October 31st, 2005 | | Posted in Uncategorized
Flying high above Kansas right now, cruising altitude next to a lesbian-lawyer name Darla Kermel. Reading Dan Savage’s book, The Kid What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant (an adoption story).
Geoff and I often talked to each other about the family we planned. A girl, a boy, a girl and two boys. We had picked out some names and outfits… Each Sunday Geoff and I would venture off to the United Methodist Church of Columbia. We sat together, sang together and listened together. We took communion together. Every time I kneeled on the red cushion, accept the dry bread and red wine as Jesus’ bodyand blood, I thanked God for allowing me to find Geoff and prayed for the day we would sit next to each other at a softball game or soccer tournament.
There were a few ways that Geoff and I had decided we would go about raising a family. Our first choice was of course adoption. This would be a fine option for us but being such proud people, we both wanted a little bit of our genes our children. Lucky us, Geoff has a sister. I won’t go into the obvious details, but by her carrying out kid, he/she would have both our genes. This I doubt was ever presented to his sister, but I have a pretty good idea that she would have been cool with it. She is an awesome girl, if I could choose a sister, of all my friends she is the best I have come upon.
Another option, similar to the latter, surrogate (that was not Geoff’s sister). We both had received several offers to bear our children. I am currently at seven surrogates. Geoff I am sure has no fewer, being the stallion he is! My top girls, Jenny and Jena of course.
Geoff and I both have professional lives planned, not the homemaker type of guys. Now, don’tget us wrong, we both like to cook and keeping a clean house is a great thing, one of those things neither of us could claim 100% of the time, closer to about 60%. But with a little bit of help from Rosario (of course we would have Rosario) we would have a perfect cookie cutter home. Now, don’t get into the cliché tooquickly. How cookie cutter of a home is one owned by two gay guys with a live in Rosario and 2.5 children? We would provide a different dynamic most cookie cutter homes owned by heterosexual (hereafter “breeders”) couples. These breeders often elect, or assign one of the members, typically the wife, as the stay-at-home caregiver.
Coffee in bed while we caught ourselves up on the local and national news, preparing a balanced breakfast for the children; Geoff is a huge fan of the sugary Lucky Charms, hopefully I could brainwash the kids into loving my shredded wheat (100% of your daily fiber requirement!). Scuttling themoff to school, we would likely take turns running the neighborhood carpool. My green SUV or Geoff’s black-blue sports sedan would carry our kids and their neighboring peers to a fun filled day at a school Geoff probably spent too much time investigating before deciding we had moved into a nice enough neighborhood, I was moreconcerned with their access to fabulous entertainment and low taxes, my bad.
Rosario would greet them when as our children hopped off the school bus, I figure a friend or two every once-in-a-while would stop over and play games on our pristine green lawn in the back yard, peanut butter balls, a recipe from my mother, would be offered to them after they tired themselves acting out scenes only children can imagine.
Both being competitive partners and loving parents, it would be a raise to see who could be the first one home to the kids. Being workaholics, we would also be hypocrites. Never the less, together we would fix dinner, sit down the three, four or six of us (Rosario of course) and enjoy a dinner full of conversation. There would be that one friend who’s aloof parents seemed to always forget needed to eat at their own home which would sit across the table requesting seconds on mashed potatoes and causing problems when we were one soufflé short.
After setting them to sleep, tired and ready for our time together, Geoff and would head to bed, doing the things people in love do and start over.
That is the vision that raced through my head each and every Sunday, seriously. That is a lot to think about in your thirty seconds of eating Jesus.
I never imagined this would not happen.
I have not been to Church for communion since Geoff and I broke up. What do I have to talk to God about now? I only have strong words for him, and as for his son, try the Atkins diet and stop being such a wino, bread and wine, only the French would dare such a diet.
I just caught myself dancing to Nelly Furtado’s song Fresh off the Boat. Luckily no one caught my seat-belted jiving.
I want to make sure everyone knows that I have nothing but love for Geoff and Mark. Maybe my dream will be their future. I hope the best for those two guys, only wishing I knew Mark a little more and that Geoff would call me back more often (wink wink). I get a warm feeling across my chest as my heart beings to beat faster thinking ofthe future Geoff has ahead of himself. Success is written upon everything he touches; me jealous? Only a little bit! ;-)
Why, you ask, am I writing this at 32,000 feet in the air, hurling across the nation at 300mph in a Boeing 737? If you read the first paragraph, you of course know I am reading an adoption story.
Dan Savage, my second favorite homosexual writer (David Sedaris is first of course), has written a book about his adventures in the adoption of his “kid” with his boyfriend Terry. A line on page ninety-three caught my attention and caused a few tears to fall. This startled me enough to unpack my carry-on and start my laptop.
We were officially in the pool. Now we had to wait. It was two days after Christmas. We walked around a Baby Gap in downtown Seattle later the same day, admiring cute and inexpensive kiddie duds…
Immediately an image popped into my head. One of Geoff and I at the mall, walking together into a Baby Gap admiring cute and inexpensive kiddie duds… Not that it actually ever occurred but he is the closest person I have come to marrying, that wasn’t abreeder. His image, therefore, is the first that pops into my head when thinking about my future husband. Poor future husband, compared to Geoff, yikes, good luck competing haha.
Fear strikes me as I sit, chilled by the cabin’s overactive air-conditioning system and cold bright sunlight. What if I never walk into that Baby Gap?
Would a life alone, without any children, be worth living… at all? In my mind, no. I cannot imagine living a life only for myselfand not for my children, my child. What is the point of saving up money if not for a college fund? Why buy a house if you only fill the empty rooms with emotional devoid materialistic purchases? Plus, how could I explain an SUV if I am not driving my kids to soccer games or a camping trip in the Everglades?!
Landon and I had been talking about a future together and up until I got to Columbia, I thought it would soon become my reality. That is, until reality caught up with me. He is in Missouri, I am inCalifornia. He has a different plan for his future than I do. He has a different life in mind and I feel prefers to be a part of what Savage refers to as a DINK (Double Income, No Kids). I think we called it off, suddenly and with few words.
My apple juice, with no ice, is approaching and calling me. One moment please.
I asked for no ice hoping to get the entire 6oz can. I love those cute cans… Downed the apple juice in one gulp.
Wondering where I am now on my voyage for love, life and family; I figure it is time to get down to business. Settle down into a four year university somewhere, live in town, as opposed to on the side of a mountain in a remote area of northern California. I need to immerse myself in my studies, work and that search for, as Landon put it in an email this morning, my first choice, and as I would correct - my second first choice.
I think a gin and tonic is appropriate at this moment. There, order in to the flight steward. My lesbian lawyer is busy at work on a case, Public works and bond liens.
Wow, that was a fast gin and tonic.
I wonder if she plans to have a family. She is flying to Washington and then Oregon, two of the most progressive states for adoption. Of course, being a female gay, waiting for adoption is not as much an issue; shecan bake her own kid in her very own bio-oven. Geoff offered a uterus implant for us… Damn science being behind our progressive ideas! haha
She is so kind, asks before opening/closing the window screen, offers to turn on my overhead light and offers the middle seat tray-table to hold my drink.
I must soon begin approaching my new, self-prescribed future. Dream it , work for it, and make it happen. I will not work all of my life for my cats to inherit everything.
One of the chapters in The Kid What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant (an adoption story) is entitled “The Real Reasons”. In this chapter, Dan Savage explains the reasons he wants a kid or kids. Well sort of.
Reading to page 127, I tear up again. Terry and Dan have a chance with a baby boy. A girl named Melissa is pregnant. A gutter punk, she drank 20-25 beers a week for the first four months, dropped acid and smoked pot until she found out she was pregnant.
Knowing this, and knowing the possible effects alcohol, drugs and a homeless lifestyle has on unborn children, on page 127, they decide, FAS or not, they want this baby. They are sitting at a restaurant, thinking over their impeding deadline until they announce to establishment’s owner “We’re pregnant”.
I think Savage’s words on the previous page readied my tear ducts for a shower. You love your child no matter what. Your child becomes you “…swing sets, E. coli hamburgers and car accidents…” aside.
Can you imagine this kind of love? Truly unconditional? I can’t say I have ever loved anyone completely, unconditionally. But a child, my child, what could he ever do to void my love?
That is why I want kids. Should my kid someday become ill,I will be there for him just as my parents were there for me. My medical bills in high school and even today are outrageous. Jim and Landon have not been in the hospital three days in the past six years. I have not been in the hospital under five times in a single year for… five years? In high school it was almost a monthly visit.
In junior high, after becoming aware the dangers of being gay, I developed a stomach ulcer/acid reflux. I never told my parents what was stressing me out so much as to cause someone in the seventh grade to have a disorder obliged to the 45 year old stock broker, popping TUMS and spelling relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S. I was thirteen years old popping Zantac 150 and Prilosec. Behold the power of stress.
My parents brought me to my doctor appointments, they paid on time and never made me feel guilty about the costs of my medicine. Some months I topped out around $250 in medicine, not to mention the doctor bills.
My parents still love me.
In high school I became a total bitchto my parents. Part of the problem was the seizure medication I was on. Apparently it caused mood swings. I don’t think my parents would disagree with that side-effect. They loved me through this. My relationship with my dad suffered, no matter how hard he tried to appeal to me, “he just didn’t get it“.
My parents still love me.
I told my mom, in my first collegiate semester that I was gay. She cried.
She still loves me.
My dad knows I am gay, my grandmother knows I am gay, thought neither person has said to me they know and I have not told them directly.
They still love me.
My father always tells me that nothing I could do, nothing I could say would ever make him love me less. He normally begins to talk about lifestyle choices. (My stomach turns at this point of the conversation).
He really does love me.
It is only fair that I can achieve this someday. I believe blog entries this long are not fair so I will end this one, unless I start to tear up again, in which case, blame Dan Savage, not me.
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