The past few days have been a whirlwind of giddy, still-in-shock wonder. The Supreme Court’s decision to¢â¬well, not decide¢â¬has made my marriage legal and real.
I loathe Mondays. For me, it seems to be the day of the week with the crappiest weather and things never seem to go quite right. If I show up to work with two different earrings, or I get to work and there's a power outage, or I start my damned period and have the worst cramps ever (a.k.a. since last month)—chances are, it's a Monday.
It started out like any other Monday. It took extra effort to pry myself from the delicious comfort of my pillow-soft bed. I walked into our bathroom where my wife, who'd already been awake for at least 30 minutes, cheerily commented on my "adorable sleepy face." Naturally, I crumpled up my chin and made grumpy, grunting noises in disagreement.
I got to work and went about my day as usual. I started replying to work emails, scoffing at the fact that a vendor I work with regularly still hadn't supplied the invoice I needed to turn into accounting days ago. I began typing yet another professional, but firm email asking for this documentation. You know how that goes – the words come to mind almost faster than you can type them. I was in my groove. My fingers rapidly clicked away on my keyboard when all of a sudden—*click*……*click, click, click* nothing. No letters appeared on the screen. Dammit. My batteries had died in my keyboard right in the middle of my righteous, give-me-my-damned invoice email. Go figure…it's a Monday.
After replacing my batteries, I finished up my email and hit the send button. I dabble in a little social media as part of my job, and decided to update the Facebook page I manage. I logged in, and before I could even think about clicking the page I needed to go to, there I saw it. At the very top of my newsfeed: Supreme Court Denies Review Of Same-Sex Marriage Cases, Bringing Marriage Equality To Five States.
It was as if time stopped. There were no sounds except for my pounding heart and the low hum of my computer. I must have read the sentence a dozen times. When I finally snapped out of my dumbfounded daze, I quickly devoured the Buzzfeed article. Sure enough, the article stated that the Supreme Court denied review of all pending same-sex marriage cases bringing marriage equality to five states. Still in muddled disbelief I Googled "Supreme Court gay marriage." There was very little news still. I then immediately went to SCOTUSblog and saw it again: Today's Orders: Same-Sex Marriage Petitions Denied. Same-Sex Marriage was now legal in five states including VIRGINIA.
At 10:03 a.m. on a Monday morning, the news washed over me. After two years, 11 months, and 23 days of my marriage not being recognized in my home state, the wait was finally over. I called my wife. She had not yet heard the news.
After I told her, we both just kept saying, "I can't believe it. Finally. Finally."
My wife said that as soon as she picked up the phone she could tell something was up; there was just something about the way my voice sounded—emotional, and excited as I relayed the news still in breathless disbelief. Before hanging up the phone I said, "You are truly, legally my wife. I love you."
Through happy tears she told me she loved me too.
Afterward, we both talked about how we sat at our desks at work in total shock. The SCOTUS decision had come so quietly and unexpectedly. My wife said people even asked if she was alright…and she just lifted her head and let the words tumble from her lips:
Even now, a couple of days later, the full impact of how our lives will change still hasn't hit us. I'm sure there are many things that we haven't even thought of. But the biggest thing, after all of the amazement and shock had time to marinate, is the knowledge of how much more security we have together for our marriage and for the family we've both been dreaming of. It just makes everything that much more real and suddenly possible.
There is still so much left to do. We have a long way to go before our country figures out what is right. We all know that there is still work to be done, but this huge step in the right direction. This is a step that says that she is mine, and I am hers in the eyes of our government, as well as our family and friends—and that is no small victory.
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The best day of my life, now…is even better. \t\t |
Abby Waller – Oct. 8th 2014
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