Derek and I have been partners for almost 10 years. Our ten year mark is somewhere hidden within the 2016 year so we thought it might be cool to celebrate our 10 years with our wedding date. We’ve never quite pinned down the exact date because we can’t find “THE” date that made sense to celebrate. Gays have had to be creative with anniversary dates. Rent U-haul /move in day or our first debut at the club as a couple day… and on they go. Good times. We needed a wedding date so we had to decide. As we wandered through the year of our meeting we considered:
- The date we first met. We met sometime in the spring of 2006 at the gym. For a while we probably just said hi or smiled at each other before making actual conversation. Neither of us could remember an exact day, so that one was out.
- Our first full-on conversation: I won’t go into any awkward details here but I will say it lead to our first “date”.
- Our first “date”. We can’t remember the actual day but boy do we remember the “date”. Two hours of actually watching a DVD, “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”; slowly finding our way to a cuddle which then lead to kissing and well you get the picture. We do know this was sometime in April just before my, now our, son’s first birthday.
- Our 2nd, 3rd or 4th date. Sometime in October. These were actual dates. One of them was Dinner at a Sushi restaurant on Beverly in LA —thank you Noshi Sushi! We saw Colin Ferguson from Eureka there and he became our touchstone to the moment. Chopped fish and Jack Carter. Pretty romantic. Cash only.
- The first time we said “I love you”. This one we do know. January 1st, 2007 at 12:01:01 AM. Some moments deserve their own special date, so we left that alone too.
The point ends up being we could not really choose one overly romantic moment over the other. So we decided to pick a date that has meant something to us as long as we’ve known each other. A date that combines much of who we are — a family. We chose June 19th, 2016 – Fathers Day.
We are dads. It’s something we love being. We love being a family, with us, our son, two dogs and a water bug named Shawn our son keeps in a jar. We love having family dinner together [most] every night and talking about our day even when our son doesn’t want to talk…especially then. We love movie nights with the three of us on the couch staring at the TV; dogs sleeping on the floor next to one of us. We love flying kites and game night. We love shuffling our son to school or soccer. We love all of it.
Ok so I just re-read all that and it does sound a little perfect pollyanna. So don’t get me wrong, we don’t love it all – all the time. Those “other” moments are for a separate blog post – a bottle of wine and a quiet & kid-free house post.
Anyway, It’s who we are. We are dads. Fathers Day seemed like the perfect fit. It will be the best father’s day gift ever.
