Love Hurts: The Moth Podcast

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Hi, I'm Anna Martin. I'm the host of the Modern Love Podcast for the New York Times. And today it is my total treat to guest host this special Valentine's Day episode of The Moth. In honor of this holiday, which, depending on the status of your love life, might be your least favorite or your most favorite day of the year, we're featuring three stories all about how much love can hurt.

About all the pain and heartache and disaster that true love can lead to, but also about how love can help ease that pain and heartache, and maybe even help us heal. First up is Patricia Dunfey, who told this story at a New York City Story Slam where the theme was, appropriately enough, Love Hurts, an annual audience favorite for over 15 years at our open night nights. Here's Patricia, live at the mouth.

So I stood next to his bed and I put both of his hands in my hands. And you know, he had really fine hands.

Really tr he was just a true guy. I I just never thought I could love anybody the way I loved this man, Alan. And I wanted to move my hands away because he was starting to get cold and I didn't want to hold them when they were ice cold. But it was so hard to think that I was never going to hold his hands again. And I took my hands away. You know, our relationship started About a little over two decades before that.

You know, we were both just around 50 years old, and um we started dating in Manhattan, and it was like I was a teenager. It was so great. You know, we would go to the movies, we'd go out to dinner. So finally when I realized we were gonna be together, I just grabbed his hand and I held on to that hand for two decades. You know, I sometimes we would walk around the upper west side and I would say to myself.

Don't be too cocky, you know? Like'cause people would look at us because we really did look good together, I have to say. He was a gorgeous guy. And I would think, you know,'cause we would see people with walkers or wheelchairs, and I thought, that could be us one day. But in it was, but much sooner than we ever thought.

So there I was then walking next to the wheelchair. I h we had a caregiver then to ca go down a Riverside Drive and sit in the park and I would hold his hand while I was in the wheelchair. And I would sit there while he was fading. He got struck by a glioblastoma, which is a a terminal brain cancer. It's a horrible disease and um and that's what happened. And I would sit there and I would think about All the time as we we held hands walking around.

You know, we walked around, we went to Israel. He wanted to tell me all about, you know, his or his young dreams that he had of being a socialist and living on a kibbutz. Then we went to Ireland after that. And I can picture us holding hands in Thailand and Costa Rica and Mexico on family vacations. There's pictures of us holding hands at his daughter's wedding and my daughter's high school college graduation.

We even held hands walking behind his grandchildren in Jersey City as they went trick or treating. And um eventually we were holding hands on York Avenue in Manhattan, where you have Sloan Kettering and Wild Cornell and NYU, just searching for a cure, which wasn't there. And then he passed and said. And then I didn't know what to do with my hands. My hands just flailed. I mean, I can't the pain love hurts. The pain of losing him was so excruciating. I mean, there were times when

I I I I couldn't get out of my apartment, but I would get under my dining room table. I wanted to be someplace where something could protect me. I was just in so much pain. I learned what the word keening meant is the Irish term for for wailing and mourning. But then after a year, a little over a year and I I started to come back out smiling again sometimes, laughing. I got this sense of gratitude.

And and I really couldn't explain it to people so much, because how could you be grateful after all the pain you went through? But I never would have felt that pain if I hadn't felt that love. You know, without that great love that I felt for him, I wouldn't have had those same ex feelings on the opposite end of the spectrum. And I was grateful that I've gotten to live my life and had that on both sides, a great love and a great loss.

And I got through it. And you know and now There'll be other hands I can hold, but Not too long ago I was in the car with my daughter and we drove past something that reminded me of him. And I started to cry. And she reached over and it's kind of uncharacteristic. She's really not that affectionate with me anyway. She has lots of boyfriends and girlfriends out there, but I'm sure she touches them. But anyway, she

She did reach over and put her hand in mine and I was like, Oh, this is something. And then my little granddaughter, crossing the street, she looked up at me not that long ago, holding my hand, and she says, Patricia, do you miss grandpa? And I said, yeah. But there's other hands and there's other love for me to give, and I'm grateful for it. Thanks. That was New York City's own, Patricia Denver.

Patricia is a mother, grandmother, aunt, friend, and fulfilled executive by day who continues to write and tell stories. Most recently, she's been on the stage for generation women talking secrets. And is a two-time moth story slambler.

So Patricia's story got me thinking about how we process love, about the love stories we tell ourselves, and about how we use narrative to make sense of our relationship. I've thought about this a lot. Before I was the host of the Modern Love podcast, I actually worked at the Moth. It was my first job out of college. I helped run the story pitch line. I traveled across the country producing mainstage shows. I loved this job.

But some of my very favorite memories didn't happen on stage. They happened in the rehearsals before the show. I got to witness people actively process their experiences, work through their feelings, by turning them into a story, and by refining that story over and over each time they told it. I think there's so much power in that. And it was an honor to witness each time.

We'll have two more love stories in just a bit, but first to explore that strange and messy interaction between love and stories. I'm joined by one of my favorite moth directors, Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer, welcome. Well thank you. Hello, Anna Martin. It's thrilling to see you back in our offices. We have missed you and we're incredibly proud of you.

Well, I'm very moved by that. It feels like coming home. It's just so much bigger than it used to be. Okay. Jennifer, I know that Love Hurts, which is the theme of this episode, has been a has been a theme of many, many story slams over the years. Tell me about some experiences at those slams. Well I'd say that I think it's been at least two decades that has been our best attended

Slam every single year. People love to come and talk about the boo boos of the heart. Um and we have a great time with it. Funny regional thing in New York City where where I experience most of the Love Hurts story slams. Um yeah, they're sad stuff, but we have a good Now out in the Midwest we have I don't want to call you out, Madison. But the producer in Madison said, Why do we do this love her?

Because apparently people come and they're just bring staggering heartbreaking Oh my god, Midwest emo, I mean that's a thing. Yes. Wow. And I'm like, You're kidding, in New York it's a hoot. What about on the west coast? Let's just go, you know, across the country sort of I think they are enjoying the pain over there. They're enjoying the pain over on the west. What do you think it is about anyway, we can keep that pond. It's like below zero there. Maybe that's why they're just so cold.

think a lot about other people's stories, but of course inevitably you know, I think about my own self and similar experiences I might have had or Even if someone's telling a story that's so radically different from my experience, I don't know, in the specific, you know, lies the universal, there's always something I can take away. So I'm curious after how many years of working?

How many years have you worked in? Um twenty-four. Incredible. Incredible. Do you think that working on love stories, shaping them, has influenced the way you experience love in your own life, how you think about it? Sure. Well, there's stories to aspire to. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, those love stories we were like, damn, that's what I want. You see that and other people have that and that's what you want.

There be dragons, the skull and crossbones, like gosh, look all the warning signs. Yeah. And we're so able to see that in other people as they're going, Oh no, back away now, don't call'em back. No, no, don't text him. It's two AM. Don't do it. But we keep doing it. Um and so yeah, of course. I heard all those love stories. I took it in still not great at love, but enjoying all the attempts and all the yeah. Yeah.

I'm often struck by how valiant is the word that comes to mind, you know, loving someone is, just because you can really get beaten down. Um, but getting back up is beautiful and human and it takes a lot. I've like been in a relationship when I've hosted the show. I've been single. I've like gone through a breakup while, you know, working on these love stories. And for me, I think one of the greatest gifts of

of doing that work and being surrounded by love stories all the time is just the the massive perspective it gives me. I'm like, wow, I really do know that I'm gonna be okay. And that Knowing that as a just fundamental truth, like it will be okay, um, has been extremely useful for me. Wow. Yeah.

I'm not gonna I mean, you know, I'm not perfect. No. Um I there's something I when when somebody tells me they're really heartbroken, um, I feel like they're in a very special space. I mean there is a little there's something beautiful about it too.

Um there's a reason we don't do the theme Love is beautiful because it would be it would eventually get annoying. You know, people who are in love, it's great to hear it for a while, but after a while you're like, alright, alrighty, moving along. I don't need to hear all that. Um but we love to Uh uh we love to savour

Yeah. The pain, but you are you're sharing something with a great uh with s uh half the world at any given time totally when you're hurting. Also, yeah, I think it's a very creative space almost. It's very generative. You're extremely raw. I don't know, I feel like a nerve in the wind. I'm like when I'm really sad, I'm like open to all these experiences just because I don't have the energy to put a wall up.

And also I think, you know, going through hard stuff, it's how you learn. If you have a beautiful relationship with no problems I mean, good for you. Tell me where you found that person. But you know, it it is through the hard stuff that we learn how to be better partners, lovers.

Anything. May I uh share uh just something adorable. I remember you told me years ago when you worked here. That's so cute. But maybe you wouldn't want to share this. But you told me when I go on the subway, I always have to have a paper book in front of me. I want to attract somebody who reads. And if I'm just looking at my phone, I'm just gonna look like a dummy who's just scrolling things. I read and I read big thick intense books.

And I want someone else who reads books. I I just loved that little signalling that you did. Sweet and by the way, you know, almost ten years later, I'm on my phone. Yeah, looking at books. That is so, I do not remember saying that to you, but I do remember doing that. I was constantly like trying to project. I don't know, this version of myself so I could attract the type of person I I thought I wanted and

It didn't actually it worked one time. I remember one guy was like, I'm reading that too and it was like Dostoevsky and it's like, Of course you are you know he was kind of the guy that would be reading that but um So it it was actually successful one time. But yeah, I think, you know, in the time since I've had like

beautiful relationships that I've also, you know, hurt in some ways. Love hurts, but I think ultimately I've gotten a bit more comfy with who I am and maybe I don't need to be virtue signaling my literary capacities. But I should read more. Now I'm like I've gone too far the other way and I'm just on my phone too much.

That's why when I'm on the trail I just I'd be writing checks, you know,'cause I'm like, I want a rich guy. One million dollars. One million dollars. So funny. I'm just counting my money. Yeah, totally. Man. Love. What do you think? No, you can't. It's a miserable existence. It's a noble quest. It's a noble quest, it's a miserable existence and it's

Amen. Amen. Jennifer Hickson, thank you so much. Anna Martin, thank you so much for coming back to the Moth Offices where we love and miss you. Oh you guys too. Up next, two more stories about how love can hurt. Back in a moment. After the rush of the holidays, what you really want is your space. Pira is a smart home fragrance system designed to help you feel calm, grounded, and at ease, without adding one more thing to your routine.

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Welcome back. Our next story is from Peter Aguero, who told this when he was hosting a main stage. Here's Peter, live at the mall. I'm in college, it's the end of a party. I'm I'm at a post show uh party at my friend Laura's house. Uh New Brunswick, New Jersey. I'm kind of attending Rutgers University at the time. Uh it's the mid nineties.

Uh it's the end of the party. I just got the last beers out of the keg and my flask. I had like two swallows of whiskey left. I figured I had about twenty minutes before I had to leave. Uh at the time of my life I was the party marines. I was the first in, first drunk, last to leave. That's the way that I ran my life. My uniform was usually a Hawaiian shirt. It was uh it was it was

C a confusing time. Uh not just for me, but for for everyone I knew. And then I'm sitting on this couch, this filthy couch my friend Laura had taken from a curb a couple of weeks before, and she walks in the room. And I'm just blown away and I say to her, Here we go, I gotta do it. Now's the time and I look up and I say, Hey, Doctor Fine. Why don't you come over here and sit on my lap? Yeah, look, yeah, I know. I know. Uh

Listen man, uh I was uh uh a shy kid growing up. I was a big kid. I was like that Ferdinand the Bull. It was too you know what I mean, just like too big in a body. I shouldn't have been it was just a trouble. I was very nervous around everyone, particularly women. But the only people I ever wanted to talk to were women, uh, my whole life because I've always uh been a misandrist. I don't trust men, I don't wanna be around them. Uh and

So like women was just nice and then you know, then you f you f uh the all and just your heart. You know what I mean? So By the time I got to college, what I figured i is uh I gotta make this work, right? So what I'm gonna start to do is I'm gonna ask out every woman in all my classes, uh just to see what happens.

And uh it was just one abject failure after another. Uh which is is that's important. You have to fail uh to succeed in life. So uh Wha what I figured out as I went along was that like you instead of just asking a woman out, I would

Ask them if I could ask them out sometime. And that would confuse the moment just enough That they would say okay and then I would later ask them out and they would say yes and we g because they already kind of think they they said yes and then we would go on a terrible first date and I didn't know what to talk about.

and I was so nervous'cause of the stakes were so high and not a lot of second dates and never one of those third dates. Uh I never I never had one of those. Uh well the coup it's my business. So uh So So uh when I got to college I started doing uh sketch comedy and uh and plays and a lecture hall with a bunch of other idiots.

And uh we were doing this uh show called Comic Relief. It was uh sketches, it was uh Saturday Night Live and Kids in the Hall sketches we perform for uh charity and we give the money away. And uh one of the uh directors in the show is this woman named Sarah. Uh Uh

Uh you know what I'm saying? And uh and she was so man, beautiful, funny, smart, everything. And uh we were both cast in a version of six degrees of separation, which a bunch of nineteen year old kids should not be doing. Uh it's it's i i inappropriate. Um and about the ennui of middle age and what is you know what I mean? We didn't know. And uh but she was she was in a uh gender swap casting, she was cast as uh the character Dr. Fine.

and the name worked and uh I just had always uh referred to her uh to her face as Dr. Fine since that. But she had Sarah had had uh her high school sweetheart uh and he was going to Johns Hopkins Uh and uh he was what mothers call a catch. Uh not the Hawaiian shirt guy. Uh and I'm not what any mother wants. Like I'm a throwback. I'm uh that was a fun night, but Uh you know, settle down.

Uh that was me. Um but so uh you know She was there, she's directing one of the directors in this in this sketch comedy show that we're doing and I had been on so many poor Uh dates, it wasn't working, and uh this was the time I was gonna try to find it. And so she walks in the room. I say, Doctor Fine, why don't you come over here and sit on my lap? And here's the thing.

She does and she comes over and she sits down uh on my ample lap and and we're talking about school, I'm asking her about crew practice, I'm asking her about this show, we're talking about everything, and then I say Uh this is what they call uh now uh they call shooting your shot. This is one word for uh one phrase for whether that I said Dr. Fine you should come home with me tonight and she says really

She says, uh I have to wake up early in the morning, I have crew practice. I said, Doctor Fine, I have two alarms. She says, Well, I uh my roommate uh listens to music while I'm sleeping and I I'm I'm so used to listening to music. I said, Doctor Fine, I have a five disc C D changer I have John Coltrane, I have Miles Davis. I think we're okay. Uh

And she takes that in. Uh and then she says, Well I get very cold at night. I said, Doctor Fine, my mother sent me to college with a down comforter. Also, I I I'm a cuddler. Uh and I I don't know if you can tell but I generate a lot of heat. And so she She just kinda nods her head and and I'm waiting for her answer and and she says, uh can you excuse me one moment, I have to use the the bathroom and she walks off and her co director was this kid

Named Brian. He was on the Ultimate Frisbee team. He looked a little bit like a frog. And he says to me, uh, he's looking at me, he can't believe what's happening. He says, Does that usually work? And I just wink at him because I'd never done it before. Like I'd never I'd never really tried, you know? Uh and so he was impressed.

And so she comes back and she sits on my lap and I and I and I go all in. I push all my chips in the middle of the table. I say, Doctor Fine, you should come home with me tonight. I gotta tell ya, I'm very skilled uh I have references and these are the kind of women that stay up late. We can call them right now. I promise that we'll have a good time. And she just laughs and she kisses me on the cheek and she walks out of the party. But and but I guess what I really wanted that night

was to go home alone because that's what I did. And I went home And the next morning I wake up and there's that feeling. You know that feeling? Remember that feeling when he said the thing you shouldn't have said? Well, I said ten of'em. And We had one more show, so I had to see her one more time. So I walk into the lecture hall that we turn into a theater and I'm sitting at the front of the stage and I hope she doesn't see me.

I hope she doesn't see me. However, she walks in and she sees me because I'm the size of a teenage hippopotamus. And I have a Hawaiian shirt on. And you know what I mean? I don't make myself exactly forgettable. And she walks down the long uh uh uh aisle to right in front of me, and I say, Hey Sarah, how are you? Uh good afternoon. Uh How was practice? And she goes, it was fine. She says, You know, Peter, you got me to thinking last night. And I said

Well what do you say, Dr. Fine? Uh would it be okay if I asked you out sometime? And she got confused. And she said, I guess that would be okay. And I said, Great. And then a couple of weeks later I asked her out and we went on a date and that date lasted eighteen hours. It was great. She forgot her keys. She needed a place to stay.

And that was nineteen ninety seven. That was twenty eight years ago. And life uh turns in all kinds of different directions. Uh as you get older and you get wiser and you start to look back at things you realize that there are people in your life that are co stars and there's people in your life that are just kinda like cameos and people that show up for one or two seasons and then go move on to something else. And life goes all kinds of ways and

This is twenty eight years later and she could be anywhere tonight. She could be I don't know, hanging out with friends or going to a dance class or like being on a bus, I don't know, and like I'm here with you guys. And that's just the way life had gone and the way it happened. But tomorrow, when I get on a plane and I land in LaGuardia and I take the cab back to the place in Astoria and I walk in, she's gonna be sitting on the couch waiting for me to get home. That's the same thing.

Peter Aguero. Peter was born and raised in the wilds of South Jersey, and he's been working with the Moth since 2007 as a storyteller, host, instructor, and staff clergy. He makes his home in Queens with his wife, Dr. Fine. So I recently asked someone out for the very first time in my 31 years of life.

I know, long overdue. And I was struck by just how nerve-wracking it is. It's like intellectually, I knew it wasn't that big a deal, but it felt like one. It was reaching out, it was vulnerable, was putting my heart on the line. So I hope Peter's story and my own little mini story inspire you to ask someone else.

If you feel so moved, do it for you. Our final story is from Rita Brent. Rita told this at a New York City main stage where the theme was, Don't Look Back. Here's Rita, Live at the Moth.

April thirteenth, twenty thirteen, I married an amazing man in the deep south of Florence, Mississippi. Our wedding colors were Tiffany blue and white and and three hundred guests were in attendance to witness the binding of our love. I think I knew at least ninety-seven of those guests. Uh the rest were my mother's guests, her church members and co-workers and friends. I think she wanted everybody to see her baby on that special day.

Part of me thinks uh she was excited that I was getting married for the first time and the other part of me thinks she was relieved that somebody else would finally be financially responsible for me. I met my future husband in the army. I'll refer to him as G.I. Joe. We were both musicians of the Mississippi Army National Guard Band. I was a drummer and a sergeant, and he was a wildly gifted trumpeter.

I still remember the first day he walked into the band hall. He was muscular and fine as hell. And I said to myself, ooh, he can be my drill sergeant any day. I showed interest, he showed interest back, and we fell in love hard and fast. And let's just say that one time at Bandcamp we we did a little bit more than play music. His sweetness and his chivalry overcame me, and I had found the man of my dreams, and there was no looking back.

Exactly one year after we began dating, he proposed to me in City Park in New Orleans. It caught me by surprise because we hadn't talked about marriage before then, but being a woman from the South, you are taught that when a man deems you worthy enough to propose to, you just say yes, no questions asked. So the wedding planning began. Everything leading up to my wedding was perfect, except the Bachelorette party from hell.

My friends decided at the last minute they were gonna throw this party for me, and apparently the only stripper available was the husband of a woman at my church. Yes, my dear church member managed her husband's stripper career and She let him out of retirement this night. So he showed up to my party with a cowboy hat on. He had a beer belly, not one drop of oil on his body. He was very ashy.

And he was doing the worst body roll I had ever seen in my life. The women in my bridal party couldn't find a dollar to throw at him that night. And thankfully I never saw him at church again. My wedding ceremony and reception were absolutely epic. At the behest of my mother, I couldn't just walk up to the aisle. We had to do it in style. So I approached the aisle in a white horse-drawn carriage.

I had a white sweetheart dress on. It was form fitting, and my hair had so much spritz Elvis would have been jealous. We got to the ceremony and it was lighthearted and funny and people cried after our vows. And we got to the reception and I serenaded my new husband with salt and peppers. What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man. Yeah, it was a night to remember.

But this wasn't just a typical wedding to me. This was something like a rite of passage. Because up until the age of twenty-two, twenty-three, I had never even been with a man. I had only been with women. And this relationship with my husband was the first serious one I had ever had with a man. And before that I was something like a a lesbian Casanova. Yeah. I wore oversized clothes and Allen Iverson braids and Timberlands and lesbian Rita was a whole vibe. Yeah. Yeah, um still smooth, you know.

But I was in the closet because I was in Mississippi and the only folks who knew about my sexuality were my close friends, of course the girls I was kicking it with, and my mother. I came out to my mother at the age of sixteen. We pulled up in the church parking lot and I felt like that was a safe space. Um I mean clearly it was a whole stripper went to our church and But you gotta understand I wasn't just about to come out to my mother. She's also an ordained minister and a devout Christian.

And so I was nervous because for the entirety of my life my mother has been my whole world. She taught me how to be a musician. She taught me how to be a woman of value, how to be a kind human. I respect and revere her so much that my life's mission has been to not disappoint her. So I was nervous, but we were close and I thought she deserved to know. So I told her, Mom, I like girls.

She was quiet for a moment and then she said, Okay, baby, I I don't quite understand. I'm not sure that I condone it, but I will never love you any less. I shook my head, I said thank you, and that was the end of that for the time being. But growing up in the Baptist church under Christian doctrine was hard for me because I had same sex feelings, and all I ever heard was the pastor saying that homosexuality was an abomination. God hates that sin in particular, never mind the others.

that that you are unnatural, you have an unnatural attraction, and that you are going to hell with gasoline drawers on if you do not cleanse yourself of that spirit. And I thought, well, does God not care at all about my heart? So when G.I. Joe came along and we got married It felt right to me. I felt like this was my pathway to salvation, that God had sent this man to save me from my wickedness. And finally God would not hate me anymore and he would be pleased with me.

And I also felt a lot of relief. That I was providing a sense of normalcy to my family, especially my mother, who had done her best to accept me, but what minister wants to be ridiculed for having a lesbian daughter? I wasn't lesbian reader to her, I was just her baby. So when G.I. Joe came along. Well, of course she was excited. She was excited because it was a man and that's how it was the whole time. Every time a boy came along, she was excited. It could have been the pizza boy or I mean

He could have looked like the seed of Quasimoto. It was a boy and she was excited that I was gonna have a sense of normalcy.

So a few years into my marriage with G.I. Joe, things took a turn for the worst. We began to love each other less, we were arguing more, and I desperately missed being with women. And lesbian reader was on my shoulder every day like hey cuz the jig is up. This is not your ministry. And she was right. This facade of me being a feminine, straight woman serving a man had run its course. And after a couple costly mistakes, we both decided to end the marriage after a couple brief years brief years.

And it hit me. Damn it, I gotta tell my mom that we're getting divorced. And I thought about this. How do I tell her that the normalcy she had gotten used to was about to come to an end? How do I tell her that her prayers of me being happily married were about to go unanswered again? I could not tell her this verbally, so I sent her an email via AOL. Yes, I still have an AOL account.

And in the email I said, Mom, I am betraying myself by being with this man that he deserves to be with somebody who can properly serve him and I deserve to be free. And I knew that she would be crushed because, yes, because of the divorce, but because she would have to deal with the ridicule and the rumors from the church folks. I'm a living witness that people in the church, even though they are supposed to love, can be the distributors of the deepest hurt.

Some years passed by and Lesbian Rita was still in the closet in Mississippi. And by this time, I was a stand-up comedian and I wanted to find my voice on stage. And so I decided that I was just gonna come out of the closet on stage during a live show. And so I hosted this big show in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi called Sip on This Tea. And boy did I have some tea for them to sip on.

I was at the historic Alamo Theater on Ferris Street in Jackson, Mississippi, and I was standing before a crowd of five hundred and twenty-five. I was forty minutes into my set when I said, the real reason me and my husband got divorced is because I forgot to tell him I liked women. The crowd gasped and they clapped for twenty seconds. And it was the most empowering moment of my life. And then I looked on the front row and there was my mother. Possibly crushed again.

And after the show we had a conversation and she she said you blindsided me. Why didn't you tell me you were gonna do that? I said because you would have tried to talk me out of it and I'm tired of making decisions for others' comfort. This is my story to tell and my truth. And she understood we went through a little moment of awkwardness, but we pushed through it.

After my divorce from G.I. Joe, I decided that I would never be in a serious relationship again. And that's until I met this woman one night after a comedy show. She walked up to me and she played in my hair. She twisted my curls and she walked away without giving me her name. And I thought, what the hell? So I messaged my boys in the group chat. I said, y'all have to help me find the lady from last night with the big butt and the dreadlock. So they did.

We connected, and me and this woman went on a 13-hour first date. And I learned that her name was Frida. They call her Free for short. She's from Vicksburg, Mississippi. She has tattoos and piercings everywhere, the opposite of me. She's an award-winning visual artist and a ceramicist. She believes God is a woman. She uses rocks as deodorant under her arm. And she is also a vegan. And she's so vegan, she told me that she doesn't mess around with people who eat meat. So I'm a vegan now.

And Frida is my wife. We got engaged during the pandemic and we could not get married in person, so we decided to get married on Zoom and we saved a lot of money by switching to a virtual wedding. My mother was on the call. She was quiet but she was there and it's the effort that I've always appreciated, that she was willing to have an open heart and an open mind to evolve and to grow.

And during the pandemic, my mom and Frida got close. They bonded over food and the housewives of whomever was on television at the time. And I said, oh man, I think this this sense of normalcy is happening, but I wasn't sure. And then we had a wedding anniversary, and me and Frida went to our favorite hotel, and we got there and there were flowers, a card, and a gift.

We opened the card and it was from my mother, and she said, Congratulations on another year of love. We opened the box and it was Gucci soap. And I said, This is great, nothing says acceptance like Gucci soap, but I I still wasn't sure. The moment of clarity came one night at a party. I was there, my mother there was there, Frida was there. Frida was dancing to the beat of her own drum. She was dancing by herself. My mother pulled me to the side and said, I really think I like Frida.

And that made me so happy because not only had I married a woman who was free, the same woman had finally freed my mother and me. Love wins again. Thank you. That was Rita Brent. Rita's a musician, military veteran, and award-winning comedian from Jackson, Mississippi, who has appeared on Comedy Central, True TV, and more. She's currently a contributor on the Ricky Smiley Morning Show, and in 2025, she launched Late Night with Rita Brent, which airs locally on Fox 40 WDBD.

That brings us to the end of our episode. Thanks so much for joining us. If you want to listen to the Modern Love Podcast from the New York Times, you can find us anywhere you get your podcasts. We've got new episodes everywhere. And from all of us here at the Moth, happy Valentine's Day. We hope that love doesn't hurt you too much. Anna Martin is the host of the Modern Love Podcast from the New York Times. Rita Brent's story was directed by Jennifer Hickon.

This episode of the Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jeanesse, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Solinger. The rest of the Moss leadership team includes Christina Norman, Marina Cluce, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Suzanne Rust, and Patricia Urenya. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reese Dennis.

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