In the process of going through stuff from the storage unit(s), I came across a bunch of stuff I had stuck on the fridge, one of which was an article about Britney Spears' six and a half hour marriage, & the whole anti-gay marriage sentiment about "protecting the sanctity" of marriage. What a joke!
OK, the subject of marriage for me is an extremely complicated one, for a great number of reasons. I will try & address them coherently, & in some kind of order.
To begin with, & to clarify, I am both widowed AND divorced. Yes, you read correctly. In the midst of my two relationships with my two main men, I was also married to a woman, for almost nine years. More about that in a minute.
Michael & I could never have gotten married, but not just for the legal restrictions. You see, for the majority of our relationship, Michael was on Medicare-MediCal. If we had been married, he would never have qualified for MediCal, so we would have been responsible for all of his medication bills, which at their height, if I recall, were running about $6,000 per month. Why? Because I made/make too much money, so he would not have qualified. On the other hand, without those meds, it would have been an awfully short-lived marriage, if you get my drift. So, sometimes, for some people, marriage is just not a practical option.
When Gavin Newsome began the whole thing of offering marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Michael had only been dead for about six weeks. There was a man who had been staying with me, mostly to keep me company, at the time; his name is Karl. I saw him only a few weeks ago. Anyway, he suggested that we go & get married, just for the h**l of it; I actually considered it very briefly, like for half a fraction of a split second, before vetoing the idea. Thank heavens I didn't go any further in that direction; it would have really made things crazy to be a widowed, gay bigamist on top of it all!
On the other hand, however, Kent & I talked extensively about registering as domestic partners. We had even gone so far as to download the paperwork from the State & started to fill it out, when I realized that I would HAVE to get a divorce in order to do it legally. Unfortunately, this time Kent passed away before we could pursue it any further.
Which brings me to the subject of the (now ex) wife. Her name is Heather. We met in the late summer of 1998; she had just graduated from college, & was starting her graduate work at UC Berkeley, in Special Education & Special Needs Kids. The first time I laid eyes on her was, where else, at the White Horse in Oakland. I was sitting at my usual seat at the bar, & noticed this really cute boy playing pool in what would eventually become the smoking lounge. Well, I guess I wasn't being terribly subtle, because he (she) came out & over to me & "WHAT?" she said. That was when I realized that she had breasts. That was also how we met.
Well, she drifted in & out of my life for next several months; it turned out that we had the same breed of dog as pets. She was with a woman named Alex at the time, & when they went away for the Christmas holidays, I did a sort of dog-sitting thing for them; by that I mean I would go to their place in Oakland every day to let their dog out, & then sit with her for a while. Not play, mind you: This was the biggest feminist-separatist-lesbian dog I have ever encountered. The one & ONLY time I ever tried to touch her, she snapped at me & bit threw the metal band of my wristwatch; it was what saved me from a trip to the Emergency Room, & I never made that mistake with that dog again.
Well, Heather & Alex split up in the spring of 1999, as I recall. By that time, I had gotten my first DUI, & had to do the DUI program for first timers, one location of which just by coincidence was across the street from my house. The person leading this program, it turned out, was a lesbian. I didn't realize, & she never mentioned, that I was not supposed to wear anything that advertised bars or any type of alcohol, & for the duration of the class, I wore my White Horse jacket. The day I finished the course, she went into this tirade with me about how there was more to being gay than just gay bars, blah, blah, blah, etc. Where she crossed the line with me was when I said that the folks I hung out with at the bar were my friends & family, & she responded that "they weren't my friends, they were just my drinking buddies." Well, I lost it completely, told her she had just insulted a bunch of people she didn't even know, & to just shut up & give me my certificate of completion for the courts. Then I stomped out.
That night, I was still upset, still stinging from that comment, & I was at the White Horse, & Heather was too, and she picked up on my mood. When she asked what was wrong, I asked her "You're not just my drinking buddy, are you? She too was a little upset by the question, & told me off about it. Well, one thing led to another, & I went home with her that night.
It wasn't until a few months later that I realized that I was in love with this woman, & wanted to marry her. I asked, & she told me she couldn't answer until I had talked about it with Michael. So I went home & told him. At first, of course, he was just shocked/stunned/flabbergasted (you choose the word you think most appropriate), but then, he asked me: "Is this something you feel you HAVE to do?", to which I responded, "Are you asking me if I'm pregnant?" When I explained that, no, I just wanted to marry her. Eventually, he gave in, & was even my best man at the wedding (performed in Reno) & eventually got totally comfortable with the idea. So Heather & I tied the knot about three mos later.
Well, when Michael died, she was one of the first people I called with the news; she & her then-partner came to his memorial & stayed later than anyone. That was the first time my sisters met her. Again, as I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, she & her current partner came to the hospital, were almost the first ones there, in fact, & Heather stayed with me until everyone, including Kent's family, had left, & then escorted me back to the White Horse, & finally saw me home.
Well, flash-forward to one year ago, approximately: I was in rehab for my alcoholism issues, & I get this message to contact Heather. So I called her, & just like the night we met (she does not waste time with "unnecessary" pleasantries if she has a bug up her ass, which she did), she did not ask how I was doing, or anything like that, oh no no no no, nothing that pleasant, it was: "And WHY am I not on your approved caller list? Hmmmm?" To which I could only answer, when I first got there & checked in, they took my blood pressure, saw that I was a walking mega-stroke waiting to happen, & pumped me full of Librium; hell, I was lucky to get anybody's names on there! I only remembered one of my sisters, & only because I had her home phone number memorized, that was it.
Well, she calmed down considerably, & THEN asked how I was doing, & why I was in rehab, & so on, & could she come see me because she had something she HAD to talk to me about. So she showed up a day or two later, with the news (& the papers) for the divorce. Well, I was not terribly surprised; the State Supreme Court had ruled same-sex marriage was now a constitutional right, in this state, & she & Liz (her partner & wife to be, obviously) wanted to get hitched, which they could not do as long as Heather & I were still legally homo-husband & lesbian-wife. So after asking if she didn't want to wait until after the election (she said the attorney said that even if Prop 8 passed, it wouldn't be retroactive), & being informed that Liz wanted to be a July bride (OK, now, see how I wasn't paying attention? I didn't realize they were talking NEXT MONTH), she pushed some papers at me & told me where to sign. Little did I know that she had already set up (temporary) housekeeping in Reno more than a month before, & hence it was sometime in the first week of July, 2008, that I became not only the Merry Widower (sort of Merry, don't ask), but the Gay divorcee as well (I don't know how to accent the first e in divorcee, so have to use the feminine), but didn't even find out about THAT until Labor Day weekend, when my then roommate came home from the Labor Day lesbian barbeque she went to & announced that my wife had remarried! And was I invited to the wedding? NO!
So anyway, here we are now, almost a year later, & more than a month since the Supreme Court handed down their (ill-thought-out) opinion saying that Prop 8 is proper. And I am asking myself, what difference does it make to me now?
Well. all I can say is, really, having been there, on both sides of the legal coin, being "really married" to a woman, as well as being with two really wonderful men as partners, I don't really care one way or the other if I can get it formalized again with a partner of either sex, since I simply don't envision it happening again. Why so, you may ask? I'll tell you why: My heart just can't take another one.
There are a number of song titles/lyrics that I could have used for this particular blog, & two by that boy band Westlife I just discovered come very strongly to mind right now, the first being "I want to grow old with you" and the second being "Have you ever been in love?" I have a really hard time hearing either of those songs, because, you see, I have been cheated out of the opportunity to experience the first one, TWICE moreover, & boy have I ever been, & having that happen again would be the death of me, so I would be cheating the other person out of it.
Because, you see, this time around, I won't settle for less than everything, since I have already had it two & a half times. I am not accepting any more consolation prizes. And I don't think that there's anybody out there for me under those terms.
Please, though, don't feel sorry for me. I wouldn't change what I have had for anything. I just don't want to go through it again. I have cried enough tears for this lifetime.
Plus, now I can drag out those tired old torch songs & start singing 'em again. Look out, Shawn Ryan! You have competition;-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment