By Jen Silverwood.

Through my life, I have been told what is important, how I am valued, and I have accepted this blindly and without question. Don't fault me for this--it's the American way. Grades, expense reports, bonuses, paychecks, cars, rocks, children, the list goes on . . .

For a time, I thought I might eventually have those things. I still have a half dozen baby dolls in a box in my room that I just can't seem to part with. I continued to play the game well through high school. Mostly. Somewhere between Barbie and the SATs, something happened. I came to accept that I was different.

All my life I was different really. Raised in a strict religion, I was told that I, like Jesus, was "not part of this world." Later, coming to love who I really was meant losing a lot of people, but it proved an easy transition in some ways. It still meant I was different. I gazed longingly at other people's lives; the objects of affection had just changed. At one time it was the kids with the birthday hats and the cupcakes; then it was couples hand in hand and my sister walking down the aisle to meet her groom. I just came to accept that it was something I wouldn't have. It wasn't giving up to me. It just was.

And damn it, I don't need it. I made myself believe . . . talked myself into it. I can be very head-strong and persuasive when I need to be. I didn't need the birthday gifts or the song then (little known fact--still haven't had a group sing "Happy Birthday" to me, biggest group was four people), and I don't need the marriage license now. Hell, while we're at it, I also don't need a relationship or commitment. Can you want what you've never had? I tried to take it even further, because as I near thirty it's getting harder to make this argument convincing. Tried, and failed. There's one thing you can't convince yourself of. No matter how hard you fight it, you need love.

Then came the California Supreme Court decision to overturn the state's ban on same-sex marriage. A flurry of text messages, phone calls, blogs, and bulletins ensued. I sat in stunned silence. Process it. Process it. My world had just been overturned. I had taught myself that I didn't need those things. I know, my reasoning is faulty from the foundation--of course I deserve happiness and I don't need a piece of paper--I know, I know, but that is the way that I coped with my reality. And the day the news hit . . . I sat on the couch, my best friend--also gay--waiting on the other end of the line for my response to "Wow, Jen. I thought you'd be a little more excited." And still . . . the silence. She of all people should know--silence is rare in my world, but it cloaks me when I'm overwhelmed or confused. I hang up the phone. I try to make some sense of it all by reading on-line responses to the decision. I post bulletins. I join the masses in celebration. I even cry when other people say they are crying. Then I laugh at "now gay people can be just as miserable as straight people" jokes. And I wonder . . . which of my friends will be first?

No matter what they tell me is legal, what I'm "allowed" to want, what I'm EXPECTED to want, in the end I still don't know what I want or who to love or how. So here it is. Another expectation--another status symbol, another goal, another dream so far in the distance I can't see it through the fog of legalization. I now pronounce you "Party A" and "Party B."