Last month, I drove up to Maine to attend a wedding.
It was a beautiful day. Sunny, warm, and it seemed like every wooded area on the ride up was determined to be more colorful than the last. I took a friend for company, and we left early, enjoyed leaf-peeping, had lunch on the deck of a waterfront restaurant, and went for a walk on the beach before driving to the church.
My friend the bride looked amazing. Her groom looked nervous. They're from California now, but Maine is important to her -- she's lived there every summer for as long as I've known her. They held their ceremony there because it was her dream, and guests made their way from California and Massachusetts because we wanted to celebrate their love for each other.
And all day, I was thinking, "I couldn't get married here."
I forget sometimes how lucky I am. Although I live in a nation where plenty of people feel quite free to deny me all the privileges of following my heart because they hate where that heart leads me -- well, I also live in Massachusetts. I have the right to marry as I love anyway.
I came home from the wedding late at night, and it was a relief to cross the state line in a way it has never been before.
Maine, I love you; I love the Mainers I've known, and I've loved the time I've spent at your beaches, in your forests, as a little girl mortified and giggling when her unrepentant mom took pictures of her favorite horror novelist's home. I have never felt unwelcome before, even as a tourist, because I'm a New Englander too (and a Red Sox fan), and I respect your understated hospitality.
But that day when the question was still up in the air, I thought, "People here will be voting for or against my right to love." I felt vulnerable, aware that I was not yet considered fully equal to my friends; my happiness for my friend was bittersweet, and I wanted to go home.
I donated to No on 1 the next day -- I'd have done it anyway, I was just waiting until I had enough cash. I voted with my wallet for equality in California, too. But it felt different, because you're my neighbors, and because I was thinking of you, and me, and our families.
I was thinking of our celebrations, our vacations, our lives that are more entwined than we realize, and of that feeling I got when I crossed the state line -- the awareness that I was in a place where I didn't have entirely equal rights, but I still had more than I'd had a mile before.
I'm sad today, neighbors. But I'm proud, too. I've lurked on dKos for years without posting a diary and I'm coming out of the woodwork today to thank you. It was close; you and the No on 1 organizers did an amazing job, and you proved that progress is made every day. You'll get there, and we'll help you again; we'll walk that mile with you.
And then? We'll be delighted to dance at your weddings.