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✦ Our Story ✦
Do you want a piggyback ride?
In late August of 2015, Esperanza and Finn, as well as many other wonderful people they love, met in an Intro to LGBT Studies class taught by Dr. Càel Keegan during their undergrad. After class, and overwhelmed by the excitement that came with being around that many other queer people for the first time, Finn spontaneously asked Esperanza - a complete stranger- if she wanted a piggyback ride. Esperanza, bemused but equally euphoric, accepted the piggyback ride.
Through a journey involving found family functions, queer conferences with colleagues and mentors, and a common love of kink-laden erotica, Finn and Esperanza realized they shared not only a love of theory, music, fanfiction, astronomy, and media, but also a love for each other. However, the moment that solidified their friendship was the weeks within which Esperanza became the first graduate of "Finn's Driving School" in 2017. Their many hours in the car allowed them to become even greater friends.
On September 28, 2017, Finn kissed Esperanza for the first time. As planets often align themselves in transit through our skies, Esperanza and Finn have been on an aligned path ever since - a path constellated with hurdles, challenges, opportunities, hope, and love.
In the coming years, Finn and Esperanza realized that they were not only in alignment but in orbit - a cosmic dance borne from gravity and motion - interactions in astronomical harmony. Esperanza proposed to Finn on September 28, 2021, their 4th anniversary, and he gladly accepted.
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 art by Elijah Miller.
A painting commissioned for our 3rd anniversary depicting the solar system the day that we met. |
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It seemed pure kismet, then, that a total solar eclipse would be set to stunt across the Midwest in 2024, showing total ecliptic hole before hiding away for the next 20 years. Given their many nights admiring the stars, and days driving across sunbathed roads, Esperanza and Finn found it an irresistible notion to ceremonially establish their long-term commitment to each other during this celestial phenomenon.
Of course, we would be remiss to not honor the many celestial bodies whose gravity helped develop our orbit. If you've stumbled across this website, know that you are one such star in our solar system of support.
Currently we live together with our partner Jackson and our three cats (Sebastian, Ambrose, and Armageddon "Maggie"). We hope to buy a home together in the near future, so check out our registry for more info.
 photo by: Erin Bobbitt
✦ Why Asterión? ✦
From the start neither of us intended to take the other's last name, but we weren't necessarily interested in maintaining our given surnames. We realized there was nothing preventing us from making an entirely new surname! After months of musing, we settled on Asterión. It felt like a fresh start and a proclamation of the love we have worked so hard to nurture.
Asterion means "starry" in Greek, and is the name of the mythical Minotaur - it's also the name of a river, and a river-god child of Poseidon. If you know anything about us, Esperanza is quite the amateur astronomer, and nothing can keep Finn out of the water. Thus, did we decide on Asterión - a river of stars, a minotaur myth, and a love letter to us.
✦ a gay poem finn wrote for esperanza ✦
When I come up for air and see your half-lidded smile
Waves in your hair, seabreeze sighs
Like so many ships rock on quilts of you
I float, despite the lead where marrow should be, in your skin where stars glitter
I've counted each one. Taken the time to learn their names and the constellations they form
Atabey's smile,
the curve of a fish tail and a hummingbirds wing
They're familiar friends of mine
They're notes on your rippled pages
Conducting distant whale songs which lull me to sleep each night, eyes dusty with salt crystals
Cradled by your gentle, swaying embrace
-Finn, March 2018 ✦✧✦
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