In November 2017 I found myself at the W Hotel in Washington dancing with my friend, and fellow poet, Andrea Gibson. We had just finished a poetry reading at the Kennedy Center together and were looking to shake off the residual adrenaline of our show.
I also wanted to shake off the past few months of my life. Two months earlier, I had written a Times Opinion essay about my experience with gender inequality in the film and television industry, “I’m Done With Not Being Believed.” It coincided with the groundbreaking reporting on Harvey Weinstein that helped ignite the #MeToo movement.
For weeks, everyone I ran into had told me how brave I was, how strong, for writing that essay. I felt thrust into being the face of something I was not entirely prepared for. In the dark of the dance floor, Andrea grabbed my shoulders and hugged me close, and said into my ear: “I want you to know it’s OK to not be OK right now. You’ve done a huge heart thing, and I see you.” I began to cry, letting myself go in Andrea’s arms as Britney Spears blared on the speakers above us about how loneliness was killing her.
This was the Andrea I knew for close to 20 years and the person the world is grieving after they died on July 14 at the age of 49. Andrea, who was nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, was the ultimate empath, someone who knew how to give you exactly what you needed when you were least expecting it, both in their relationships and their writing.
