Unveiling Desire and Deprivation: Inside Melissa Febos’ Provocative Year Without Sex
“Sometimes, I thought, I am in love. Every time, there was a kernel of knowing inside me. A bud of nascent certainty that it would end, that I would be the one to end it. The why, even, layered in its fragrant darkness.” Let me remark once more how her words blossom on the page—fragrant darkness.
The inventory is not, however, an attempt at self-pity. “The beauty of the inventory was that its aim was to locate not blame but my own responsibility, to let those stories settle in the in-between space where all love ultimately lay: the field on which every person did their best, whatever the wreckage.” This is such a generous and, yes, loving, perspective to hold to. I can imagine many readers, myself included, now inspired to consider their relationship histories with perhaps more than a modicum of kindness. How many of us cling to guilt over failed connections, abandoned lovers? How many of us need that internal embrace? I did my best, whatever the wreckage.
