Well, today is our third anniversary - by my reckoning. It was on this day eggzackly three years ago that I came out to see Alex after a 22 year absence. I'll post a more in-depth blog about that day soon but I want to mark today by touching on that day and on what knowing Alex has meant to me.
Why do I date our anniversary from that meeting? Because, after the initial and disturbing shock of seeing what myotonic muscular dystrophy had done to Alex physically over the preceeding years, I began to fall in love with him, on that first meeting. Sitting in the kitchen, sharing tea, I fell in love with his beautiful brown eyes like deep soulful pools of awareness and feeling and acceptance. I fell in love with his profile, dignified and earnest, haloed by the afternoon sun filtering like old gold dust through his bedroom window as he bent at his computer.
From those moments our journey of growing friendship and love and mutual support began. Our love has opened up like a flower, blossomed from that day.
It isn't easy finding someone to love you, someone to love, when you have a disability.
It isn't easy finding someone to love you, someone to love, when you have transsexualism.
Somehow, we found each other. Magic, maybe; we met 22 years ago when we thought we were the beautiful people. We weren't but I suppose there was also nothing to make us shy away as one may shy away from someone with transsexualism or a disability. I mean you don't have a problem with that but...you wouldn't want a relationship with them.
We weren't ready then but some seed was planted to lay dormant, waiting.
When we came together again it burst into life...by synchronicity, by serendipity, by luck, by destiny.
Somehow, by extraordinary means we were proffered the gift of finding one's mate, one's soul-mate.
Mates, like the he-wolf and the she-wolf are mates...for life, under the bright moon of irrevocable destiny, howling on the sharp ridge of consequence, nurturing the pups of their dreams.
Mates, like Aussie mates...sticking by each other through the tough times, the droughts of the soul; seeing each other through the barren desert of despair.
The greatest compliment a man can give a woman in this country: "...she's me mate!"
That's us. We've gone way past his condition and mine to be just ourselves. Alex worried that if we got too close he'd lose a precious friend and instead I'd become a dutiful but resentful "carer". I worried that he wouldn't be able to treat me as a woman, especially before the operation; that I'd be redefined somehow beyond my control, to somewhere, someone I didn't want to be. Neither of those happened. We have just melded into a harmony but somehow retained our individual selves. I am the empty space shaping the inner curve of his bowl. He is the whisper of my leaves in a summer's breeze.
We give each other challenge, richness, hope, comfort, new perspectives. He is my rock; I am his sweetheart.
So what did we do for our anniversary - on this dark, damp, cold winter's night? We said, "Hey! It's our anniversary, we can do what we like!" So we did and we snuggled up in front of the column heater and tucked into comfort food - vegie soup for him; grilled cheese and tomato on toast for me. The electric blanket is on and tomorrow is a Saturday sleep-in.
Home is where the heart is and my heart is here with my head snuggled into Alex's Greek fisherman's jumper; safe, warm, loved; in love.
And tomorrow is the first day of the next three years!
