On the Friday after our arrival in Vancouver, Cole trotted off to her conference and I headed to the Hall of Records (or something official like that) to get us a marriage license. Nat and I slogged uphill through pouring rain, which I oddly enjoyed, though I had to get a rain cover for the stroller the next day, as Nat got soaked, in spite of her hooded raincoat.
I finally found the proper office and waited a short time before it was my turn. I took the plastic bag containing every official piece of identification belonging to our family (Cole's, Nat's and my birth certificates, Cole's, Nat's and my passports, our adoption decree--it was all in there for the immigration official--which is another story) and dumped it onto the desk in front of me.
The woman helping me picked up my passport, jotted the info down, picked up Cole's passport and said "this is your fiancee?" at which point, I fully expected her to throw me out, insisting that I of course, couldn't have a marriage license. But she didn't do that. She jotted down Cole's information, asked me a few questions, took my credit card and charged it ($100 Canadian, ya'll! Why did I not check that part out? I didn't have enough cash and the credit card machine was on the fritz!), fortunately, it ran through. She then handed me a marriage license.
I was completely, for lack of better terms: Freaked. Out.
I couldn't reach anyone on the phone for about three hours, but finally got Nancy to say "I have a marriage license! A license! For marriage! From a government official who didn't kick me out of her office!" It felt really strange, but exciting.
Cole and I rejoined that evening and we had a lovely dinner with one of her colleagues (who has a child about Nat's age also adopted from Chicago) on a rotating 30th floor restaurant. But when I tried to tell Cole how exciting it was to get a marriage license, she kept saying "we're already married." And shrugging it off.
Oh fine, never mind, I figured. She wasn't in that government office expecting to be thrown out and being treated really kindly instead. So she didn't get my point.
Sunday morning, Cole had to go down and ask the hotel folks for a late checkout, since the marriage commisioner was coming at 3 pm to marry us in our room after Nat's nap. So she went down to the front desk while I picked up bits of dry cereal from the floor where Nat had cast them about while watching teletubies and trying to avoid her comb-wielding mama.
A few minutes later, Cole walked through the door again, looking distressed. As soon as she saw me, she burst into tears and ran into my arms. I have not seen her so seemingly upset since her mother was rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance.
"What did they say to you!?" I asked.
"They told me that it was no problem at all, no extra fee, under the circumstances, and to get married in peace!" she bawled into my shoulder.
And that was that. Cole insisted on buying me flowers and we both cried through the whole darn "do you take...?" "will you promise to...?" "lawfully wedded spouses" thing, while Uncle Davis took photos and Uncle Wayne held Nat.
Yes, we were already married before. That's definitely true. But what we didn't think about was how it would feel to have our relationship treated with kindness and even congratulations rather than with nastiness or grudging tolerance. Cole said that when the folks at the hotel were so nice to her, it made her realize how mean so many people so often are. We forget the shadow we usually travel under--whether checking into hotels or eating a meal in an unfamiliar town or stopping for gas on the road. We are always looking over our shoulders, speaking in slightly lowered voices, speculating about whether the waiter knows we're a family or not (and if not, how he might behave if he did). We forget that it should be perfectly reasonable for a government official to give us what we apply for, within our rights as law-abiding citizens.
Since the wedding and returning home, I've had this new feeling about telling people I'm married. I've been telling people I'm married ever since our "real" wedding 4 years ago. But now, I have this strange feeling of coherence that I didn't even know was missing before. I can say "I'm married" and have it mean exactly what my listener thinks it means. It means the exact same thing "married" means when any other married person says it. It's odd because I never knew I felt "off" using the term before. I know that people would often ask a thousand follow-up questions when I told them my "husband" was not a man. And while I had no problem telling them, I felt (I now realize) a little like I'd been misleading them by using the term. But now it's just "married." Done. Whether my home state (or practically any state in the U.S.) acknowledges it or not, it's legal fact, whatever gender my spouse.
Snapshots in the photoblog.
