Hedwig and the Angry Inch sent me reading Plato’s Symposium, a love piece from antiquity. Aristophanes contributes a creation story so powerful, it has inspired the beautiful song, “The Origin of Love.”
This story begins when humans used to be joined back to back - with two sets of arms, legs, faces… we were never lonely then. We always had someone to talk to and there was no need to watch our backs. There were three genders: the children of the sun - males, the children of the earth - females, and the children of the moon - a male and a female united at the spine. These humans were mighty, and dared defy the gods. This prompted Zeus to take his thunderbolts and throw it onto the humans, cutting each in half right down through the spine. Apollo sewed each wound up into belly buttons to remind us of our previous state of unity. Zeus warned that if we humans continue to be insolent, he will cut us down again. Then we’ll be hopping about on a single leg, utterly lost, helpless and alone.

So that’s what love is: this longing for our other half. We search everywhere for the person who makes us feel whole, that one whose wound is the same as ours. Then we try our best to bring ourselves back together - by making love, by being with one another, promising a commitment to forever, hoping to close the wound. Some men desire another man to complete themselves. Some women want another woman to make them whole. Others need to be with the opposite sex.
When Jay and I first fell in love, I felt like I knew him all my life. I remember being a teenager in the Philippines, dreaming about a guy on the other side of the world, the one who was my soul mate. Many years later he and I found each other in a crowded New York City bar, and from then on we kept peeling at the layers that kept us apart all these years. With a kiss we knew we were the Great Lovers from the beginning of time. I don’t know what the future holds, but as lovers we strive to keep ourselves together, growing with one another, and exploring each other’s infinite depths.