Two women seeking equality in a state where some couples are more equal than others.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Last Five Years: A Minute and Eternity

Five years ago today, Rebecca asked me to go with her to medical school. It was her way of proposing - at the time, we couldn't logistically/legally get married and even if we could have, I don't know if we could have articulated our relationship that way. A little part of me will probably always feel that discrimination and marriage inequality stole our chance to have a "normal" proposal story. But in the end, the modern proposal is a relatively recent invention, I think, and reality television has probably made too much of it.

The truth is that there was much more embedded in this proposal than in a standard proposal. She came out, in that moment. My positive response not only meant a commitment to her, but that I was coming out as well. Coming out, and especially becoming a couple, meant that our lives would never go back to normal. Ever. Even if we broke up. In that moment of honesty, we joined the LGBT community. We thought we knew what to expect, but of course, we couldn't know. We couldn't know the discrimination we would experience or the fear we would have because of the lack of legal recognition. We couldn't know the depth of pain when we came out to our families and it didn't go well. On the other hand, we couldn't have known how many people would love us unconditionally, who would be almost more outraged than we were at the hate, who would support us when life was unspeakably difficult - our chosen family.

I, at this point, am writing with tears streaming down my face. Some of them are from joy - that I have found the love of my life, that I know we are the best fit, that we have survived in a culture that often roots for our relationship to fail. Some are from sorrow at all we've chosen to give up and from the memories of those very trying times.

We've become obsessed with the ABC Family drama The Fosters, the story of a lesbian couple raising a large group of children. The theme song, Where You Belong, was written especially for this show, and to me, it's exactly what family means.

It's not where you come from
It's where you belong
Nothin' I would trade
I wouldn't have it any other way
You're surrounded
By love and you're wanted
So never feel alone
You are home with me
Right where you belong

I hope that someday should we have children, we can record a lullaby version of this song for them. 

Two cats, five apartments, five years, two degrees, and membership in the club of people To Whom the Unimaginable is Now Imaginable later, a lifetime has happened already, and yet that day still feels so salient, so soft and warm in my memory.

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