dissolution
That's what you call it, legally -- dissolution. When your marriage ends. Yesterday, in my Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Law class we discussed gay marriage and I felt bitter. My professor showed a video documenting the ceremony of one couple, March 3rd, 2004, the day Multnomah County started letting the homos marry. The day *I* got married. I watched the video and felt burnt and hollow like a charred tree stump. Flashes of that day, standing in the line, all the couples, so sweet, so excited.
The rush to marry was so moving -- as though the gate was finally opened that had separated a thousand dehydrated people from a clean water source. We all rushed in and drank, drank, drank -- so thirsty! So thankful. So thankful to finally be "given" this basic right, this basic, simple right which straight people completely take for granted, as a matter of course: marriage, the acceptance, sanction and subsidizing of relationships by the government and the culture at large.
I watched the video of that ceremony, remembered my own hasty ceremony on the sidewalk outside the Multnomah Building by some unknown officiant, completely unplanned, unprepared for. Not only were we thirsty, not only were we gulping the water, but we were doing it as fast as we could b/c we did not have the luxury or leisure to look for the good glasses, ask for crushed ice, get some lemon or sprigs of mint. We were kneeling at the edge of the creek, scooping it up fast by the handfuls. We feared (knew) it would not last. We feared (knew) it would be taken away. We just didn't know when.
It wasn't even dissolved, it was found to be void from the start. Void from the start means our marriage never really existed. It never existed at all. It was nothing, nonexistent. All along, nonexistent.
I am weary of being invisible. I am weary. My marriage was taken away before I ever decided to end it myself. I didn't get to have a divorce. I didn't get to go through the bullshit paperwork. I didn't get the kind of closure that system creates. I don't think there's magic in that beaureaucracy, but it serves a cultural function and I wanted my share of it. I wanted my day. I wanted to be able to go to school and tell my peers, my professors, "sorry, I'm pretty frazzled, I'm in the middle of a divorce." That's like a talisman, a magic word, it carries power and meaning in this culture. People would understand, sympathize. People could relate. Instead, I come and say "I left my partner over the break" and they don't get it. They say "Oh, I'm sorry" and I can see in their eyes they're just thinking "Bummer, oh well." Because there is no cultural framework for my relationship, it exists in some fuzzy space for them. And by "them", of course, I'm referring to straight people. Though, queer people are immersed in exactly the same culture and have been so trained not to expect more from the world, queer people are just as likely to think "oh bummer' b/c they already aren't coming from the frame of reference of "divorce."
There's a cross I don't get to bear here. There's something culturally that I'm missing out on and I'm trying to make sense of it. I feel doubly alone in this. Four months after leaving, I'm still mourning the loss of my marriage. I am alone in it. And the fact is, my "marriage" ended a year before I left. My marriage ended by voter initiative, by ballot measure, by unfavorable state supreme court decision.
I'm frustrated. To take a line from an old Ani Difranco song: fuck this time and place.
I want to move to England. At least they allow gay marriage. And, presumably, gay divorce. I just want to go somewhere where I'm not fucking invisible.
The rush to marry was so moving -- as though the gate was finally opened that had separated a thousand dehydrated people from a clean water source. We all rushed in and drank, drank, drank -- so thirsty! So thankful. So thankful to finally be "given" this basic right, this basic, simple right which straight people completely take for granted, as a matter of course: marriage, the acceptance, sanction and subsidizing of relationships by the government and the culture at large.
I watched the video of that ceremony, remembered my own hasty ceremony on the sidewalk outside the Multnomah Building by some unknown officiant, completely unplanned, unprepared for. Not only were we thirsty, not only were we gulping the water, but we were doing it as fast as we could b/c we did not have the luxury or leisure to look for the good glasses, ask for crushed ice, get some lemon or sprigs of mint. We were kneeling at the edge of the creek, scooping it up fast by the handfuls. We feared (knew) it would not last. We feared (knew) it would be taken away. We just didn't know when.
It wasn't even dissolved, it was found to be void from the start. Void from the start means our marriage never really existed. It never existed at all. It was nothing, nonexistent. All along, nonexistent.
I am weary of being invisible. I am weary. My marriage was taken away before I ever decided to end it myself. I didn't get to have a divorce. I didn't get to go through the bullshit paperwork. I didn't get the kind of closure that system creates. I don't think there's magic in that beaureaucracy, but it serves a cultural function and I wanted my share of it. I wanted my day. I wanted to be able to go to school and tell my peers, my professors, "sorry, I'm pretty frazzled, I'm in the middle of a divorce." That's like a talisman, a magic word, it carries power and meaning in this culture. People would understand, sympathize. People could relate. Instead, I come and say "I left my partner over the break" and they don't get it. They say "Oh, I'm sorry" and I can see in their eyes they're just thinking "Bummer, oh well." Because there is no cultural framework for my relationship, it exists in some fuzzy space for them. And by "them", of course, I'm referring to straight people. Though, queer people are immersed in exactly the same culture and have been so trained not to expect more from the world, queer people are just as likely to think "oh bummer' b/c they already aren't coming from the frame of reference of "divorce."
There's a cross I don't get to bear here. There's something culturally that I'm missing out on and I'm trying to make sense of it. I feel doubly alone in this. Four months after leaving, I'm still mourning the loss of my marriage. I am alone in it. And the fact is, my "marriage" ended a year before I left. My marriage ended by voter initiative, by ballot measure, by unfavorable state supreme court decision.
I'm frustrated. To take a line from an old Ani Difranco song: fuck this time and place.
I want to move to England. At least they allow gay marriage. And, presumably, gay divorce. I just want to go somewhere where I'm not fucking invisible.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 9:24 PM
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