Don\u2019t get me wrong. I wasn\u2019t there. I don\u2019t know her. We\u2019ve never met.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess I just want to make that clear because I\u2019m about to talk about somebody\u2019s love that I really don\u2019t know a thing about. But hey, I\u2019m a writer. I make shit up. I can ascribe meaning. That\u2019s a really long winded way of saying these opinions are my own and I don\u2019t know her or nothing about their relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So anyway, here we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other day I was on YouTube, watching an interview with someone, can\u2019t remember who, when in that next-up list on the side I saw an interview with Elaine Welteroth. So I watched it. In that video, she was talking about how she was getting married in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I follow her on Instagram, so I knew she was engaged. I also knew that she\u2019d been engaged for a very long time. I remember when she posted that she\u2019d gotten engaged. I don\u2019t understand long engagements, especially when you\u2019re like over 25. It\u2019s like seriously, if you thought enough of someone to ask them to marry you, and the other person thought enough of you to agree, what\u2019s the hold up? But that\u2019s me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honestly, I was waiting on them to break up. Because to me, long engagements mean somebody don\u2019t want to get married \u2013 usually the man (come to find out, she was the one who wasn\u2019t ready). So, when, during that interview, she said they were getting married in 2020, I didn\u2019t believe her. I was like let me go see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though I follow her on Instagram, for whatever reason, her posts have not been populating in my feed for some time, so I popped on over to her page. After scrolling down a bit, there it was, her wedding pictures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seeing those pictures, I was so happy for her, as if I were an old friend. And it\u2019s funny because whenever people get married after long engagements I\u2019m then skeptical of the marriage. I\u2019m like why now? All of a sudden you want to get married? But seeing her pictures, it didn\u2019t feel that way at all. It seemed like a really beautiful, blessed event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think with everything going on in the world right now with this pandemic, and the movement for social justice, it helped me to see things in a different light. I\u2019m learning not to judge other people\u2019s love \u2013 now that doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t have my opinion, but I\u2019m learning not to judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though I still had the question, why now, I asked it with a different purpose. You would think people who\u2019ve been in a long engagement or together a long time before getting married, could easily put their wedding\/marriage off for another year. They\u2019ve already waited this long. But there was something intriguing and impressive to me about a couple who\u2019d waited so long, then decided that in spite of the less than ideal conditions they weren\u2019t going to wait any longer, and got married anyway, without changing their date. I was intrigued by how they adapted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What they ended up with, was probably better (not to mention much cheaper) than what they were planning initially. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s not just that they got married during a pandemic and this time of social change, but the photos and the history that it speaks to was just so beautiful to me. Like the fact that people were wearing face masks and gloves, and it was outside on the stoop. And when she walked down the aisle, it was the sidewalk with friends holding up phones featuring loved one\u2019s who couldn\u2019t be there, watching. Even the fact that the street sign made it in the photos or the word BUMP spelled out in the street, or that they danced in the street, and neighbors watched \u2013 all that spoke to a certain form of resistance. Oh and that police van that rolled through be didn\u2019t do anything crazy. I don\u2019t know, there was just something about it to me. There was a lot of symbolism in it that reminds you that everything happens for a reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was watching Amanda Seales today on The Breakfast Club, and she was saying that Black Love is revolutionary. In one of Elaine\u2019s Instagram posts she said Black Love is a form of protest. I think they may be on to something there. Some people want us to be constantly upset, always the victim, powerless. But power is a multifaceted thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hope photos of these couples that got married during this time of a pandemic and social justice movement finds its way into a museum somewhere, someday. What a glorious thing to look back on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congratulations!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Don\u2019t get me wrong. I wasn\u2019t there. I don\u2019t know her. We\u2019ve never met.\u00a0 I guess I just want to make that clear because I\u2019m about to talk about somebody\u2019s love that I really don\u2019t know a thing about. But…<\/p>\n