My first long-term boyfriend, Erich, came to town this weekend, with his current partner, Alex. Regular readers of this site are already acquainted with Alex, who guest-blogged for me while I was in Costa Rica. (Faustus in particular became quite enamored of him, and they were able to meet in person last night. A good time was had by all.)

This morning, after brunch, Rob and I were walking with Erich and Alex at a street fair, and Erich came up and put his arm over my shoulders in a friendly way. “Do you miss me?” I asked him.

“Not really,” he said, and quickly followed that with, “A little.”

“I don’t miss you, either,” I told him. “It’s okay.”

And it was.

Erich and I were together for almost five years when I was young and impressionable. We moved to Chicago together and broke up when his job took him to San Diego (I moved back to Baltimore). If we had stayed together, we would have celebrated our tenth anniversary this past May.

I love Erich dearly, but I am glad we did not stay together. I like him and Alex as a couple, and of course, I am rather fond of my current relationship. I found out a while ago that, although we did not actually meet until four years later, Rob was staying just a few doors down from us during our last months together in Chicago. I told Erich that the other day, and he said, “It must have been fate, then.”

I think it was.

Every time I see Erich, I forgive him a little more for things that happened while we were in a relationship, but I also realize that I did not forgive him as much as I thought I had the last time I saw him. Lord knows, I have transgressions of my own to atone for, and one day, all of this will probably even out.

I am glad we are friends.

*

Thought for the Day: Matthew Shepard died five years ago today. (When I posted about this a few days ago, I indicated that today was the anniversary of his attack, but I misremembered; he actually died in the hospital five days after his brutal assault on 7 October.) Like the attacks on September Eleventh inspired a great deal of patriotic fervor because they could have happened to any American, I think the Matthew Shepard murder brought a lot of gay people together because we recognized the universality of the sort of hatred involved. It could have happened to any of us naïve and eager enough to become involved with the wrong people at the wrong time.

Republican jackasses nationwide are using this coming week as a way of distracting the country from their disastrous policies by trying to unify everyone against same-sex marriage. The most politically correct of them pretend that this is nothing against gays, they are just trying to defend the sacred institution of marriage itself, but this justification is nebulous and inarguable. This is actually a campaign to increase the bigoted atmosphere that led to Matthew’s demise (as well as thousands of less-publicized hate crimes per year) and literally and officially reduce American gays to second-class citizens in their own country.

Don’t let this happen. Whether you are gay or straight, it is a dangerous precedent and an evil thing to do.

I keep repeating this, but if you have not already done so, please go here and here to sign petitions. Tell as many friends as possible to do the same.

Donate money to the Human Rights Campaign, Million for Marriage, the ACLU, and anyone else you can find that will fight this. Tell as many friends as possible to do the same.

Learn about the Democratic presidential candidates and their positions on these issues (they are all pretty good; I think Lieberman is the worst, which is not surprising, but even he is a million times better than our National Embarrassment).

Do something, before it is too late.