Comments on: Scattered notes from an anniversary

By: Lesbian Dad

Lesbian Dad — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:09:52 +0000

You are so sweet! And jasureyoubetcha (all one word, at least as it’s written in Minnesota), link away. And by all means, on your extendo-date: start it early! Rather than stretch it late. I didn’t make that clear in the post, but that’s what totally worked for us. Seeing each other by the light of day, WITHOUT HAVING OUR EVERY SENTENCE INTERRUPTED, and having the leisure to continue the conversations. Wow, that was nothing short of a revelation.

Happy upcoming anniversary to you, too, dimplecheek!

By: dimplecheek

dimplecheek — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:05:40 +0000

Congrats to you and the Beloved! Thank you for sharing this great love story and inspiring me to make that extended date for me and my love. We will have known each other 10 years on the 31st of this month!

I hope it is okay with you that I wanted to share this post with some of my readers and friends. I posted a link to it on my blog (http://www.dimplecheek.blogspot.com/). If that is not okay, please let me know and I will remove the link. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission I guess.

As always, I love your writing and learning more about you and your life. This 42 year old hetero wants to be just like you when I grow up!

By: Lesbian Dad

Lesbian Dad — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:38:08 +0000

Okay and one more thing. Not that you asked. But you opened the door. One of the other most precious things I’ve learned is that there are a few utterly non-negotiable traits one needs from a partner that are way less insignificant in other people in one’s life. There are many traits & qualities that fellow collective members can have, political comrades, folks one canoodles with (or f*ck buddies, whichever term suits!).

Over the long haul, though, what’s been indispensable for us is a shared willingness to work at discovering and articulating the most painful emotional truths. This, coupled with a decisive lack of narcissism. Chronic narcissism and long-term relationships are really hard to reconcile, if you ask me.

The absence of these particular skills may or may not sink one’s relationship with political or intellectul or sexual comrades. But it feels to me that their absence (or fatal flaws) will surely sink a long-term partner relationship.

It’s true that we never tire of hearing what the other thinks about this and that, we love to listen to each other talking to other people, negotiating complex intellectual or emotional terrain. But it’s the skills and willingness that we bring to bear on the relationship work that we simply couldn’t persevere without. In this regard, for every one of the past 15 years, I’ve felt like I was playing tennis with someone who’s better at it than me, by just enough to keep me working hard (but not so much as to make me feel like it’s a hopeless mismatch).

By: Lesbian Dad

Lesbian Dad — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:14:51 +0000

Thank you, Sinclair. One of my favorite aphorisms about longevity in relationships came from a woman whose memoir I was helping edit (she’s a “deep ecology” Buddhist speaker/activist).

When she and her husband were being married — this was over fifty years ago in New York; he just died last year at 80-something — the pastor who married them sealed the ceremony with the words, “May you ever be strangers to one another.” At first the words seemed puzzling. But over time, I’ve realized that it’s really a precious gift we give someone we don’t yet know: spaciousness, a lack of prejudgement, a willingness to discover.

By: Sinclair

Sinclair — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:01:05 +0000

Aww! Congrats on the anniversary, I love hearing the stories of how you’ve made it work all these years. I just adore the photo of the two of you at the end, you look so happy and beautiful.

By: Lesbian Dad

Lesbian Dad — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:41:23 +0000

!Gracias, Jennifer PM!

By: Jennifer PM

Jennifer PM — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:30:58 +0000

What a wonderful way to celebrate your anniversary! Muchas felicidades!

By: Lesbian Dad

Lesbian Dad — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:16:04 +0000

XOXO back, francesca! I’m absolutely positive that all the stressors, every loss around us has made us that much more acutely aware of what we have, what we ought to care about, what we ought to simply let go.

Not sure I’d have asked for any of them (several I would have made a deal with the devil to keep from happening). But we just can’t have that insight, so dearly bought, go for naught. Living and loving as fully as possible seems to be the only sensible response. (Elswhere, madness lies.)

By: francesca

francesca — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:20:56 +0000

Hello lovebirds!!! This is just such a stellar reminder of who is writing this underneath it all – under the giant suck and fallout of Prop 8, under mourning and loss, under financial pressure and the balance between time/energy. Look how radiant you are together – print that out and stash it in your wallet. This is just a wonderful post and I’m thankful the two of you got to reconnect and fall in love all over again. You’re the couple we want to be in 15 years xoxo f

By: Lesbian Dad

Lesbian Dad — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:44:37 +0000

Hey and thanks you gals, rev2bebt and megincl. Your notes came during the epic pause it took me between starting my comment, responding to a kid or two, and then finishing it.

Thank you all. Love, and the aiding and abetting thereof: it’s some of our finest work as a species. Thank you for cheering ours, and inspiring much more of it.