“Remember, when Freya and Aiden were in trouble this summer, I gave Aiden a romance novel?” I nod. “I didn’t do that because I thought he needed a book to teach him how to better love his wife. I gave him a romance novel because they’re a safe place to step deeper into our emotions, the happy ones and the hard ones. To recognize and process complex, sometimes difficult feelings within ourselves that the world tells men, in all its gendered, toxic bullshit, we have no obligation to face and feel, when we really do. As humans, we owe it to ourselves to know our hearts.”
