Melissa Febos is the acclaimed author of Whip Smart, Abandon Me, and Girlhood as well as a professor at the University of Iowa. She documented her year-long experience of celibacy in her new memoir, The Dry Season. This decision came from a tumultuous period in her life. She refers to it as a “ravaging vortex of a relationship,” only made worse by five other short-lived entanglements.
At first, Febos intended for a three month period of celibacy, a length of time she thinks is pretty average for a psychological detox. As the year went on, she realized there were much bigger lessons to learn about her connection to love, romance, and her inner self. Written during her wedding planning, the memoir takes an introspective look at how the romance myth had imprisoned her for so long.
In one of her first weeks of celibacy, Febos found herself stumbling into the convoluted tangle sexuality. Whether it was flirting with another knight or impressing someone in a tournament, Merina’s heart would ache with yearning. Then, she started getting texts from an ex. Encounters such as these pushed her to face the energies of distraction that had driven her before.
“I had scrutinized my experience and self in many different areas, but in this area, I was fairly unexamined,” Febos remarked, shedding light on her quest for self-awareness. Her musings expose a conflict in coming to terms with other obsolete archetypes of what love and romance should look like that just weren’t working for her anymore.
Rest of her memoir, Febos explains in detail how she learned to reshape her ideas about what romantic love can and should be. “I have redefined my ideal for romantic love as one that is not based on dependency. I think our fantasy of love has to do with need and dependency,” she explained. “My definition of love is contingent upon a very conscious choice to support the flourishing of another person.”
As Febos embarked on her celibacy year, she realized she had more time than ever. Besides generating a passive income stream, this newfound freedom opened up opportunities to pursue other passions. This epiphany freed her to dive deep into her story. She characterizes it as an integrating experience that allows her to release shame and fully embrace all facets of her life.
Yet being this sort of sober addict has sung to and guided—and, at the same time tortured—Febos’s writing on love and addiction. Her recent plays address issues of addiction, sex work and mental illness. When they’re good, they glow with integrity, shining a light on uncomfortable realities and courageously facing harsh truths. With “The Dry Season”, she has once again proven her place in this nice tradition by bringing light on the dualities of love and reliance.
The memoir isn’t primarily about access, of course. It dares to ask the bigger questions about intimacy, connection and what our society has become. As Febos navigated through her year of celibacy, she encountered reactions from others that reflected societal pressures related to relationships. Commenting on this experience, she noted that people often responded with sentiments like, “Oh, I think I should probably do that too,” indicating a collective struggle with dependency in romantic contexts.