I was having another rough patch in a relationship. Nine years of still not knowing what it was to be loved, and I wanted it so much. We were going to counseling, couples and individually, hoping to fix the relationship. I was ignorantly hoping to find love.
I was going to school, again.
The first night of class I noticed a woman walk in. I watched her as she walked across the Room and took her seat. It was several weeks into the class when a classmate introduced us at a break. Sitting in a booth in the cafeteria, with others from the class, we looked at one another and said, "I know you. We have met before. What classes have we taken together?" This "connection" allowed us to become fast friends. I desperately needed a new friend to talk to and thank God she listened. We had our school friendship. She was kind enough to check in with me every now and again to see if I was okay, and we played golf every now and then with some of her friends.
I have lived my life with three different lives, my work life, my family life, and my real life. Fear of losing my family, mother, father, brothers, and fear of losing my job prevented me from letting all those people know me; however, I am a person that, if you are a friend of mine, I want you to know me, really know me. I had been carrying on this friendship leaving one important detail out. I was gay. This was weighing on me, but once again I feared losing a friendship.
One night we decided to have dinner, just the two of us. We talked a lot, we laughed. On a trip to the restroom I decided enough was enough. I needed to tell her. I came back to the table, sat down, looked at her and said, "You have figured out, haven't you, that I am gay?" Silence. And in a matter of seconds, I was heartbroken and sick to my stomach. I was going to lose a friend.
After what seemed like an eternity, she reached across the table, took my hand, and said, "I have had those same feelings."
A few months later she told me that one night after a test she walked down the stairs and saw me standing there waiting for her. She was excited that I had waited. She also told me that the times we played golf and I would hand her a ball, she always felt something as she took it from my hand.
It's been 24 years. We have hosted, in our home, a rehearsal dinner for her son. A wedding reception for her daughter. I was at the hospital when Abby was born, and I became a grandmother. Several times I got out of bed and drove all over town looking for her son, after his wife called in tears. When they needed a home, her daughter and brother lived with us for a short time. Our families know each other: parents, brothers, grandchildren, nieces, nephews. We have supported each other through the deaths of our parents, disagreements among each others' families. But we can't get married. Our relationship is stronger than most, but we can't get married. I don't have the legal right to make decisions on medical care, funeral, or where to be buried. Don't misunderstand, we did pay a lawyer to define those things.
We have family, children, grandchildren, brothers, nieces, and nephews. We have defended the family unit. You would think the life we have built together would be enough and give us the right to get married.
We never determined how we knew each other or where we had met, because we had never met. We were just meant to find each other.
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