Visions of happily ever after
by Lex T.
I am nearly 30 years old and I feel like I’m just now beginning to live the life I always dreamed I would. It took awhile to get here, but only because my life’s a little bit different and more wonderful than I once thought it would be.
As a little girl, I never wondered what I was going to be when I grew up. Not like most kids. No, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to be a wife and a mother. Creating a happy, loving, supportive home sounded like the dream job to me, and anyone who knew me for any length of time could tell you I had my heart set on it. I was raised in a single-parent home, and although my mother provided us with lots of love and encouragement, she found her solace in the conformity of organized religion. I was brought up in church and taught its sometimes very rigid ideas.
So my visions of “happily forever after” consisted of 2.5 kids, a dog or cat, the proverbial white picket fence, and of course, marriage to a man. Quite frankly, I’d never even considered it might not be the only option. So, like many girls, I dated men -- plenty of them, too. Somehow, each relationship didn’t work for one reason or another. I suspected I wasn’t getting out of it what other women were, but I couldn’t have told you why.
One day in my early 20s, a friend introduced me to the first out lesbian I’d ever met. She and I began only as friends, but things quickly progressed to a relationship. What an eye opener! Now I knew what all my friends were ranting and raving about in their relationships! And although that first relationship didn’t last long, it presented a whole new and very real possibility to me – that I was gay.
Over the next three years, I struggled and struggled to come to terms with all that being gay implied. Not only did it go against everything I’d grown up learning, but I thought it meant I couldn’t have my dream: my warm cozy home, two people in love, babies, kids’ friends over for sleepovers and, in the distant future, maybe even grandchildren.
Fast forward a year or so. Through a series of circumstances I can only label as fate, I met the woman with whom I was meant to spend the rest of my life. Since we’ve been together, Dee’s shown me that I can be true to myself and still have my dream. On Dec. 31, 2000, she took me to the top of a mountain overlooking San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific Ocean, and she proposed to me.
Together, we planned an elaborate wedding, complete with all the stuff of my little girl dreams. Seventeen months after I said yes, I walked down the aisle on my dad’s arm in a white wedding gown to meet my soul mate. We exchanged vows in front of God and our dearest friends and family. And we’re now talking about starting a family sometime next year.
I live my life with a passion now. In every possible way, Dee is my wife and I am hers. We live a married life, complete with a shared home, concerns about the “in-laws,” bills to pay, and the ebb and flow of daily life. I don’t know of anyone who takes the commitment of marriage more seriously than we do. Never once have we thought of our wedding as “pretend,” or our marriage as being less than forever -- no matter what it takes.
But Dee and I risk losing a lot because this country’s laws don’t allow for our kind of love or our kind of family. Lest someone who is not personally affected by this issue believe it’s only an abstract nuisance to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens, let me give some examples of how it affects us on a daily basis.
Dee and I have had to spend an inordinate amount of money to have legal documents drawn up to cover the bare legal necessities, which doesn’t even begin to compare to what the law already provides, free of charge, for opposite-sex couples. But if we hadn’t done so, we could be at risk of being banned from seeing each other in the hospital if anything happened to either of us. My next of kin could make life-and-death decisions for me and completely disregarded Dee’s knowledge of what I truly want.
As we look at starting a family, I will be the biological parent and Dee the non-biological parent. We’re both scared of what protections we may not be afforded simply because we’re gay. Something as ordinary as sharing the duty of picking up our child at day care could be denied to us if Dee isn’t allowed to become a legal guardian of our child. Also, we’re going to be forced to pay extra for insurance since we won’t be recognized as legal dependents. What about extended family members who may disagree with our situation and try to prevent Dee’s involvement with our child if something happened to me? How safe would our family be in the event of a tragedy?
Being able to legally marry is an awesome right and responsibility. Many people take it for granted, but I’d give just about anything to have that right. It’s precious to me. During my lifetime, I hope to see the laws change. GLBT citizens don’t want special rights; just equal ones. But until that happens, I will continue to take any available avenue to promote the protection of what I already have: the life about which I’ve dreamed.
Jan. 7, 2003