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February 27, 2006
Same time next year
As many of my regular readers no doubt already know, February is a rather important month around the Minor-Myers household. On the 1st Saturday of the month, Christopher and I celebrate the anniversary of our first date. This year it fell on the actual day of our first date 11 years ago, February 4th, 1995. It is from this point that we really mark the beginning of our relationship.
Once we moved to San Francisco, we took advantage of the wonderful opportunity to register as Domestic Partners, first in the city and then shortly after with the State of California. Both required a little paperwork with a lot of very serious commitments... including, for the SF registry, declaring under penalty of perjury that if one of us owes someone money, that person could collect from either one of us. Even more interesting is the very first declaration:
"We have an intimate, committed relationship of mutual caring"
Do marriage licenses even say that? Anyway, that seriously impressed us. How could we ever live in a Red State or even a slightly Purple State after that? We did the SF registry when our friend Nank was visiting once -- in February. Anniversary #2.
Then, two years ago in 2004, crazy ol' Gavin Newsom (who still needs a hair-do makeover. Seriously.) went off his meds and decided he'd start letting same-sex couples get marriage licenses and have civil ceremonies. It was a phenomenal experience even to walk through, let alone get to join in on. For us, the ceremony happened two years ago today, on February 27, 2004. I’ll never forget the feeling around City Hall those days – everyone was just so freaking happy! Bouquets of flowers sent from across the nation piled up in every corner, and everyone from civil servants to ordinary citizens spent hundreds of hours volunteering to see that everything went well. It was spectacular.
C and I spent this past weekend in San Diego where his parents were visiting again, and after dinner one night, his mother trotted out a cake and a wee giftie to mark our anniversary. Everyone should be lucky to have in-laws like mine!
This got me to thinking about what different people in our lives consider when they decide how, and more importantly when, to congratulate us on the fact that our clothes, books and music are too mixed in together to separate after all these years.
My sister, Erin, was the first in my family to recognize our anniversary as a real thing, since she started seeing her now-husband right around the same time, and before they got married, they would mark time from those early dates, too. She would call and say, "I know I should know this, but don't you have an anniversary coming up?" I reminded her that we always celebrated on the first Saturday in February, and that it was sweet of her to remember at all. Not long after that, my mother, no doubt hearing that Erin had sent us a card (she's unfailingly good about things like that, quite unlike me), would call and say "Oh, now tell me again. when is your anniversary?" I reminded her many times over, but it never seemed to stick in her mind or on her calendar, though she's sent us many cards and generous gifts over the years.
After the big City Hall wedding two years ago, Mom seemed to take special notice. That "wedding date" seemed to be something she could finally wrap her mind around, so she decided to recognize that one. About a year afterward, I was having the inevitable "when is your anniversary, anyway" conversations with her, and again I went into the whole thing about our first date, Domestic Partnership and the City Hall officiated wedding. She said something to the effect of, "Well, the one you had at City Hall... that's the one I think is official." Her emphasis -- not mine.
It was then I realized that mom and I had grown so apart politically. She takes the Government (capital G intended) and trusts whatever it says. Especially since the presidential election of 2000, I have trained myself to look at the real-world implications of government actions and try to figure out who is really being served. And more often than not, it's whomever has the most money or power.
Instead of pointing this out to Mom right then and there, I reminded her that, just six months after our official wedding -- on my birthday, no less, the Supreme Court of California declared all those same sex unions null and void. She had no reaction whatsoever. You could practically see the "Does Not Compute" scroll past her eyes.
Mom still recognizes our City Hall wedding as our anniversary, and I feel badly even casting her in this light. She's a wonderful parent and loves Christopher like she loves my sister's husband. He's part of our family because she knows he's MY family, and so many other people in my situation don't have that.
Shouldn't I be happy with that?
Posted by kyle at February 27, 2006 11:50 AM
Comments
You were in 2 cents!!
Posted by: Nicole at March 20, 2006 1:34 PM
It's true: I signed up for two cents some time ago. Mostly I ignore the e-mails but every once in a while....
I was in a couple years ago after answering a question about karaoke. The irony about this post is how dumb my own hair looks in the photo. Hoisted on my own petard!
Posted by: Kyle at March 20, 2006 1:52 PM