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Posts Tagged "GLBT"
I had the opportunity this week to stay at Toronto’s Drake Hotel and we had a fantastic time. I had never heard of the Drake Hotel although it has the sort of name that sounds familiar to me. I found it on Trip Advisor and every other hotel in Toronto was full. I never did figure out why everything was booked, but the Drake Hotel seemed like a good fit for us. I picked up my chef daughter from her job in Muskoka and we spent 2 nights and 3 days together in Toronto. We checked in on Sunday afternoon. The hotel is small, charming, and has multiple restaurants and bars full of trendy, interesting people. We were given a room on the 3rd floor. We were surprised to find out there is no elevator so we trekked up the stairs and found a lovely but small, very cool guest room. We were greeted with complimentary sparkling wine on ice and the room was full of interesting items for purchase as well as a fun “mini-bar” area full of tasty beverages and snacks. The design concept really stood out and we felt like we were not quite cool enough for our hip accommodations. That said, Jonathan the manager greeted us warmly every time he saw us and made us feel incredibly welcome. He hugged us when we left–we felt loved and cared for in this fun hipster hotel. I am not sure we were cool enough for our surroundings, but we felt welcome and enjoyed its charm. We ate breakfast twice in their cafe and the food was fantastic. I only wish we had the energy to explore more of what was going on. There is a roof-top bar that looked very fun. We heard happy people partying late into the night. This didn’t bother us, it was kind of fun–like falling asleep on the couch during a really great party. During our stay, there was an open mike and a pickle contest...
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On August 30, 2013 we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. This is obviously a big deal for us. We never had a honeymoon, so we went to Europe for a month this summer. Also, we decided to take our kids. We figure we have about 5 more years before they’re teenagers, and we didn’t want to leave them behind. I find that even though our 10th anniversary has passed, I am not quite done with it yet. For whatever reason, this 10 year anniversary date had lots of meaning for me. Maybe more than any other date. I am not a person that remembers all the important dates. I remember birthdays for my family and my anniversary. I don’t connect to death dates although I know other people do and try to be aware of those days. My mother connects with those days and she is the family archivist. I am reassured that she has all that information even though I don’t always want to know it. Anyway, I wanted to post a few pictures from our wedding and I wanted to tell you a little bit about it. We got married right after same-sex marriage became legal in 2003. We had been in Canada about a year. We knew we wanted to get married. We had even talked about me establishing residency in Belgium by living there for 6 months so we could marry there. Marriage was an extremely important value for us and if there was a way to marry, we were going to do it. My brother visited in June, right after it was legal in Ontario, and we would have done a small intimate wedding while he was here, but since I had a foreign divorce (we were shocked to find that the USA divorce needed a written legal opinion from a Canadian lawyer), we had to submit the necessary paper work and wait. That led to planning a wedding later in the summer and then we figured we might...
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To my husband, You are the love of my life. You make my life richer, fuller, more interesting and so full of love. When we decided to join our lives together I had dreams of flowers and romance and making each other happy. And there have been days like that. But the reality of our marriage has been so much more complex. We challenge each other and take on big challenges and lifetime commitments together. We make life changing decisions together. Marriage involves an intimacy that takes my breath away when I allow myself to think about it. You have seen me at my worst and you love me anyway. You have been so incredibly mad at me and still you love me so much. The intimacy of that love year after year is astounding. At every juncture there is a choice to keep committing to our love or to get annoyed, give up and stop. Every time, you choose love. I know you love me because of how you care for our lives. The evidence of the love you have for our family is all around us. It is clear in the way you care for our children and make time for them. It is in the grass you cut, in the swimming pool you maintain, it is in the white picket fence that lines our 2-acre property that you repair and replace pickets for each year. A couple of years ago someone recommended we replace that fence with something that would require less maintenance. I couldn’t imagine trading it in–it is a symbol for me of the love in our lives. Your love shows when you give me the car with the gas tank full and make sure the oil gets changed. We haven’t chosen an easy life, but one full of love and care. You show me that love every day. When we got married, I thought marriage was about love and kisses but what I know now is that being...
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Dear Diary, Yesterday was a crazy day. And by that, I mean that I made myself a little crazy. I created a world I don’t really want to live in–but only in my head. It has been a tough week. I have been sharing the Crucible with a focus group and I also took some entries to my writing group. Then, one of my kids told me “gay” is a bad word. We talked about it, and then I talked with the vice-principal to try to figure this out and to help the kids understand why they shouldn’t say “you’re gay” but not because “gay” is a bad word. All this has been going on, and then I sent out a page of the Crucible as a way to “come out” to a new friend about our family. I sent the page to her on Friday with a note that said how vulnerable I felt sharing it with her. Mostly I felt vulnerable because she is religious, and I honestly never know how some religious people will respond to our family. I say this, and yet in our little world, we have been extraordinarily safe. We simply haven’t come across many people who don’t like our family because we are queer. That said, I don’t test friendships with religious people very often. But we met some people we really liked and we had them over for drinks. It became clear to me that it was time to tell them. So I sent a page that described The Crucible Bookii and waited to hear back. Five days passed and I heard nothing about what I had sent her. I really couldn’t believe it. I am accustomed to the world surprising me with its acceptance. Could it be that she actually wasn’t going to respond to my coming out at all? I sent her the link on Friday, and by Wednesday I was pretty upset. I decided to send one more note, “Did you read what...
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After deciding to try being in a relationship with Mel, I had to try to figure out how I wanted to “be” in the relationship. I know the rules are different for us, but I didn’t know how I wanted to “be” with those rules. Also, we were in a new relationship and I wasn’t ready to tell everyone I knew about us because I wanted to keep him to myself. After we had been together about a week, we went to an event I have come to recall as my “One Day in the Closet”. This was an event put on by our church and ironically, it was an informational event for congregants about the church becoming a “welcoming congregation”. Being a “welcoming congregation” is a Unitarian Universalist designation meaning the church is GLBT Friendly. The church has a series of information sessions and then votes to become “a welcoming congregation”. Mel and I go to this and pretend for the whole day that we aren’t together, that we aren’t a couple. We know most of the people there and we try to “act normally.” It is agony. I want to hold his hand, I want to sit next to him. I feel physically sick from the deception. The event goes from 9am-3pm and when the end finally comes, I realize that if I am going to be in a relationship with Mel, then I am not going to hide. I am going to have to be brave enough to come out of the closet and tell everyone I know that we are together. Even though I am sure I don’t want to be closeted, I am also sure that I want to be safe. I become acutely aware of the special attention we get if we hold hands in public. I learn to ask myself whether it is safe before I grab Mel’s hand. I look around–usually for conservative looking rednecks–before offering a kiss. I am a rebel, so I like the...
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