Metaphor About Lack of Ball Possession in a Given Sport

Last night, I wrote to an old friend. I do not know that I will receive a reply; that is fine, I think, because I have said what needed saying and the rest is presently out of my control.

Our estrangement came about before my wedding. That was a fairly stressful time in mine and Amber's lives; I, of course, can only truly speak to my experience. We were living out in the sticks and Amber was working on her thesis. I was dealing mentally with all of the potential ramifications of telling my sundry family members that I was getting married.

More accurately, I was dealing mentally with all of the potential ramifications of telling my sundry family members who I was marrying.

I had had a set-to with my best and oldest friend (C) years before, when Amber or anyone like her was not even on my radar. I had just admitted to myself that I was in love with one of my close friends and dealing with telling people who needed to know. C tole me that she did not think she could come to my wedding if I married a girl, much less be in it. I told her that I would be her bridesmaid if she married my mortal enemy at the South Pole, and made me wear one of those thrice-damned wench dresses from the Renaissance Festival while I was doing so.

When Amber and I got married at the beginning of May, 2009, C was there. As a bonus, she married a very nice man in Wichita Falls in 2007 and I got to wear blue satin. Success!

Since C had given me her positive RSVP, I supposed that when it came to it, my other friends who had been twitchy about the gay would put it aside long enough to come have cake and wish Amber and I well in our life together. It is difficult, if not impossible, to describe how it felt to be told that, really, no, that was not going to happen.

It was definitely orders of magnitude less horrifying than being told that Grandpa had died. Of course.

However, my loyalty is a binary proposition, and so being told that yes, I am her friend, but no, she really would not come to my wedding because Amber is a girl pretty significantly shook my entire worldview. I still do not understand what is so hard about grokking that I love her, and no, please, actually, do not pray that I will change (and what the hell kind of prayer is that, anyway? Dear G-d, please make [insert homo here] abandon her/his wife/husband/spouse and cats/dogs/kids for a person of the opposite gender because that would somehow be better, apparently) because I love this person with everything I am.

And if we are being truly honest here, if G-d is the sort of deity who will condemn me for all time because I married a girl, then I cannot say as how I really need to be associated with that anyway. Fortunately, I am pretty sure that if G-d is in fact sentient, that G-d probably has other things to think about. Really.

I had a point.

Ah, yes. It was that it has sucked all over the place to not have my friend, and that I finally came to a place where I could be less hurt and angry, mostly because I have now been married for two years, and the marriage equality train has left the station and is picking up speed. Also, if things begin to go very poorly over here, I will simply apply to study in a country which recognises all marriages. So, we have options, and what individuals think about who I married is nigh irrelevant at this point. It probably helps that now having been married for TWO WHOLE YEARS that it is really just normal at this point, and I suspect that eventually people will look around and have an epiphany.

At any rate, I feel better having extended the olive branch, difficult as it was on my ego. Egos are the root of most evil anyway, so I expect that the blow will ultimately prove positive.