I Got Engaged!

Here’s Our Proposal Story

Hello Wonders,

In case you didn’t hear the news, Meg proposed to me! I’m officially engaged. My middle initial is F and I’ve not stopped referring to myself as Andrea Fiancé Gibson. I have a ring to prove it. I have a YES the size of infinity to prove it. Of all the ways I imagined Meg and I would get engaged, I never imagined her being the one to get down on one knee and asking for my hand. Blame it on my haircut. Blame it on me forgetting gender roles are dead. Blame it on how queer I wasn’t until my femme sweetheart was kneeling before me in the pine needles outside of our home in silky white pants.

Meg proposed to me on my birthday, August 13th. For a long time I had been planning to propose to her on her birthday, August 6th. When I found out I was having a cancer recurrence, however, some old and lost place in me felt it wasn’t a fair ask. I carried the grief like a paper weight in my chest, holding down love poems I longed to fold into paper planes and fly toward the honeymoon destination of Meg’s warm heart. Meg proposing was the most tender moment of my life, but what was almost as lovely was what happened right before she walked me out to an illuminated “MARRY ME” sign.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m unapologetically in love with pop music. I was never one of the cool kids who listened to The Smiths growing up. I was Top 40 through and through. I’ve expanded my musical tastes over the years, but the kid in me is still a kid recording Saturday morning radio on my boombox and playing it on repeat all week long.

I’ve got a lot of friends in my life who are serious musicians. Their talents are boundless, their love for pop music —hmmm—way way way less than mine. That’s what made Meg’s proposal plan even more special.

As the clouds were clearing from an evening rainstorm, Meg ushered me out to our upstairs porch where I’d recently put together an outdoor bed. We laid down in a pile of billowing blankets just as the sun broke through the clouds. “It looks like a sunrise,” we said at the same time, and Meg pulled out her computer and rested it between us. She pressed play and the concert of my life began.

Meg had contacted a number of my musician friends and asked them to learn, cover, and record on video one of “our songs.” Our songs being ones we have, for years, sung to each other at the top of our skyscraper lungs, in bed, in the kitchen while making dinner, in our old convertible with the top down through summer nights. I cried and cried each time another friend popped up on the screen with another gorgeous rendition of a song celebrating our love. I was in awe. How Meg managed to convince Chris Pureka to cover Justin Bieber is beyond my comprehension.

Over the next months I plan to share videos of our proposal songs in this newsletter. Today, I begin by sharing the song “You Were Meant for Me” by Jewel, covered by my friend Mary Lambert. If you’ve read my most recent book, “You Better Be Lightning” you know this is Meg’s karaoke song. I’ll include the text to the poem below as it was so much fun to write.

Mary Lambert and I were scheduled to tour together a year ago when I was first diagnosed with cancer. Like all of the artists whose kindness has held me through this time, Mary was nothing but gracious and understanding. If you don’t follow her online already, I promise your life will be so much better if you do. She is both a brilliant artist and a compassionate thinker who is doing amazing work educating people about self-love. I’ve learned so much about loving my own body through the insights she shares. Check her out.

Thanks for being here everyone. You were meant for me. And I was meant for you.

Love,

Andrea Fiancé Gibson🖤

. . . .

MY GIRLFRIEND’S KARAOKE SONG

I’ve been told as a kid she never stopped singing

just in case there was a talent scout in line behind her

at the bagel shop, or walking past her in the mall,

or listening from the adjacent dressing room

while she tried on school clothes

at Target in the third grade.

I’ve seen photographs of the concerts

she put on in nursing homes

with her Spice Girls cover band.

I know the chocolate pudding cups

in the hands of her audience members

couldn’t keep her from taking it

so seriously she lost friends in the process,

tiny girls who couldn’t reach the high notes

of her expectations, so I’m not surprised

to find myself sitting alone

at the karaoke bar eating french fries

while she practices her song

in the restroom stall, the same song

she’s been singing all week

in the shower, in the ice cream aisle

at the grocery store, on our long drive home

from puppy training class, or climbing the stairs

to couples therapy where I tell our therapist

that I believe she starts arguments

just so I’ll storm out of the house

and leave her alone with the living room

acoustics. Since she left me here

I’ve heard a drunk college boy sing

Like a Virgin, the irony no doubt intended

to prove him very unlike a virgin. I’ve heard

a woman in a neck brace sing Whitney Houston

while snapping bubble gum

through the instrumental bridge.

I’ve watched a man in a half-shirt sing A Little

Help From My Friends exactly like Joe Cocker

might have had he had a hard time

making friends. Everything about the place

takes me back to where I come from, a small town

where, for many, dreams have a hard time

coming true, so nobody ever stops dreaming.

A place where you are loved

not for how well you sing

but for your willingness

to pick a song everyone will want

to sing with you. My girl isn’t exactly

from another world, but she’s an out-of-towner

in the sense that I’m terrified

the world will end if she can’t

hear a pin drop when she sings

You Were Meant For Me,

which is actually sung

in a very difficult key––E minor,

with a moderate, swinging tempo

of 114 beats per minute. If she doesn’t

nail it at the beginning,

it will be nearly impossible

to come back from. The only way

she won’t be doomed is if she jumps

an octave right before the first words

of the chorus, which are, Dreams

last so long––and yes they do.

Even after they’re gone.

But dreams are never really gone

if someone’s dreaming with you.

You wanna know what my girl says

to every artist she knows? She says,

I’m rooting for you.

So I know more about Jewel’s music

than is probably sane to know, sitting here

listening to a bachelorette rap Eminem

over the bartender screaming, Douglas!

Come get your chicken wings!

As I check over my shoulder for talent

scouts, and wait for my girl

to sing.