Love is Love

I sat on the couch on election night with a man I had met twelve years ago.  He had come into my store on 5^th and Pine in Downtown Seattle with his boyfriend at the time and his boyfriend’s parents.  I gave the boyfriend’s parents a nice discount, and at lunch I handwrote a four page letter on a legal pad to my friend Shawn to tell her about the jerk I met who was flirting with me even though he had a boyfriend. 

A friend’s fiancé told us, when he met us, that he thought the story of how we met was refreshing, because it wasn’t through a social dating network.  And then I realized that my relationship predated E-Harmony.  That was back in the day when women died a lot in childbirth and Joseph and I were gay out of necessity. 

We were adamantly not watching any election results.  We had a lot riding on this one.  Not only would the question be answered of who would be captaining the ship for the next four years, but the State of Washington had Referendum 74 up for the voters’ consideration.  Referendum 74 would give same sex couples the basic human right of saying who they wanted their spouse to be. 

I had to work at eleven that night—the joys of being a night nurse!  But before I left, I couldn’t stand it any longer.  I whipped out my phone and went straight to Facebook where the first inkling that something wonderful had happened was this post from one of my dearest soul-sisters, Angela:

“Hooray!!! So...when are we gonna have a wedding planning mimosa/waffle date?! Hell, this is such an amazingly awesome thing, maybe we should just make it a standing biweekly date. Love you guys!!!”

And even though I couldn’t quite breathe easily about having the new right to marry until the Seattle Times put out that the opposition to gay marriage had conceded to the win, I was glowing.

When I walked into work, all of the evening shift looked at me like I had just opened a present they had all saved up to buy for me, and that is how it felt.  I knew that these people cared about me and were happy that I finally had a way of expressing my twelve-year-old love to the world in a way that was understood at once. 

My union can now be sanctioned in my very own state under the term and entitlements of marriage, and it feels amazing!  Thank you, Washington State!