What Gay means to me.

The first time I met my uncle's partner, he bought me an ice cream sundae so large, I remember it to this day. We sat across from each other in a half empty ice cream shoppe before he gave me a Washington DC teddy bear and wished me a Happy Easter. I went home after my trip with stories about Uncle Tom's friend until my mother sat me down for the "talk". I was nine years old, and suddenly my world was bigger, and filled with a new kind of love.

Through the years, Uncle George became a fixture in our family, as beloved as the rest of the spouses in the family, and I always felt a certain kinship for him, as we were the unbloods- the ones born outside of the bloodline, with our own perspective in.

Knowing my uncles were gay from such a young age allowed me insight that other children my age did not have. I could recognize the boys in school who just didn't "get" the girl, as the other boys did. I was angered more easily than everyone else when words were tossed about like cruel confetti and then later, slung like arrows at the quiet boys in gym class. I was voted most politically correct in high school, but in retrospect, it is a shame that there is a distinction for that in high schools.

When I was nineteen, I came home from Arizona for a month over the holidays, and I sensed a change in my sister. It was a quiet change, but suddenly things made sense, and she came out to me on the couch after my mom was asleep. I think it changed things between us. A door I had thought open, and not necessarily open wide, was closed firmly, and in its place a new window appeared. I say a window, because while it is completely transparent, I will never quite be able to use it as an entrance into her world. It is a world so very unlike mine, and yet so tethered to me I often feel confused.

A year later, I met Jase. He walked into Chevy's Restaurant on my second day of work, with an aura so big, it filled the room. He was handsome and vivacious, and the clamoring bevy of girls should have tipped me off immediately. But it was only when he spoke to me that I realized he was gay, and according to his reminiscences, I informed him immediately we would be best friends. ( I don't recall this proclamation, but it sounds a little like me, so I roll with it) He introduced me to the purely platonic male female friendship. We went on roadtrips, shopped, whispered secrets and I fell very much in unromantic love with him. I have moved to four different states, and never has our friendship dwindled a bit, though our otherworldly lives are completely separate.

Since Jase, I have made other male friends, and met my sister's girlfriends and friends. The years have given me a growing populace of gay loved ones. 

 I received a message after the New York senate finally voted to legalize gay marriage. Different than the other jubilant responses I read on Facebook, this one was flowery and somehow bigger than what I could have said or felt. She told me that she felt a new kind of happiness, one that she is not sure she has been able to feel yet, and reading through my tears, I got it.

My sister and her eventual wife will get to check married on their tax returns. When one of them falls ill, the other will be able to sit bedside as family, and sign the papers to help save a life, or help to end one when the time inevitably comes. They can proudly walk past the absurd protestors, who have no argument other than an antiquated bible and a homophobia that all but screams the Shakespeare quote, "I think thou doth protest too much". I will be able to be there as not only they, but so many of my beloved gays marry, then bring happy, well adjusted children into this world. And they WILL be well adjusted, as they will come into a world where an open mind is equal to an open heart, and trust me as I say from experience, it makes you happier in the end. They will grow to be fighters for civil rights, environmental lawyers, artists, musicians, nurses, physicists and unspeakably wonderful teachers.

My Uncle George and Uncle Tom have since separated, after more than two decades together. Like every other married couple, they had to split assets, divide household goods, and cry over old pictures. But I will always consider my life to have been beautifully touched by not only him, but every other friend and family member (gay or straight) who has entered my life.

We spoke a while ago, and I told him that Morgan was the age I was when he and I met, and he said to me, "time to bring her for an ice cream sundae."

*since this was written, several years ago, I've been blown away by the amazing changes in our country, and the nationwide rainbow connections. On June 26th, SCOTUS changed history by declaring gay marriage legal in every one of our fifty states. I've chosen to not read the negative comments on media sites, and instead have focused on the fact that we are always walking toward progress.