tears.....

[osodecanela]

I swear sometimes I hate that I understand John Boehner. The man gets emotional about things he cares about and at times, he cries. In public.

And, so do I.

There's the cynical part of me that feels Boehner's being manipulative when the water works turn on, likely because I detest his politics so, but truth told, I feel he cannot help it when the tears start to flow, because so often I cannot stop my own.

I was just here at my computer and came across the Vote Yes video for the Irish referendum this past May, on marriage for same sex couples. It was a momentous vote of support for the entire LGBT community in Ireland and the first national referendum anywhere in the world on marriage for our community. Now I have posted before just how unnerved I am to have anyone's civil rights put to a popular vote; even more so when that someone happens to be me, but that the vote went the way it did is such an affirmation, that I cried when it came down. Even just watching the video, which featured many of the best known actors in Ireland today, playing people going to the polls to vote for the measure, I was once again in tears. The knowledge that thousands of young Irish people who were living abroad, flew home just to vote for that referendum, which then passed in every county save one (where it lost narrowly) has brought me to tears more than once.

There's an Expedia commercial currently running which in its second scene has a young male couple with an adopted infant getting out of a cab in front of a SF home. Extended family is rushing out to meet them, while the voice over says something to the effect of "we take you somewhere you never thought you would go"; without fail, my eyes well up every time I see it.

I was speaking with a dear friend earlier today, who said something to me for which I'm so grateful. Her parents divorced when she and her sister were very young and her dad remarried. He lives here within the county, no more that 20 minutes away, but still they're not close and she feels sad he doesn't really play the role of father/patriarch for her and her children (the youngest of whom, now 4, I delivered). However, the more she thought about it, she said she realized that I've become the father/grandfather figure in their lives. Jokingly she concluded, she upgraded to me and to my husband, from her own father. I cherish them and I wouldn't have my relationship with them any way other way than the closeness & love we feel for one another, such is the nature of chosen family. However, how many LGBT people have been ostracized and distant from their families of origin and forming chosen family was the only option for them?

Today, as I see the changes in our larger society and marriages such as mine codified into law and accepted by our families and communities of origin, marriages that more and more involve the rearing of children that are ours, either by adoption, fostering, or technologies such as AI or surrogacy, the option to raise families of our own is our right, if we so choose. In my 20's I never considered becoming a husband or a father to be a viable option for me. Today, I awaken each morning next to the man who IS my husband. Were we 20 again, might we have children of our own? Knowing us, I suspect probably so.

Which likely is why the Expedia commercial brings me to tears.

Comments

[putzmeisterbear.livejournal.com]

I can be the same way with the tears.