Catharsis; or, three weeks from this very minute, I'll be probably pacing, possibly vomiting and definitely crying

Wouldn't you know it, I'm crying again.

M. and I just got off the phone from our first conversation with the priest who will be conducting our ceremony. And it was great, a relief, a comfort, a validation, a calming exhale. But it also made me terribly sad, and scared, and wistful, and ten thousand other things.

The priest was terrific - totally on the same page as us, totally wanting to celebrate this thing with us in as full-flowered a way as he possibly could. And as a queer and questioning Catholic whose life has felt somehow less-than since I stopped going to Church, talking to a Man of God brought up all sorts of good and peaceful and comforting, but also somewhat sad, things, and probably made my inner subconscious guilty altar boy feel like maybe he might go to Heaven after all. But it also made me sad that we even needed to be discussing some of the things we discussed - - the particulars of what he would and would not be allowed to say or do as an Episcopal priest celebrating this union, some of the current goings-on in the Episcopal and other churches, how our parents and my dad in particular have handled the Whole Thing - - and that's when I started to cry (the first time). And of course this is nothing new, but between M. and me and the priest, all of us were clearly wishing we could just focus on who was walking in when and who was reading what, rather than on how we could maneuver and sidestep and negotiate in a way that made everyone, church hierarchy included, happy. And then, like I said, we started talking about our parents, and I started talking about my dad, and as M., my mother and my therapist know all too well, sometimes all it takes for the floodgates to open is for me to verbalize something out loud......so as soon as I started talking about my dad, and to a priest no less, the tears started to creep up again. Then the priest started suggesting some possible blessings for the end of the ceremony, and he just kind of pulled this really beautiful one out of thin air, and suddenly there I was standing on the lawn in my suit and facing M. in front of everyone and hearing the priest delivering this blessing, and that is when I had to hold the phone away from my face (I was in the bedroom on one extension, M. was in the living room on the other) and take my glasses off and heave and sniffle into the crook of my elbow.

Whew.

Anyways. It was all very cathartic. And I think between the pain of having to talk about Things Which Shouldn't Need to Be Talked About, and the simultaneous joy and pain of talking about my dad, and the sudden Holy Shit It's Really Happening feeling of discussing the specifics of the ceremony, and the glowing relief and ecstasy that It's All Really Happening and I'm in love and getting married and Won't It All Be So Fun, and the mixed emotional bag of doing all of the above with a Man of God - - between all of these things, I think perhaps a certain gay groom-to-be just needed a little cry. Because she's just a bit overwhelmed. But in a good way.

She's also grossed out by the fact that even though she just swiffered and swept and vacuumed her apartment, her feet are still black on the bottom from the unending supply of dust and grime floating through the window and onto the floor from Ninth Avenue.

And also disgusted, but in kind of an exhausted and Calgon Take Me Away kind of way, by the fact that mere minutes before this whole cathartic telephone conversation, President Bush was delivering a national radio address telling the country that Gays Aren't Good Enough to Get Married.

And also more than a little bit guilty and hypocritical and am-I-apathetic about missing the HRC Wedding March across the Brooklyn Bridge, but the priest took precedence, and plus it's raining, so I'll have to get over it.