Anniversary
Dec. 2nd, 2016 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse Like a lot of GLBT couples, Shawn and I have made up our anniversary. It's a fictional date, convenient, easy to remember. It doesn't mark anything, other than the fact that we're PRETTY SURE we went on a 'date' to Target to do Christmas shopping together. This was 1985 and I don't even think we were on each other's Christmas lists even, yet. We probably actually met months earlier at one of Michael J. Batman's D&D campaigns, where I remember very clearly telling Shawn she had the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. I'd been sketching people's D&D characters for them and Shawn told me to make hers have blond hair and brown eyes, and I said, "No one has that combination!" (Keep in mind I was 17, what the hell did I even know? At that point I was sure Chicago was in Wisconsin.) She said, "I do." And I looked up... and, yeah, I'd say that was the moment fate was sealed.
But, in all honesty, I wasn't even out to myself yet that December. I still thought I was a straight girl (kind of... ask me about how I was already reading Gay Comix I bought at a head shop in LaCrosse my senior year). Thing is, I would go on after December 1, 1985, to have a couple of more boyfriends and a several girlfriends. Shawn, too, had boyfriends post that fateful meeting.
Yet, we count December 1, 1985 as our anniversary because we were certainly already living together at that point (and having sex). I moved in, and never, ever moved out. By the end, my girlfriends would look at me and say, "How can I compete when you're living with the one you love?"
They were right. I was cheating on all of them with Shawn.
The story would have been pathetic and sad, if Shawn didn't also finally have the same realization when we were living in our first apartment on Franklin Avenue. After a friend of ours visited and regaled us with the stories of his gay single life and his heartaches, we looked at each other over the top of his head and knew. We knew it was time to make things official. Why keep seeking when we'd found love already? If we could remember the date of that day, that would probably be more accurate in a very strict sense.
But, relationships are messy, so why not just count from the real beginning? Why not skip the mess and embrace that first wonderful moment? So we do. Your rules do not apply to us. Or, at least, before we were mainstreamed by marriage, there really were no rules, no sense of how any of it was supposed to work, so we just made things up as we went along. I think most people do, anyway. It's just that the majority of people have... well, I guess, traditions and institutions to fall back on. Marriage dates. First dates. We never thought to mark any of those, either. I'm sure we eventually picked a date because people asked us how long we'd been together and we had no idea.
Ask me when Shawn and I were married, and I'll say, "It was a Monday! Oh, and hot!" I'm sure it was in August because that was the first month it was legal and we did the official thing in front of a judge as soon as possible because I'd gone over a decade without any decent health insurance.
Of course, I'm generally terrible about dates. I feel like I must be the only mom in the universe who hesitates when health professionals ask for Mason's birthday. I've finally got it down, but for a while I used to switch the last number of his birthday with the last number of the year he was born. I also have memories like this, "It was hot." (Apparently important things in my life always happen on the hottest days of the year.)
So last night we celebrated our made-up anniversary the way we have been for decades. Actually, maybe more like a single decade, since we started this tradition when Mason was an infant and Shawn and I were too exhausted to even consider dressing up and doing something fancy. I remember complaining to my friend Ember about how it wasn't going to be romantic with a baby, and she suggested that I surprise Shawn--that I get take out from a favorite place and fancy up the table with candles (and the high chair.) It was PERFECT. I picked Vescio's in Dinkytown. Vescio's was one of the first restaurants I remember taking Shawn to when we did finally become 'official.' And, miraculously, it's still there. It's still EXACTLY the same and has the EXACT same menu. Bonus: Mason loves it and always has, even when he was in his toddler "I will only eat noodles" phase.
We had a lovely night.
Here's to another thirty-two years!
But, in all honesty, I wasn't even out to myself yet that December. I still thought I was a straight girl (kind of... ask me about how I was already reading Gay Comix I bought at a head shop in LaCrosse my senior year). Thing is, I would go on after December 1, 1985, to have a couple of more boyfriends and a several girlfriends. Shawn, too, had boyfriends post that fateful meeting.
Yet, we count December 1, 1985 as our anniversary because we were certainly already living together at that point (
They were right. I was cheating on all of them with Shawn.
The story would have been pathetic and sad, if Shawn didn't also finally have the same realization when we were living in our first apartment on Franklin Avenue. After a friend of ours visited and regaled us with the stories of his gay single life and his heartaches, we looked at each other over the top of his head and knew. We knew it was time to make things official. Why keep seeking when we'd found love already? If we could remember the date of that day, that would probably be more accurate in a very strict sense.
But, relationships are messy, so why not just count from the real beginning? Why not skip the mess and embrace that first wonderful moment? So we do. Your rules do not apply to us. Or, at least, before we were mainstreamed by marriage, there really were no rules, no sense of how any of it was supposed to work, so we just made things up as we went along. I think most people do, anyway. It's just that the majority of people have... well, I guess, traditions and institutions to fall back on. Marriage dates. First dates. We never thought to mark any of those, either. I'm sure we eventually picked a date because people asked us how long we'd been together and we had no idea.
Ask me when Shawn and I were married, and I'll say, "It was a Monday! Oh, and hot!" I'm sure it was in August because that was the first month it was legal and we did the official thing in front of a judge as soon as possible because I'd gone over a decade without any decent health insurance.
Of course, I'm generally terrible about dates. I feel like I must be the only mom in the universe who hesitates when health professionals ask for Mason's birthday. I've finally got it down, but for a while I used to switch the last number of his birthday with the last number of the year he was born. I also have memories like this, "It was hot." (Apparently important things in my life always happen on the hottest days of the year.)
So last night we celebrated our made-up anniversary the way we have been for decades. Actually, maybe more like a single decade, since we started this tradition when Mason was an infant and Shawn and I were too exhausted to even consider dressing up and doing something fancy. I remember complaining to my friend Ember about how it wasn't going to be romantic with a baby, and she suggested that I surprise Shawn--that I get take out from a favorite place and fancy up the table with candles (and the high chair.) It was PERFECT. I picked Vescio's in Dinkytown. Vescio's was one of the first restaurants I remember taking Shawn to when we did finally become 'official.' And, miraculously, it's still there. It's still EXACTLY the same and has the EXACT same menu. Bonus: Mason loves it and always has, even when he was in his toddler "I will only eat noodles" phase.
We had a lovely night.
Here's to another thirty-two years!