “Daylight” from her album Lover, Swift draws a parallel about love and the darkness of fear. Swift reflects that to truly love, one must let go of every past hurt and step willingly into the bright golden hues of daylight.

I am sure you have experienced the very first moment when the light of the sun peeks through the purple black hues of night. She closes out the song with a dialogue about love that has helped me avoid spiraling into the depths of past hurt and the atrocious dialogues about who people think I am: 

I wanna be defined by the things I love

Not the things I hate

Not the things I am afraid of, I’m afraid of…the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.

I just think that you are what you love. 

Here, Swift captures the true meaning of love. We must separate ourselves from emotions like fear and hate and instead focus on love that transcends what we think we know about others and ourselves. 

In such a pivotal moment for LGBTQ+ people in our country, I think it is important to tell a story about the man I love and how we met.

11 years ago, I first met the man I now call husband. To say my life was shrouded in darkness does not fully capture the pain I had felt losing my home twice in the span of two years. The first was after a past emotional and physically abusive relationship came to a violent end, and the second happened after a night of binge drinking which led to my aunt kicking me out of her home. Between these two pivotal moments, he entered my life. 

We told his family that we met through a mutual friend, but that would do a disservice to how we really met: on Grindr. I had seen his profile for several days and had finally worked up the courage to send him a hello message. Up until that moment, I had set an expectation that I would never love and or enter a relationship with another man. Love was a violent currency I had spent my entire life trying to exchange, and I was no longer interested in something long term. 

But I knew he was special, and I agreed to a casual date. We decided on meeting for dinner at the East Penn Diner in Emmaus, after a week of nonstop conversation which ranged about our dreams, our families, and jokes about stupid things we still find entertaining. I got there first and the moment he walked in, and I saw his face, I felt that I had known him my entire life, reconnecting like I know we will when we return to that primordial space we all eventually return to. I knew who he was to me, and I was terrified. What would he want in exchange? 

We had dinner, talked, paid for our meal, went to get coffee, and eventually ended up in his car where we kissed for the first time in the parking lot where he worked. The conversation was intellectually stimulating.  He listened as I talked about writing my Master’s thesis, offering comment here and there, embellishing the conversation with wisdom and support. He is the smartest human being I know in his capacity to hold silence and perceive that which others miss when they are too focused on saying the next best thing. 

After our first date, we both agreed to a second. I cancelled on him. Not because I did not want to get to know him more. I knew enough to know that there was something significant about our meeting. And as cliché as it sounds. I knew he was the one. 

Instead, I went out with a friend, got black out drunk, and ended up telling him we just could not do this. I was beholden to my fear of the possibility of someone seeing me for who I was and what I needed. He spent the night worrying about me, texting to make sure I got home safe. 

This Man, I hardly knew, but knew as intimately as the breath in my lungs, held on tight. He refused and told me that it didn’t matter what had happened to me in the past. He told me that he believed that I was worth it, even if others had spent my entire life proving the very opposite. A relationship was worth it, we would be great together. I ignored his texts the rest of the night and my friend drove me home. 

The next morning, after my aunt kicked me out of her house for my late-night arrival and drunken status, he followed up and texted to make sure I got home safely. He was genuinely worried about me. I told him what happened. He stepped in to pick up the pieces of myself that had been shattered once more, no judgment. Just, underserving belief in me given how I had treated him. 

He told his parents I was his boyfriend, I had been kicked out of my home, and they let me spend the night with him. His ability to fight for the things he loves is a product of the family he was raised in. They accepted me immediately with love and kindness. I do not really think they understand just how instrumental they were in allowing our love to thrive. I suspect they do. But I am really blessed for them giving us the chance to step into the daylight. 

Fate has a funny way of stepping in when it comes to love. And I know that now. Things moved quickly from there. His parents let me move in after I had rented my own apartment but had spent most of the time at his house. He was the first to say “I love you” only a few weeks into our relationship, a moment that caught us both off guard. I said, “I love you too.” 

It felt as we had already said it so many lifetimes before. 

So many seasons have passed since the first time we met in the winter. I share this story of how we met and fell in love because I think it encapsulates so much of how I now have come to understand it. Love is the act of believing the best in other people, even if they cannot see it in themselves. 

My now husband could have given up on me, checked out, and moved on. But he didn’t. Because he has the capacity to love unconditionally, something I am still learning to do. He reminds me every day why we should always love without restraint in all his various little acts of kindness, his unwavering patience. Love is about letting go of the fear and seeing each other for who we really are.  

So, if you are someone who thinks the love between two men is something to hate and be afraid of, just know that what you “think” defines me is not something to be afraid of. While you may hate me that does not diminish my love for you as a human being. Nor does your hate and fear make me love my husband any less. But know this: you do not get to tell my story of love through your fear, the things you are afraid of. And when you are willing to let go of those fears, there is a beautiful golden daylight. 

That is the kind of love I believe in. Some might see me as too forgiving, excusing. But to be angry, to fear those who fear me; that’s not how I see love and our responsibility as humans to find love even in the darkness. 

And if it isn’t clear by now. 

Well. 

I want to be defined by the things I love. Not the things I hate. Not the things I’m afraid of, afraid of. Not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night. I just think…

You are what you love. 

Sean Weaver has a PhD in English and Literature from Louisiana State University. A 2007 graduate of Boyertown Area Senior High, he is a native of Gilbertsville/Boyertown. He currently works as an adjunct instructor at various colleges in the Lehigh Valley.

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