Letters from the Lesbeyond
by Jennifer Schumaker

“Me at Twenty-five: There Goes the Bride”

(“Letters from the Lesbeyond” is a column I wrote (for 2-1/2 years) for Update, Southern California’s oldest GLBT newspaper. This is one of the articles which chronicle my lesbian suburban pioneer adventure and reflections in the northern area of San Diego County, California. An earlier version of this column appeared in Update Issue # , March 2005. Update closed it's doors in April 2006.)

Congratulations to 25 years, Update, Southern California’s oldest GLBT publication!

At twenty-five, I too received many congratulations, because I was planning my heterosexual wedding. Silly girl. Silly congratulations. But what did we know?

Oh, there were clues! Most of my divergences from tradition can be explained in the context of my vehement feminism, but my feminism also had a context about which I was clueless. It’s too bad there wasn’t a sexual orientation detective around for the ceremony. But let’s just stick to the facts.

The Top Ten Clues I Was Marrying the Wrong Gender:

1: The groom’s high school sweetheart and love of his life was a boy. I believed this was just a phase.

2: I wore sage green. Many people asked me if it was my first marriage. I just looked at them like they were clueless.

3: I insisted on female ushers. You’re probably thinking this is no big deal, but to my mother it was the fall of Rome all over again, and then some.

4: I insisted that my Roman Catholic wedding include a Methodist woman minister. She conducted parts of the ceremony that would have made it invalid had a Catholic bishop popped in.

5: I didn’t discuss these non-traditional arrangements with my husband-to-be: I told him.

6: I didn’t have flower girls, but flower children. Sadly, little Ryan backed out at the last minute because of weeks of relentless teasing from his older brothers.

7: The videographer had to beg me to curl my hair for the “getting ready” part of the video. I didn’t wear make-up and I never even looked at myself in my knee-length sage green ensemble. I was ready in 10 minutes with an attitude that said “OK, let’s do this thing.”

8: The groom was prettier than I was.

9: I had told my father, gently, that I would not want him to “give me away” at my wedding. This was when I was twenty and not even close to being engaged! At the actual event, I stuck with that. My father boycotted his boutonniere, his pew in front, and the reception.

10. It never crossed my mind that I would change my name to my husband’s. When a friend suggested it, I said, “Oh, yeah. People do do that…nah.” My fiance never considered I’d take his name, either. He just chuckled and said something like “That just doesn’t sound like you.”

And it wasn’t like me. So much of my life for so many years wasn’t like me. Wasn’t me at all.

One lost adolescence, one confused young adulthood, ten years and four kids later I finally figured it out. I can’t say exactly what opened my eyes, but weaning that last baby, moving from the Midwest to the much more open California, and having met a certain brainy, beautiful, somewhat butchy woman certainly added up to a confluence of awareness that led me to me.

I was so sad at all the loss, but still I am so grateful to finally be me. If I ever get the chance again –and I'm working to see that it’ll be legal by then— I may do the wedding thing again. But this time it will be right: the right me, the right she, and the right congratulations.