Young Couple Prepares For Their Life Together

By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

Black love is beautiful and as so-called celebrity power couples crack and crumble and young folks air out all their relationship drama on social media, an interjection of joy is in order.

Valentine’s Day is approaching and love is in the atmosphere. The OBSERVER sat down with four area couples to talk about the power of Black love and modeling healthy relationships for their families and the wider community. Up first are Jeremy Allen and Jacqueline Taylor of South Natomas.

‘I Got You’

Jacqueline Taylor and Jeremy Allen met at the gym, where he was working as a personal trainer, incorporating boxing into his clients’ regimens. She finagled her way into the ring with him and things have been working out for them ever since.

“There was a spark,” she says of their initial encounter five years ago.

Taylor and Allen let things simmer first, starting out platonically. So far in the friend zone, Taylor still frequently asked him for advice about guys she was seeing. They eventually dated, but she didn’t introduce him to her friends and family until it got serious.

“I wanted to make sure that it was a real thing, that it was a real connection,” Taylor says. “I felt like we created such a bond friendship-wise and our relationship just catapulted from there, because it’s just mutual respect and mutual love.”

The young couple hung out at Yoshi’s in the Bay Area, went hiking, watched anime together, and talked about the stressors of their chosen careers – she’s a respiratory therapist and he’s training to become a firefighter. Locking down together due to COVID-19 also helped them lock in, taking their relationship to the next level. Yes, they had a pandemic baby and, yes, his name also begins with the letter J.

“We talked about wanting kids and having a family,” Taylor says. “That was something that was really important to us. We were just like, ‘Let’s go for it, let’s try’ and then it happened during COVID.”

With parenthood comes the responsibility of influencing how your children see and witness love and respect.

“I have a little guy watching my behavior and watching how I treat his mom,” Allen says. “If I want him to pursue the same path as a dad, for me, I have to let him know, this is how you treat someone.”

The couple is grateful to have had examples of Black love close by. Allen’s parents were married for 25 years before his father died when he was 12.

“Though every relationship is not perfect and when I grew up and started looking back on interactions that they had, they probably weren’t the best, but the ability to manage a family, buy a home, keep a roof over your head, make sure you’re clothed, fed and everything, all those things, and I was able to see, ‘OK, this how you do that part,’” he says.

Allen also saw his godparents being playful and affectionate and neighbors who modeled healthy marriages.

“It was normal for me to see two people coming together and rearing children and doing things together. In the schools I went to, most of the people that I grew up with had two-parent homes,” he says. “It was automatic for me to expect that to be my future. I saw love all around, Black love, right in my own home.”

Taylor’s parents divorced when she was 10 and admits it wasn’t an easy situation to navigate. Her maternal and paternal grandparents were examples, though, as both couples stayed together until death parted them. She and her two sisters spent summers with her paternal grandfather in Druid Hill Park in north Baltimore.

“That’s where I got my love of fishing, hiking, camping and cooking, from watching my grandparents interact,” Taylor says. “They were always very loving, very supportive. Even my great-grandparents, they were married up until they passed. So just having that to look at and see the pictures of them together at Christmas and Thanksgiving, being with family, they’re Black and everybody’s married. Seeing the exchange of love even though I didn’t have it in my nuclear unit, it existed.”

Witnessing such interaction had a huge impact on Taylor.

“It’s like, ‘OK, this is how men and women love each other, this is how a married couple behaves.’ When I found Jeremy it was very easy to slip into that,” she says. “Just being together and being playful and being loving and just managing our relationship and managing our family. I feel like that was my blueprint.”

It’s important, Taylor and Allen say, to build a relationship where each person balances out the other.

“If there’s something that he wants to achieve, he’s going to achieve it — tunnel vision, locked in, boom, I’m going to go for it,” she says of him. “Sometimes I can wander, but I feel like he helps me with my focus. It’s a really good balance. Where I might fall short in an area, at least I have him to lean on to be like, ‘I got you on this.’”

Allen admits he’s not one to ask for help, but says that when he does, Taylor won’t be smug about it.

“It’s always, ‘What do you need? I got you.’ Having that freedom or flexibility in that relationship is everything.”

They’re only 34 and 31, respectively, but Taylor and Allen look forward to the fun and adventure of growing old together.

“Growing older together is like playing a video game,” Allen says. “You’re in co-op mode, you have your buddy with you who’s got your back as you go down this pathway. I don’t know how it’s going to go, but I’m like, ‘Do you trust me?’ and it’s like, ‘Yeah, I trust you.’ That’s all I need.”