A Summer Tuesday after Saugatuck

The time just turned to 11:01. I have a Youtube video on in the background of—you guessed it—Trixie Mattell. She has another drag queen in this video named Kim Chi and they are revealing their newest collab for Trixie Cosmetics.

I’m actually not gagging for this collection so far, but there are lipsticks and they haven’t gotten to them yet so who knows.

I have my cold brew milkshake i made beside me and the window is open, AC off because it’s a beautiful 72 degreess outside. We just texted ‘cos that one show is on Netflix that I knew you’d love is out.

Bunny, Baby, Sweetheart, counsel, Sy….I had such a beautiful time with you on this trip with your friends. Moments of looking over at you at dinner and lunch, hearing you laugh with your mouth wide open and ending in that smile of your perfect teeth with your friends, seeing you step away to go and get some quiet time….and then me interrupting that quiet time lol. It was all so sweet.

I thank you wholeheartedly for having faith in me and letting me come. I don’t want to re-hash or even talk about everything before but as you said in an email (how sweet of you to send me those DURING the trip, thank you, i see you, thank you) it may have been necessary. All my feelings were put out on the table and I also heard things from you that i needed to.

(It’s 1111 right now)

You deserve to wake up every day knowing how much of a amazing, sweet, knowledgable, loving, partner you are and have been to me. I talk a lot already but those words mean shit if a lot of them aren’t being used to tell you that every day. I feel like it may feel a bit weird to you at first me actually saying it and things about why you’re a great partner every day, but the more I say it the more it will be less weird and you’ll expect it and it hopefully makes you feel warm. because you should have that expectation of me to tell you how incredible you make me feel, how lovely a partner you are to me, and why. You deserve it all - the verbal and physical showing of knowing that you are a great girlfriend.

I’ve seen a life with you Sy Yaw. A life where my name is Mechelle Nicole McAdoo-Yaw and I’m the wife to you and a mother to the children we share and we live in a house full of music, laughter, noise, yummy food smells, color, joy, affirmation, validation and more.

I just want to hold your hand.

I’m crying right now and i don’t fully know why. Maybe it’s because i nearly lost you. I’m a pretty strong woman, and I’ve been thru enough and have come out the other side. I’ve also been alone thru 90% of it, not always by choice. I’ve learned to love myself, not only because loving yourself is important but because outside of my parents I’d never been properly loved. Not really by family, and not friends until the past perhaps decade. I learned how to get there but slips def occur, and over time they happen less and less. I sometimes get embarrassed to share that with you because it’s something I’ve been judged for my whole life it feels. People scream that we should always want to love ourselves, that fuck what others think, that no one can love you like you and that’s all you should be concerned about - and to an extent thats true. But being loved is important too and sometimes inner strength is hard to come by. Also, the world doubles down on Black women, and we should stay strong, fight fight fight, don’t display softness or needs - all things i’m sure you’re aware of. Anyway, all that to say when you came along and actually liked me…then loved me…my world got flipped upside down.

I got afraid of how much i liked you, afraid of how much I cared what you thought, afraid of how much I needed you, afraid of how much just the thought of you made a shitty day or a sad moment better.

(i’m literally bawling right now and they are like happy tears so now worries but an fyi lol)

Anyway, So I just want to continue doing the thing that you seem to love about me lol, which is me just talking and expressing myself. I want to sometimes tell you a million times a day i love you or im thinking about you and that i care or whatever else comes to mind and believe you when you say those things are ok. that you won’t feel smothered or like im crazy. I am obsessed with you and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that but the person I need to be telling those things to first and foremost is you. Telling you without worry of if you’ll be receptive to it. Without worry that you think i’m weird because I’m just being myself and doing what feels natural.

So, I love you. Thank you for loving me and for staying.

Before we left for Saugatuck and you called me in the bedroom just to dance or when you put on our playlist in the shower starting with the song that I want to walk down the aisle to you to, or when I was rolling the shade up in your room and you walked up to me and told me that you’re here, you see me, and that nothing has felt as good as being loved by me….those are the moments of this week that are etched in my mind.

So I hope I left a good taste in your mouth from this weekend of you letting me into the world of you and your friends. I felt blessed to be part of it and was happy to be there and be myself with the person I love most in this world.

I adore you and AND OMG YOU JUST SURPRISED ME!!!