Me and Amy

   My wife and I are awesome.  We followed all the rules:  We met and had an instant meeting of the minds, we were friend's first, we valued honesty, we cultivated communication and trust while inspiring growth and adventure.  We're together now almost twenty years with two beautiful, well behaved, intelligent, interesting young children.  But, like life, it's always an adventure.

   We met while I was in a relationship with a straight girl.  I had no interest in putting up any guard.  Two years later, Amy bought me a skydiving gift certificate.  That day I left more than just a plane at 4000 feet behind.  I left my old self, the one that thought I deserved a relationship I wasn't number 1 in.  Of course being number 1 only lasted so long.

   The day my son was born was by far the best of my life.  It was incredible in large part because she birthed him.  And in addition because it took us over 4 years to conceive.  My favorite uncle, the donor, helped me defy nature by genetically connecting me to my fiancé's baby.  And we, determined to realize this dream together, proceeded to drive 3-4 hours south from the Canadian border when we were in college, and north from the city when we came home, every month or so often in the middle of the week our first few years as teachers.  Between calculating ovulation, correlating with a 55+ man's sexual readiness, and my astrological preferences (I really wanted only certain signs) it took us 4+ years.  But the minute I saw his beautiful face, heard the crackly sweetness of his beautiful first cry, and comforted him into his first quiet skin to skin snuggle - I knew it was all worth it!  I was happy and ready to embark on this next new adventure.

   But the next day we were greeted by the hospital photographer.  "He's a lucky boy to have two moms like me" she said.  At first I thought she was mocking us.  But she went on to us very interested new mothers about how she was raised by two moms, and she felt like the luckiest kid in the world.  All the while she's talking I'm marveling at the strong bonds between women are and how natural a lifelong commitment must be to us as a community.  That's when she drops the bombshell.

   "So how long have your moms now been together?"

   "Oh they're broken up now."

   "Broken up?!"  My wife and I look on her in horror.  Divorce?  Two women divorced??

   "Yeah.  All their friend's are too.  Lesbian couples all break up after menopause."

   And now, 18 years and 2 kids later, on the precipice of the big "M" we live in daily fear of this impending doom looming over our lives.  We've learned to tone down the fights.  We've learn to accept the worst in each other.  And we've learned that much of what breaks other couples up is the rolling momentum of life's potent stress.  I love my wife, but I've fantasized.  And my wife loves me, but she's hated me too.  The best advice I can give to any couple looking to make it this long, is to never rule out the possibility of breaking up.  Amy and I grew up knowing nothing is forever and that is true of marriages as well.  We're not the same couple we used to be and we're not the same as we'll end up.  The trick has something to do with always growing and evolving - hopefully in the same direction.