“Do you want to go to San Francisco?”

On Tuesday a judge in California ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban gay marriages, opening the way for same-sex couples to pronounce their vows. Last year during the height of the gay marriages, I found myself wondering whether I would ever have an opportunity to meet and eventually marry a woman. Would it still be possible when I am ready? Although the recent decision will surely be appealed and I am not a California resident, I am in a very different place than I was last year at this time.

I think about marriage. I wonder how planning a wedding with Dawn would differ from the experience I had planning two with Ben. I wonder what it would be like to marry a woman. I wonder what kinds of thoughts would float through my guests’ minds on the wedding day. It strikes me as odd that -- given enough time -- our friends and family could be more enthusiastic about the event than Ben’s and mine were about the one we intended to host. Is it really possible that a non-traditional wedding could be viewed more favorably than a traditional one? When Ben’s mother is included in the traditional category, I suppose it is possible. Don’t people respond favorably when they sense genuine emotion, love, … a healthy relationship?

It moves me immensely to find acceptance for my choice to embrace my lesbian identity. I have never felt so supported by my family and friends as I do now. It took me 28 years to admit to myself that I am gay and an additional 7 years to find what I feel like I have been looking for my entire life. It feels as if I have finally located a hidden network of paths that have previously been obscured by tangled delusions of being heterosexual. It was the weirdest experience to reveal that I am attracted to women and then question whether being with a woman was really part of my destiny when I had trouble meeting lesbian women. Some of my straight female friends would tell me about experiences they had had being picked up by lesbian women. Was something wrong with me? Was I sending out the wrong signals? I almost gave up last fall when I felt disillusioned by the idea that I had met a woman with whom I had an incredible amount of chemistry, but who made a choice to be with someone else. You never hear about sparks flying and then being ignored. What do you do with that?

I am not ready to be married. There are many things that I must figure out before I get to that stage, but it is a wonderful feeling to have met a woman with whom I can envision marriage being a point along our path. Time will tell. Right now I am toying with the idea that everything has a cost. The cost I am paying to spend time with her, Dawn, to get to know her better is in the form of muscular tightness and limited time as a result of spending 12 plus hours in the car each week. To date, the benefits of being together have outweighed the cost of getting there. Learning about someone else can happen so much faster and more thoroughly when two people are together.

While Dawn and her daughter Mollie are on vacation for 10 days, I am using the time to process all that has happened and make sense of where I am going in relation to where I have been. The past few months have been quite a ride. How wonderful it feels to be able to experience it!