I can understand how all those gay couples who are getting married tomorrow must feel: Two years and two weeks ago, I was feeling something very similar, I think. On the eve of my surgery, I felt the sense of anticipation I imagine those couples are feeling.
They have done a lot of planning, I’m sure. Some may have planned to get married in Massachusetts or Canada or some other place where same-sex marriage was legalized before Andrew Cuomo signed it into law in this state. Others may have been waiting to get married here in New York and would not have considered any place else.
But they all have something in common: They have been waiting. Some have been waiting for as long as they can remember, as I had been waiting to live as the person I am. Others may have never thought about marriage until they heard about other gay couples getting married in other places; they may have, somewhere along the way, given up hope of having the sort of life their parents and most of their friends and peers have had. They may have lived in long and deep despair, as I did, and will soon see it turn to joy.
And, just as I had faith but still hoped that everything would go well, I am sure most of those couples want everything to be just right, whatever that means for them. But, I would guess, they know that whatever happens, everything is going to be all right, or at least, they will be living in synch with themselves, living the lives they, as human beings, have a right to share with other human beings.
When I had my surgery, I felt as if I had, in some way, given birth and had entered into the race of people into which I had always belonged, even if I had lived in a sort of exile from it. I’m guessing that at least some of those people who are getting married tomorrow will feel their own versions of those senasations.
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