Note: Christina Pikla shared her news with me last year and she and Rachael were excited to be interviewed for this piece. They have approved the final version. I am grateful to them for allowing me to share their story.
This is a love story about two cisgender women who got married. To each other.
When Christina Pikla, Director of Financial Aid at Trinity, received The Presidential Award for Excellence in Student Advocacy in the spring of 2020, the reaction among those who know her was unanimous. Of course!
Christina graduated from Trinity University in 2004 and is in her 15th year here. She moved from Financial Aid counselor, to assistant director, to associate director, and now director. People in the Financial Aid world deal with numbers, scholarship packaging, governmental regulations and audits, the FAFSA form, appeals, and data. And those are the fun parts. Christina had to earn a Master's degree in Higher Education administration for the privilege of more responsibility. None of this is why she won the advocacy award.
Many times she let's the student know that this space is a safe one. No stranger to anxiety herself, Christina takes a personal approach, "willingness to share pieces of yourself," she calls it. It is a process of vulnerability, trying to reduce her authority by unmasking herself as real, accessible, and approachable. Christina has to follow the guidelines, but with her knowledge of the nuances of the system, she can provide options and guides people through their needs and the possibilities for assistance.
Rachael Fournier most recently worked at UT-Arlington as the Director of Scholarships. "The wild west of financial aid" is what she calls it. She is an award-winner too. And she holds a Master's degree in Business Leadership and Management. She won the Trailblazer Award in her professional association in 2018. She is currently working toward certification in a program called Green Belt. This field is one that emphasizes the costs of current practices versus possible savings in financial and employee capital by improving systems. Ultimately organizations pay one way or another for inefficiencies. Companies and institutions need to "look at what they should do, but not what they have always done or held onto."
Her personal story is even more compelling. She is the oldest of nine and early on, was forced to serve, essentially, as the responsible parent for six of her siblings, one who tragically passed away. She moved 37 times in her life, growing up in California in a dangerous Los Angeles neighborhood as well as Mexico. She has some of her own anxiety. "I'm more nervous facing a crowd than a weapon" she quips.
Christina and Rachael met in 2016 in Frisco, Texas, at the Texas Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (TASFAA) annual conference. On the list of notable goals of TASFAA, serving as a dating platform is not on the list. Christina hurried into a room that had just cleared out following a mixer, hoping to find something to eat from a leftover food platter. Rachael, only Rachael, was in the room. They had an awkward exchange because they thought the might have met but weren't really sure. Christina decided to eat and run.
Both volunteered on different committees for the association and their paths started to cross more, including at the San Antonio meeting and most significantly at the 2018 meeting in Galveston. Something was there. But what it was, neither knew.
When Christina stood at the podium to make remarks to the audience of 300 her eyes met Rachael, sitting, intentionally, front and center. And Christina rambled on, forgetting to tell the crowd her name. Rachael says that something had been building for two years, though she didn't know what. She got her answer in that session. When their eyes met, they both felt an extreme transfer of energy - nothing physical or sexual - something deeper. A "flicker" says Rachael. When Rachael received her award Christina hugged her. Rachael thought "This is it. We're touching. But this will be the end of it." One thing Rachael knew, was that she wanted to get to know Christina better.
Their friendship and relationship grew from that point forward. They started emailing and talking frequently, including what the called "Reclaiming Mondays." Hour-long discussions grew into four and six hour conversations.
Christina was engaged to a man in 2011 and broke it off. She threw herself into her work. She had started seeing another man before her relationship with Rachael began to blossom. Rachael didn't think much about dating (though she had dated some men) and had resigned herself to being single. Her past, her work, her energy didn't really accommodate another person.
In a subsequent conversation Christina finally laid it out their. "You're the only woman I would ever marry." Rachael fumbled to offer a response, and finally said "me too."
These are complex things and yet so simple. It depends on the person. Friendship can lead to love and love can lead to intimacy. And Rachael did her research. She wanted to read up on what was happening here, with them. Here is what they are focused on. They say that they have "soul recognition." Indeed, they beautifully express that they were "cut from the same cloth at creation." One was from the east coast, the other the west, and they met somewhere in the middle. They had their first real date in May, 2019. They got married on January 4, 2020 and Rachael moved to San Antonio that March. They still have not had a honeymoon, though it seems safe to say they have been having one for years.
The moral of the story should be self-evident. In a world that is increasingly attuned to sexuality and gender, people have agency over their own identities, without constraint. Who they choose to be with and how they navigate their relationships is personal. Christina and Rachael are the ideal parable. All you need is love.
