Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Never knew I could feel like this 
Like I´ve never seen the sky before 
I want to vanish inside your kiss 
Every day I love more and more 
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sings 
Telling me to give you everything 
Seasons may change, winter to spring 
But I love you until the end of time 

Hollywood tells us all about love.  About how it is big and bold.  How it is grand gestures.  How it fills your heart with song and your eyes with tears.  Movies. Television. Plays. Music. Commercials.  They all feed us the same dribble about how love makes you whole.  No matter what.

Come what may 
Come what may 
I will love you until my dying day 

Then somehow the rules are changed when love doesn’t conform to societies norms.  A couple generations ago, it was dismissed and hidden when love sprung in biracial relationships.  In other places and time the problem was love between different castes or socio-economic standings. Today, some people want to deny the love that two people feel just because their genitalia is too similar.  They look away when two men hold hands on the metro.  They oversexualize relationships between women.  Women and men around the world face violence for being who they are, loving who they love, and expressing their gender as it is. Others deny their truth.

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly my life doesn´t seem such a waste
But our world revolves around you
And there´s no mountain too high
No river too wide
Sing out this song I´ll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide
But I love you until the end of time

Love isn’t what Hollywood sells us.  It isn’t just grand gestures.  And song.  (Well, maybe sometimes it is, if you are lucky).  It also isn’t always tragic or fated.  Love, the kind of love that grows families, is in the small things.  It is the everyday things.  It is getting up in the morning to make coffee because your partner has to.  It is letting go of a bit of yourself to be there for the other.  It is reminding the other who they are and supporting them in that.  It is having the same interests.  Laughing at little inside jokes even when they are no longer funny.  Sharing values and night time diaper changes.   It is feeling comfortable and safe.  It is being safe.

Oh, come what may, come what may
I will love you, I will love you
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

And if you are lucky.  If you are really lucky.  You find that person.  Your other half.

Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day

And if you have that, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks.  It matters that you are together.  That you love. That you support each other.  That you grow old together.  The world will catch up.

Marriage equality now!

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Today is Blogging for LGBT Families Day, an annual event sponsored by Mombian.  Check out all the entries from this year! Here are my entries from other years:

• Families by Choice (2011): “I sit writing this, waiting for the arrival of my daughter.  As a bisexual woman married to a man, I worry about educating my child.  I worry how to create a home environment that is safe, a place where she can grow up without shame, knowing who she is and who her family is.  I worry about the best ways to help her grow in a bilingual, biracial household– especially when that is located in a third culture. I ponder how my messages can be stronger than societies.  I worry about everyday stuff and big picture stuff.”
• Because of a Little Piece of Paper (2010):  ”So often I feel this unearned privilege of having married a man thrown in my face.  What if S had been a woman? My life partner very easily could have been a woman.  And what protections would she have been given?  The unfairness of it all burns.  And, you think I exaggerate, but writing this, my eyes are welling with tears.”
• Blogging for LGBT Families (2007): “Karen Atala, a Chilean judge with three children, had her children taken away from her by the courts in 2004 when she moved in with her partner. The courts granted custody to the father, he ex-husband. Ms. Atala, being a lawyer and judge herself, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Chile which ruled on the basis that, “[the children] would suffer psychological harm living with Ms. Atala and her partner…[and that] they would become confused about gender roles and suffer from discrimination and isolation.” The court then nullified all her rights as a mother and gave permanent and total custody to the girl’s father forever. She is still fighting, now on an international front, to have her children returned to her.”