On May 18th, The Boy proposed.  Obviously I said yes.  So...we are engaged...and gloriously happy.  We're thinking June 2013.  There are not enough words to really describe how I feel about him.  He's my absolute hero, the love of my life, the other half of my soul, the warmth of my world, my courage when I'm afraid, and my best friend.  I can't wait to be able to devote all my energy to being his wife and eventually the other of his children. 

Also, congratulations to New York to coming around.  I'm so excited.  How can two people loving each other and making a committment be a desecration to marriage?  Especially when not even Christians have loving marriages. 
God is Love. 
Love is Good. 

Let's focus on having more love in the world.  God revealed Himself to different cultures in different ways, and all His stories have been twisted an corrupted by mankind.  But from what I can tell from the ones I've studied, the central message is the same: love and be positive.

I miss...

...Kopecky Family Band.

...not having to work full time and sacrifice myself at a job I hate.

...being able to spend time with friends when I want to.

...my gay friends who have forsaken me for no reason.  I was one of the few who didn't freak when they came out, but for some reason I just didn't make the cut.  It's happened too many times for me to say it's just him or her...I can't make heads or tail of it.

...being Catholic.  The Mass.  Communion.  My veils.  Believing with my full self and *knowing*.  Things have come up in my life and my research that I cannot conscience being Catholic.  It was hard enough to live an unsustainable lifestyle.  But to tell me that now that I've found my soulmate that I cannot have him because he is paralyzed...it is wrong in so many ways.  I cannot support this. 

...cooking.  The last month I lived at my old apt my refrigerator broke and they wouldn't fix it...I couldn't keep food.  Then I moved in stages and lived a month without dishes.  Now the apt I've moved into already had many 6-legged inhabitants and in the process of evicting them I've had to spend the last month with a kitchen covered in poison.  I miss the thrift, the satisfaction, the gastronomical happiness of home-cooked food, even if it is simple fair. 

...my grandmother.  She died in her sixties...much later than my father's parents who were dead long before I was thought of, but still too young.  But I selfishly miss her!  I was 10 when she left this earth, and I'm more her than anyone else.  Everyone knows it, everyone says it to me.  But she doesn't know me.  Over the past couple of years the wound of her death has opened up like it hasn't been 14 years. 
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Why is it I appreciate types of people that are not commonly appreciated?  I love old people, disabled people, gay/trans people, people of other ethnicities/religions.  They have stories and experiences.  I have such an appreciation of who these people are individually and within their specific cultures if applicable.  I will never understand why people say old people are past their use.  I will never understand why people will never see past the wheelchair or the stutter.  I will never understand why people call differences in gender or sexuality "abomination" or "disgusting."  I will never understand why people don't understand the beauty of different or don't perceive the fount of knowledge they are turning their backs on.  Why am I so different?  Every time I get caught researching or doing something as innocent as going on a date with my boyfriend, I am reminded by the stares and comments that I am not like them.  I walk alone, neither fully different nor fully the same...just open-hearted.

Ups and downs and stumbling around.

My love and I have been through some rough times in both our individual lives and in our joined life lately...growing pains, I guess.  Every time we have a discussion or disagreement I'm just overwhelmed with relief that he's still here and overwhelmed with the most passionate love I've ever felt.  It's amazing really. 

About a week ago though, something happened to crack the gloss on our shiny life.  I mean, I obviously realize that Boy is different.  I know that when we go anywhere we are stared at, and I know he gets very strange emails from strangers all the time.  He's had asshole magicians ask him to come be in their acts when they pretend to cut someone in two so they can actually have a guy without legs to aid them.  He's had a German stalker make a gay fetish devotee site in his "honor."  I know this.  But last week I actually had one of these people approach ME.  He was an independent producer attempting to make a horror movie, and he wanted me to convince the love of my life to allow him to exploit Boy's differences.  He thought the most beautiful and amazing soul in this world was either hideous enough to be a monster or a victim of atrocities.  I cried on Boy that night, and I cried later on my long drive home from Boy's house.  I knew people judged him, but it had never come to me before, and it really hurt.  I want to enclose him in my arms and keep him from all harm and all ridicule.  He said, "baby I had to learn to deal with this when I was 7.  You're going to have to ignore this sort of thing."  It absolutely breaks my heart.  I'll never understand why people are this way.

People are so disgusting en masse.  I can understand ignorance but I cannot understand inconsiderateness and ugliness of the soul...I cannot understand meanness and prejudice.  People like to hurt others and to make them feel bad.  Gender, sexuality, disability, religion...people will pick the most arbitrary reasons!  I mean for me the more I learn about a people the more I want to learn and the more I respect them.  I have such a love for many types of people that are ridiculed by the public.  I will never understand society's hatred of people who are gender-different or differently-abled or have a different sexual preference.  I will never understand how someone's abilities or worth can be judged based on skin tone or religious affiliation.  Why is it freakish of me to love and respect different people? 

I finally managed with the love of Boy by my side to venture into the LGBT section of the local bookstore this weekend.  I must admit that I've been afraid to go in it alone but he encourages my interests no matter what others might say about me.  I've been studying gender roles and gender-related issues the past year or so, and I find it truly fascinating.  They vary from culture to culture on what is taboo or acceptable...but much of it is pancultural--just human.  I am coming to think that I might would like to go back to college either to study cultures or to become a Social Studies teacher, though honestly here in the South I'd probably be run out of town by an angry mob if I attempted to teach respect to people's children.  We'll see. 

Boy believes in me and supports me in every possible way and every possible venture.  I cannot wait to be his wife and the mother of his children, us-born or adopted or however we may attain them.

"Precious" by Depeche Mode

Precious and fragile things
Need special handling
My God what have we done to You?

We always try to share
The tenderest of care
Now look what we have put You through...

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we managed
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

Angels with silver wings
Shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you

If God has a master plan
That only He understands
I hope it's your eyes He's seeing through

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we managed
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

I pray you learn to trust
Have faith in both of us
And keep room in your hearts for two

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we managed
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give