holy matrimony, batman!

                so. my sister got married this summer.
               over the years, the relationship between my sister and I has been...how shall we say....rocky. but in the years since she moved out of the house, we’ve managed to maintain a certain degree of closeness in categories other than “the insanity with which our parents blessed us.” So it was a little scary for me to see her getting married. being married would make her grown-up. to me, this was a threatening separation--I pictured myself sitting alone at the “kid’s table” at family get-togethers. also, marriage would be a major life change for her, and thus a major difference between us: single vs. married. and finally, it meant that she would have her own home now, separate from the house i live in. with a husband around, my sister would become a guest in our house. we would have to clean when she came for a visit. I would have to give up my room to her and her husband, because my room has a double bed and the guest room doesn’t.....it might seem irrational, but it really felt like I was losing her. as my sister and brother-in-law drove off in the car decked with shaving-cream declarations of “Do It In The Road!” (my brother-in-law is a huge Beatles fan), my mother echoed my sentiments: “I’m happy for her and everything, but it feels so strange…like I’m letting her just drive off with some guy.”

get me to the church on time
                And I was happy for her. Really. i mean, heck, I helped organize the bleedin’ wedding! and let me tell you, wedding planning is nowhere NEAR as easy as it looks. especially when the bride, groom, and their respective parental units can’t decide or agree on a damn thing….most of the stress ended up on my mom. always the voice of reason, she became the arbiter of disagreements, attempting to make everyone at least minimally happy, and trying desperately to create a non-traditional yet non-threatening wedding. things went...well, as smoothly as could be expected. that is, until the day before the rehearsal…
                see, my sister and my brother-in-law had been planning to walk down the aisle barefoot. heaven knows why, but it was something my brother-in-law had always wanted to do. however, for some reason, my father hadn’t heard about these plans (despite my constant references to the “barefoot hippie wedding”), and when my sister showed him the sandals she had “for the reception,” my father freaked out.
                apparently, the idea of being shoeless in church was completely anathema to him, nothing short of sacrilege. he became suddenly very childish, and started doing something that always infuriates me: talking about “feelings.” as if going barefoot in church really offended his feelings. offended his sense of propriety, yes; his christian-reformed traditionalism, certainly. but his feelings? highly doubtful. he never talks about feelings unless he wants to get his way. it’s a kind of emotional blackmail, like a child crying in a toy store. anyways, the result of this patriarchal hissy fit was my sister, my girlfriend, and I making a last-minute run to the mall (a place we were very sick of, having spent the last 3 days shopping for wedding shite) in order to by shoes.
                this is just one of the many tiny, fussing, and basically silly details that one must coordinate in a wedding. I quite expected my mumsie’s head to explode, or my sister and brother-in-law to run off and elope. but the whole thing went off with hardly a hitch; and what’s more important, the “I survived Katie & Brad’s wedding” buttons that I made a were a big hit at the reception.

modern love
                despite my happiness for my sister, the was an element of discomfort for me in this flurry of wedding activity, a nagging question in the back of my head: what would happen if I were getting married?
                I love my girlfriend, and every day I’m with her i become more and more sure that she’s the one. I don’t think it would even be possible for us to break up: we’ve done it twice before, and we always end up back together. so marriage seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to look forward to.
                except for a few minor obstacles.
                first, we’d have to find somewhere where same-sex marriage is legal. (that narrows it down to vermont, canada, or somewhere in europe.) secondly, and much more importantly, there’s the issue of people’s reactions. merely broaching the topic of same-sex marriage to our families meets with swift disapproval. (which means, at the very least, that we would not receive the amount of money and gifts that my sister and brother-in-law did.) for instance, my parents wouldn’t be there. my mom might want to come, but if my dad refused to (and I know he would), my mom would stay home with him. I don’t know if my grandparents understand….or my catholic relatives. in fact, the only family members I think would come would be my auntie, uncle, and sister…probably.
                ‘But why all the disapproval?’ you ask. ‘Are you not out to your family?’ well, i am out, and my parents have told me repeatedly that they accept my being gay....so long as I remain celibate. well.
                Would they, perhaps, give my marriage their blessing if I pledged to stay celibate? (it certainly would be a tricky situation, you can’t just send out invitations saying “come to our wedding! we’re getting married, but not having sex!”) could I even do that? if I did, would it be for the right reasons? this is a big issue for me, and frankly, one i’m not prepared to discuss in the zine. But the point remains that many of the people i love would consider my marriage to be my damnation. and let me tell you, this is not a warm fuzzy feeling.
                If I were to get married, I would want to stand in front of that altar and be thinking of nothing but the person standing there with me, marveling that someone so beautiful and amazing would actually choose to put up with me--for life. I would NOT want to be thinking about my parents absence, wondering if maybe i really am going to hell. I would want those wedding vows to be free of guilt and fear. (and yes, i realize that this guilt and fear is the result of lifelong socialization, but unfortunately that knowledge doesn’t make the feelings go away.)
                Perhaps it would be easier to elope, and tell people about the marriage after the fact, when it’s too late for them to stop us. at first this seems like an appealing option, but then i wonder....what is the point of a wedding ceremony without people there to witness it? a public declaration of love. so eloping wouldn’t solve anything. and after all, maybe it wouldn’t be fair to just run off and not give my family a chance. maybe i’m underestimating them. or, maybe they would disown me. how does one make the decision between one’s family and one’s beloved? (You can see now why I always identified with the third daughter in “Fiddler on the Roof.”) Oh, sure, it’s easy to say “If your family doesn’t support you, forget ‘em,” but actually doing so is another story. i would miss them. and i’d like to think they’d miss me....
                I’m not saying that I want church bells and foofy dresses and a bouquet to hurl at someone’s head (although those things aren’t without their allure)....but i would like a bit of beauty, a bit of ceremony: a white dress, an exchange of rings, and my loved ones, looking uncomfortably dressed up, beaming at me as i walk down the aisle. i just want what everyone else gets to have.
                So, even though I’m happy for my sister, i’m jealous of her socially acceptable relationship. i want that simplicity, that communal approval, for my girlfriend and I. I want (in the words of Rogers & Hammerstein), “To kiss in the sunlight / and say to the sky / ‘Behold and believe what you see / Behold how my lover loves me....’”