MI Gay Day: On My Marriage, or as some people call it My "Gay Marriage"

I've been married for more than three years now, if you count from our spiritual covenant wedding, not our civil one (then it's just about a year and a half). I'm starting to accept that Rebecca and I don't really count as newlyweds anymore. I'm starting to accept that in some ways, we committed young - after all, I have friends who are single, friends who just got married, and sadly, friends who are now divorced. It seems a lot of sitcom plots are centered around people older than we who are still looking for love.

A lot of people seem to think that the "gay lifestyle" is somehow glamorous, or hedonistic, or promiscuous, or that we use a lot of drugs, or  . . . I don't know. As most of you have seen from the MI gay day posts, our life isn't really that glamorous for the most part.

I think some other people may run the opposite way in terms of stereotypes, though. I think they think that our marriage is somehow perfect, that because we're of the same gender, we completely understand each other all the time and couldn't possibly fight or struggle to keep a commitment as big as marriage together. Our life isn't really that perfect for the most part, either.

Today is a pretty good example of the mundane nature of our relationship, so here's a fairly brief MI gay day rundown:

I woke up about 10 am, the perfect time for fabulous gay brunch (yes, we did popularize brunch, so I'm claiming that - you're welcome) and caught up on some e-mail while waiting for Rebecca to wake. She was sleeping on the couch, not because of marital trouble, but because she has some kind of bronchitis or viral pneumonia or something that causes her to have really loud gay hacking fits. The hacking fits are not gay, only her, and sleeping on the couch so I can sleep well is the kind of selfless, loving thing that no one normally gets accolades for. So props to her.

We make gay breakfast - gay eggs (although I doubt the chickens were gay), gay bacon (also doubtful on the pigs), and gay Southern greens (maybe gay, since the idea was stolen from Rose's Fine Food, which seems pretty rainbow to me). I get gay overwhelmed because our gay kitchen is covered with gay dirty dishes because we're both working a LOT right now and no one has time to clean it and there's nowhere to put anything and my gay brunch is getting cold, and as discussed, gay brunch is an important part of my culture. I rant about this problem. Rebecca tries to calm me. She eventually succeeds, and I get the food plated and sit down on our gay IKEA couch (Rebecca assembled this herself after finding it on Craigslist, which seems stereotypically lesbian enough) to eat my breakfast. I'm getting pretty good at poaching eggs.

We snuggle on the couch for a bit and flip through Zillow and some renovation ideas, which some people refer to as a lesbian activity. <<Insert moving van joke here.>> And then a gay friend calls to ask us to meet for gay late lunch. This friend really is gay. For sure. And she's a sweetheart I haven't seen in a while, so we meet up for lunch and board games. Yes, a board game (7 Wonders, if you were curious). Super glamorous. We had a lovely time.

Upon returning to our gay apartment, Rebecca was wiped, so I settled her on the couch and dealt with at least the worst of the dish situation and made her promise, hard core, cross her gay heart, to do laundry tomorrow while I'm at work. I heated up some leftovers for dinner and we watched Alex & Emma, which I suppose as a romantic comedy might have been a bigger point of contention in some straight marriages (there, see, I managed to assign a useful label to heterosexual marriages, "othering" them maybe a little - how you like me now?).

And then Rebecca was still exhausted, so I tucked her into bed, lotioned her face so she'd stop ashing (because I will NOT let her go to work ashing - it's not respectable), rubbed organic vapor rub on her chest, brought her cough syrup, and hit her back with cupped hands as though she were a kid with cystic fibrosis. And then I convinced our older cat Dorian to stay with her for a bit so I could write you all this post. Again, super glamorous. Super subversive. Lots of tearing at the fabric of traditional marriage going on today, folks.

But that's love, really. That's modern marriage. I don't regret committing young - it's meant that I get to share more of my life with my helpmate. I don't really feel the need for my life to always be glamorous, and my everyday tasks are rarely that subversive. Maybe that's why, even after three years, it feels weird when someone refers to "gay marriage," as though it's somehow different for us. Because in the end, I think it's all about choosing love.

Confessions: I was a Welfare Queen

I've seen food stamps (also known as SNAP or EBT) in the news a lot lately. There's a lot of vitriol about them, and a lot of judgment. People like to refer to "welfare queens" that have a better living on government benefits than those who work, when they are just as capable of working. I've tried sharing links to the statistics about EBT with little reaction, and now I'm attempting to bring in a truth that may help to change a few minds about this program. So here it is.

I was a welfare queen.

Twice.

For a year each time.

Now, Erin, you say, you weren't really a welfare queen. You only used one government program, and not for very long, and you were working, and you really needed the help. You bettered yourself and worked hard, and now look at you stand on your own two feet. That's not being a welfare queen.

Okay. So how many programs would have made me a welfare queen? I also should have been on Medicaid, but through some restrictions and bureaucracy wasn't. That's not to say that I wouldn't have used Medicaid if I could have. I also would have used section eight housing subsidies at the time if the waiting list hadn't been so long. It's actually really hard to get that many benefits or keep them for very long, but I would have done so if it meant that I could live in a safe apartment, have regular medical care, and know where my next meal would come from. Because, you see, while I was working, in most cases two jobs or full time or on a stipend that MSU must have believed was a living wage, my hours were so irregular and my pay was so low that even with a college education, I needed some help.

To those of you who count me as somehow better than the people you actually perceive to be welfare queens, perhaps because I only used EBT for a short time or was working (which is how most people use them - see link), do you believe that the food stamps allowed me to get out of poverty more quickly? Do you believe I would have escaped my low income situation faster if I had been allowed to run out of money, sell my car, get even sicker from malnutrition, lose my job because I couldn't reliably be there? I've heard that argument - that if I had hit rock bottom, I would have worked harder. Maybe. I'm glad I didn't have to find out.

To those who think that every person who ever uses food stamps should be like me, I will also assert that I came into the Recession - into poverty, into the hemorrhaging of money that a forced relocation to the Detroit area after my MA program and Rebecca's preclerkship ended - with much more than many. I had two BAs and an MA from a quality university. I had work experience. I had the ability to finance a car. I had a network of people around me who were employed and could vouch for me. So while I didn't have money, I had a lot. I'm grateful for all of that. Things could have been much worse - I see much, much worse for some of my students. And I would argue that they still don't deserve to starve. Ideally, we would offer them job training and assistance in finding employment, although it's not that simple, but in the meantime, they don't deserve to be homeless (oh, did I mention that I've been homeless?).

Jesus said that as we do unto the least of these, we do unto Him. Jesus preached the Beatitudes. So whatever you say about welfare queens, I hope you would be willing to say about me. I hope that my story comes to mind. I hope that you're willing to consider people needing grace and help in a time when things are really hard and really scary.

In Defense of: The Humanities

Edit: a reader requested links/examples to support the central theme of this post, so I've added connections to previous posts.

Given what I do for a living, I often hear parents assure me that a liberal arts university would not be appropriate for their child. Some of this stems from a misunderstanding of what liberal arts means - students may study almost any major in a liberal arts program, but they will do so in a more interdisciplinary fashion, with coursework in a broader spectrum of programs than they might have in a technically focused program.

For those who already know this about liberal arts universities and still believe their child should avoid them, the attitude is that since their child will be studying engineering or a pre-med emphasis ("pre-med" isn't a major, contrary to popular belief) or business, coursework in the social sciences and humanities is not only unnecessary, but a waste of time and money.

I was fortunate enough to end up with dual degrees in education and Spanish, and then I did a master's in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), a blend of pedagogy and applied linguistics, so I definitely studied in a liberal arts format. During the Recession, I sometimes asked myself if that had been a mistake - after all, I liked economics and biology in high school. Maybe business or a science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) program would have made more sense.

As I develop into my career, though, and especially given that the Recession has finally ended, I'm grateful to have been in a program that built "soft skills" like writing cogently  (and actually, a large complaint from many employers is that their college grads don't write well), genre analysis (useful in technical writing), and anthropology. I'm grateful to have read and analyzed story structure, because it has allowed to see the stories in my own life, such as the thread of my relationship with Detroit. I'm glad that not only do I speak a second language, I understand another culture to some degree. My education program focused greatly on designing lessons around objectives, which helps me evaluate activities, both within and without classrooms, for purpose and efficacy. I believe this background has allowed me to be more empathetic and structure arguments better, and to identify solutions to problems.

And I think in the long run, it will stand me in good stead as the job market changes. Technical skills, after all, are based in current procedures, and therefore may become obsolete. And though STEM has been in fashion, certain majors within it have not been guaranteeing graduates jobs at any higher rates than those with my form of academic work.

Even if I'm wrong on that, though, I've found a great deal of my humanity in the humanities. Seeing stories, relating to people's pain, knowing about social structures and history, such as this post on narrative that has helped me understand the civil rights issues of the day, in addition to a deep understanding of pedagogy, all of these have enriched my life (this link shares one realization of this) in ways that extend far, far beyond my employment situation. So I will not stop mentioning the liberal arts to families as an option. I hope that a few students find the joy there that I have (see a link to all of my posts labeled "joy").

MI Love: Detroit (also known as "how I'm Jonah")

It's been far too long since my last MI love post. I'm hoping to get out a few more of these in coming weeks. This post contains an extended allusion to the Book of Jonah in the Christian Old Testament. Feel free to check out. It's weird but pretty convicting.


______

I am Jonah. I have been called to Detroit, as he was called to Ninevah, and I have run, only to be swallowed up and re-sent. I completed summer fellowships there twice, once in 2007 and once in 2009, and I felt drawn to Detroit Public Schools (DPS), to bilingual education, to finding a way to cut back on the number of toner shaking dance prayers (Dear God, Please let this toner cartridge be sufficient to finish my copy job so that my students can meet their learning objectives. Amen.), to get more DPS students into college, to see them fed nutritious meals, and so much more. I started my student teaching at an elementary school in Detroit a bright-eyed idealist, thinking that the district emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb, would figure something out. I believed that the round of school closures would stem the hemorrhagic tide of funds and stabilize the remaining schools.

I suffered panic attacks, crying spells, exhaustion, and depression that fall, partially due to an underlying health issue, but very much exacerbated by the daily reality with my children. I had to leave. I thought I was leaving forever, destined to stay in the safe, comfortable suburbs (Tarshish, in the Jonah metaphor). I applied to teach for Kaplan Test Prep, imagining small classes, resources, motivated families.

And then the great fish got me the first time. Upon arriving to the informational interview, I discovered that Kaplan was running a contract in Detroit Public Schools, and they were looking for ACT instructors. I remember thinking, "Well played, God. In a recession, You knew I didn't have other options." And I taught at Western International High three days a week for four months, until it was time to move for grad school. It was still staggering, but I worked with educators who showed me why they stayed. Some of my students cared. (Some didn't.) And I loved the joy of the classroom, though I think I started realizing by then that my role would not be as a full time classroom teacher.

I moved for grad school - by this time, Rebecca and I were together and she was in med school. My MA is more preparation to teach at a university language center than for a K-12 public education setting. In fact, I've never finished my teaching certificate, though I think about it sometimes. My initial plan in my MA was to either teach abroad or at a university, with the thought of working at a refugee development center in the back of my head.

But I graduated into the same recession, again/still. Together, we had chosen Henry Ford Wyandotte for Rebecca's base hospital, with the thought that I would work at Wayne State or U of M. Neither panned out.

I spent that summer as an Americorps volunteer in southwest Detroit (again). This time, I ended up working with an organization affiliated with the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) as the EAA took over a DPS building that had been identified as failing. I also applied, at that point, to start doing test prep again, this time for GRE, and I began preparing an application for Ph.D. programs in higher education administration.

I was running to Tarshish again. After the recession, the Ph.D. I'd chosen was hedging my bets. I had the perfect essay, but the truth is that I wanted insurance against unemployment, possibly a chance to gain power and prestige (with mostly good intentions), a formal process to follow. I missed East Lansing and academia. Wyandotte was hard on us, for many reasons (those of you who read regularly may have started sequencing this timeline).

So I was accepted, and we left, really without great indication that it was right for me. I wasn't funded until shortly before school started, and even then, not fully. We loved being back at our church in Lansing, but my work wasn't right for me, and Rebecca missed the Henry Ford system. As I took my classes and met people in my program who were amazing, dedicated, brilliant, and with so much experience, more experience than I had, more passion for their research, I was glad that I knew them, but I knew I didn't belong, at least not yet.

It was devastating. I had seen myself as an academic and craved the legitimacy and stability I thought my degree would confer. For financial and insurance reasons, I ended up staying in my program, needing to keep up my GPA, after we had concluded that we'd be relocating to the Detroit area so that Rebecca could do her residency at Ford.

I feel like that semester was bathed in tears of uncertainty, fear, questions, but also knowledge that I was moving closer to what I'm meant to. I spent the summer teaching partnerships at universities as much as possible, including one with pre-public health students who, make no mistake, are going to change the world once they finish grad school. I'm a little bit in awe of their commitment and ambition, and of the fact that the help I offered in test prep strategies will someday be a tiny period in one little chapter of their amazing life stories.

I spent a good chunk of this past school year in a United Way partnership while Rebecca works out of Henry Ford in Harbortown and the New Center. We're still figuring out what we'll do long term, but I'm beginning to accept that my call might not be what I thought and that my five year plan might not be as useful as I thought.

And while we refer fondly to a dream of moving to Montreal, where our family would be legally recognized, Rebecca could be faculty at McGill,  our children could go on walking field trips throughout the city, and I could be educational staff at the biodome (hey, it's a dream, it doesn't actually have to be feasible), we can see that's too far off to plan for. It might be Tarshish, or it might be the next place after Ninevah.

Detroit is not an easy place. But there's a sense of belonging there, that we are all neighbors, that we're in it together to have a blessed day, we hope more blessed because we're all making do and making better. That's not a place to run from. I don't know how I fit in. I don't know how I bless people who in most cases have been a bigger blessing to so many than I can fathom. But I'm called to something, and I'm done marking time, saying I'll do it when I have my life together or Rebecca's residency is over or when I'm finally sure I'm never going back to grad school. I want my hands and feet to be dirty, like Jesus' must have been. I'm done running from my calling and ready to run into Jesus' arms.

Will you join me?