Another day to remember

As our tiny little company expands from the five of us that started out in 2000 to the 19 of us now, we've had to adjust some things along the way. When it was just a few of us, our "company calendar" was just Bossman or I calling or emailing where the hell we would be. We eventually moved to a "Travel Calendar" that would say when people would be out of the office, but now with double digit employee numbers that one calendar has been packed with dentist appointments and vacations and conference calls. We have started to move over to sharing our personal calendars with each other and using that to know if someone will be in the office or available. This means that we need to tidy up the items that are in our personal calendars so that not every employee needs to necessarily know what embarrassing thing someone had removed from which body part at the doctor's office. I have always been a pack rat. I come by it naturally. Squirreling away digital items seemed harmless enough until I realized I had an awful lot of junk filling up the calendar, all of which were non-private, all of which marked me as "busy" and many of which had no relevance anymore.

Over the last few days, I've been tidying my calendar. As I went back in time, I found bits of my life I had completely forgotten about. My last day of work at Virginia Tech was on June 9, 2000. The following week (June 16) Jeremy and I picked up the Ryder truck to drive all our possessions across the state to start a new job and a new life. By March of 2002, we were in a trial separation and by April I had moved out. Shortly after that he took his first extended trip to California to visit his father. And then suddenly I was buying a new Mini Cooper and a house (the one we just moved out of) and going to Vegas with Rich and introducing him to my friends from high school at my reunion.

Had you asked me before yesterday if Jeremy had ever had surgery, I would have told you no. But right there in my calendar it was telling me he had gone under the knife on April 3, 2000. Suddenly the memory of being in the Christiansburg house with poor Jeremy so miserable after having his gall bladder removed all came back to me. This is why I write things down. This is why I blog. I don't want to lose these little reminders.

About a month ago, my father said he's been going through a "mid-life crisis" in that he is trying to appreciate Mom more and remember all the reasons he is so lucky to have her. At 67, I'm not sure he understands the definition of a mid-life crisis and how it involves a lot more sports cars and a lot less time sitting at the kitchen table with his wife reminiscing about the last 40 years. Mom says that they've been trying to remember all the details of their lives, the stories and analogies that have woven through our family and their marriage. She says they don't both remember all the same things and sometimes they remember them differently, but they are both surprised at how much they do recall if the other prompts a memory.

My mother was at the house today using my computer and we were picking out photos from my Flickr photostream to have printed for her. All of a sudden she said, "You know today is my Daddy's birthday. I'm not sure if Sissy or Jack remember that, but I thought about it with Helen's babies being born today. Maybe Helen would like to know her babies share a birthday with her grandfather." My mother's father had a heart attack and died when my mother was 19. I never met him and only know him from her stories and some photos of him with a lot of grease in his thick black hair. My mother was a Daddy's girl and in many ways I am myself. But it saddened me that he was fading out of our family as Mom's siblings didn't talk much about their father and we grandkids never met him. Perhaps instead of Helen's twins being Christmas babies, it was more important for them to share a birthday with their grandfather who would have been so pleased to be there for the occasion and share his day with them.

For my part, I'm going to add another reminder in my calendar for all the important birthdays that are today.

You say potato, I say love-of-my-life-partner-mate-friend

Remember when I said the Obamas appear to have a good partnership? And how they seem to love each other deeply? And then last night while happy tears streamed down my face, Michelle Obama went out to greet her husband after his acceptance speech and I read her lips saying "I love you" and they both looked so happy? Rich turned to me and said, "See, baby. The guy who loves his wife is going to be president." Yeah, that was great. But they weren't all happy tears last night. The concession speech that John McCain gave was probably one of the most reasonable things he's said in the last eight years. He was focused and civil and kind and perhaps a bit relieved. And while McCain even flirted with the idea of hope (without ever saying the word), his own supporters booed. Seriously, people? You're fucking booing? This isn't a baseball game, it's an election and I would hope you could be a little more adult than that.

Then the results for Proposition 8 started coming in, and it just seemed like we were taking two steps forward and one step back. I have a hard time wrapping my head around anyone who would vote for that ban, let alone over 5 million people. Maybe a million of them were confused by the Yes/No answer and thought they were voting to allow same-sex marriages. Maybe a million people's hands slipped and fell on the wrong voting box. Maybe another million were just so insecure in their own chance for happiness and personal satisfaction that they wanted to limit the number of neighbors that might be happily wed while they stayed bitter and alone. But that still leaves several million Californians that I cannot understand.

One of the readings from our wedding last year was from Plato's Symposium:

Humans have never understood the power of Love, for if they had they would surely have built noble temples and altars and offered solemn sacrifices; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done, since Love is our best friend, our helper, and the healer of the ills which prevent us from being happy.

To understand the power of Love, we must understand that our original human nature was not like it is now, but different. Human beings each had two sets of arms, two sets of legs, and two faces looking in opposite directions. … Due to the power and might of these original humans, the Gods began to fear that their reign might be threatened. They sought for a way to end the humans’ insolence without destroying them.

It was at this point that Zeus divided the humans in half. After the division the two parts of each desiring their other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one. So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of humankind.

Each of us when separated, having one side only, is but the indenture of a person, and we are always looking for our other half. … And when one of us meets our other half, we are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight even for a moment. We pass our whole lives together, desiring that we should be melted into one, to spend our lives as one person instead of two, and so that after our death there will be one departed soul instead of two; this is the very expression of our ancient need. And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called Love.

If you manage to find your other half, I don't believe any one individual or even 5 million of them have the right to take that person away from you. Others may belittle your relationship, call your other half your "roommate", your "friend", or things much worse, but they're speaking with insecurity and jealousy. I have faith, though, that even if this proposition really passes, it is not a judgment on those whose marriages may be nullified, but a judgment on all the others who voted out of fear and ignorance and a lack of understanding. Last night in Chicago, Barack said that Michelle was his best friend, the rock of his family, and the love of his life. And he never said the word wife or spouse, because I believe that for him all those things are synonymous.

I propose that everyone should look at your own marriage (I'm particularly looking at about 5 million of you over on the west coast). Is that person your best friend? Is that person the love of your life? Do you mention him or her as such to your co-workers or write those words in on tax forms and legal documents? Perhaps for you the word husband or wife is a suitable term for everything you vowed on your wedding day. I contend that everyone should have the right to use that term for one person in his or her life. And if the word spouse really does mean the same thing to all people and we're all on the same page, then maybe we will be that much closer to being equal.

Shopping for stuffed donkeys and elephants

My cousin's water broke today. She's pregnant with twins that weren't supposed to arrive until December 26th. I was just at her baby shower a few weeks ago and her due date seemed so far away. We talked about how this wasn't a planned pregnancy and they certainly weren't planning on twins, but Helen had a hunch that she was having multiple babies long before the ultrasound confirmed it. They live in a third floor walk-up in New York City and space is at a premium, but she and her husband are remarkably calm about everything. Her friend gushed that this was God's plan and that they were going to be Christmas babies and that having one boy and one girl would be a perfect pair. My only comment was that Helen was a sappy country song.

Now that she's in the hospital on election night, waiting to give birth to her tiny babies, I'm hoping this country song has a happy ending. I'm planning on encouraging at least one of those babies grow up to be a Democrat.