Fourth Anniversary

Four years ago today, Nigel and I were legally married. It was a very big deal then, and it still is now, though we probably take it for granted as much as any other married couple does after four years. But, then, by the time we were married, we’d been together for some 17 years—nearly eighteen. That’s a long engagement! That wasn’t our idea, of course, but despite the delay, we ended up getting an ordinary life.

This particular event is kind of odd in some ways. Marriage came along after we’d been together 17 years—just under 18 years. We’d also had a civil union in 2009 because it was the only formal recognition open to us at the time, though that was also a great day. So when we were actually married in 2013, it changed everything, but it also came sort of the last step.

And, of course, it also added yet another anniversary to my Season of Anniversaries.

The thing is, it didn’t change anything in the way we lived our daily lives, but it added layers of protection that had been missing, even with the civil union. The important thing, though, was that it made us the true equals of our heterosexual friends and family, and that matters far more than, perhaps, heterosexuals can understand.

Today was just an ordinary day: Work, and some projects at home. Then, dinner, some TV, and then sleep to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Because that was really the point of marriage, wasn’t it? To have a perfectly ordinary life, just like everyone else’s. Any of us may end up doing extraordinary things, or not, but it’s always built on the common, shared base of ordinariness.

Four years ago today, we achieved the ordinariness that our heterosexual friends and family always took for granted. And that still matters. But, to me, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I’ve spent another year married to the person I love most in this world. And that is what the whole long wait and the struggle was all about.

Like I always say, love always wins in the end—always.

Previously
Third Anniversary (2016)
Second Anniversary (2015)
Still married (2014)
Related
To be married
Husband and husband
Just one more

The photo up top is of our wedding rings, which I took the morning of October 31, 2013. Unlike most of my other photos on this blog, this one is copyright, all rights reserved. Of course.