Perfect Valentines

My beloved gave the most perfect gift, completely from her heart..... I was so surprised and touched.

Here is a new poem I discovered also.....

A Ceremony

(excerpt)

We will grow old, and older. One of us will die, and then the other. The earth itself will be impaled on sun spokes. It doesn't matter. We have been imprinted on the protons of energy herself,

and so stand in another atmosphere, where an undiscovered star we will never live to see casts shadows on a grove of succulents we cannot yet imagine. There our interchangeable features still vibrate and blur, each smile half of one circle, each utterance spiraling like light upward in shudders along the spine as if the moon and you and I were slivers of one mirror, gazing on herself at last.

~ Robin Morgan ~

Sweet boy left his valentines at school, so instead he played us a song on his guitar. We then ate sushi and a yummy little heart cake. It was sooo good! We watched a beautiful movie called Once. Great music and very sweet. Kind of like watching a home movie filmed with very tender and awake eyes. Highly recommend it.

HB318 - Letter to those who don't believe in the democratic process.

While I understand, and on some level even respect, that we have different philosophical differences, I write to you today with an open heart.

I am not asking you personally to vote for HB318. I understand that it goes against your values. I ask that you, in spite of our philosophical differences, allow my voice to be a part of the democratic process and to allow HB318 to leave committee and be voted on by the fine elected representatives that the entire state has elected.

This is how HB318 impacts my son and many others like him…..

By the time my son was four, he had been sexually abused, had a gun pointed at this head, witnessed inappropriate sexual activity, had never had a stable place to live for longer than a few months at a time, and was malnourished and neglected - both physically and emotionally. His mother got pregnant at 14, and by the time all of this happened, he was the oldest of three children. Thankfully for them, the state stepped in and removed them from their home.

Not many people in Utah want to adopt a kid with his background, they want babies. Try placing three non-white children in the state of Utah. Many people do it for the right reasons, but a lot do it for the foster care money. With the exception of covering his medical and therapy expenses, I didn’t ask for one dime. I could have, but I didn’t. It would have been much easier to adopt him with the support of a partner, but lucky for him, I was single at the time. Had I not been, he would have been placed in the foster care system and would have lost all contact with his biological family, as nobody could step up to the plate to take him. The state, and his grandmother, entrusted me with his care, and he still gets to see her once in a while. We have been through a number of things which many foster parents would have simply given up on.

Our son is a very bright, articulate and fun loving child. It has taken him years of therapy, love, patience and boundaries to get here. He still has fallout from his past, but we get through it one step at a time. I would love for you to meet him, talk to him, any of this teachers, or parents of his friends, and have them tell you what a great family he is a part of. He is thriving, not just surviving. Have dinner with us, meet us, see that we really all come from the same fabric, and we are all part of the human family.

I heard that there are over 2,600 children in Utah’s foster care system waiting to be adopted. My partner and I are in the process of expanding our family and it is too bad we can’t adopt one of them. Instead, we will spend about 1,000 a month in fertility treatment, which we would happily spend on a child already in need, should the laws ever be changed.

My family is probably a lot more like yours than you might imagine. I have a great career, and my partner has put her private practice on hold, so that she can stay home give more energy to our family. Regardless of how you feel about our rights as parents, our children should have the basic right of having two legal parents who wish to make a legal commitment to them. In a world where many parents abandon their responsibilities, thousands of wonderful people are asking for the right to make a legal commitment to their children.

Please do the democratic and American thing, and let this bill get out of committee. That is all I ask.

Best Regards,

Advancing the Homosexual Agenda

There I said it and I say it with complete pride. It took a straight ally at last night's rally to make it click. Advancing the homosexual agenda is a beautiful thing and more people need to see it as such. My gay agenda means that I will not tolerate myself, my partner, my son, my future child(ren), my family, my friends, or my community to be treated like second class citizens. I was amazed to hear that there are only three states that do not allow gay adoption. Even more shocked to hear that there are over 2,600 hundred children in Utah, children just like our son, who are part of the foster care system who don't have parents to adopt them. I can speak first hand that adopting an older child who has suffered from the neglect and abuse of too young, mentally unstable, or simply unfit parents, is not any easy task. Every person I know would say that Deb and I are great parents, that Trae is a great child, and that he ended up in the very best place possible for him. Just ask him. He is proud to be a part of our family and couldn't possibly get more love, more stability, or more structure than he does.

There is no possible way for me to be at the capitol today. I wish those who are there the very best and will be thinking of everybody at 10:00. Maybe the valentines will open their hearts just a little bit and they can find the compassion to help them understand that those who they percieve to be so radically different than themselves, really all come from the same fabric. As Lauren said last night, we are all part of one human family. Now is the time that we all start loving each other and treating each other as such.

Utah Politics

If you read accidentofhope, piecesofgray, or kjandthekids, then you already know what I am talking about. If not, then go read them. I am not sure that I have words for how I feel right now, except for sad, angry, and in awe of the bravery of my sisters above.

My favorite quote ever is 'Be the change you wish to see in the world' - Gandhi. For the most part I live this way. I live this way in my relationship, I live this way with my child, and I live this way at my work.

I spent my younger years at rallys, at pride day, up at the capitol, and was basically a young, bald, political being. As I have gotten older, and adopted a child, my politics have been subtler. I am out, as out as you can be. I always have been. I don't have issues at work, even with my extremely LDS boss. I am just me and they like me (or sometimes don’t) for all of who I am. I've always thought that was the most political thing I could do. People would see me living my life, realize my family is like most other families, and they would vote in favor of my family if the opportunity came about.

Well, I was wrong. It is not enough! I have not been politically active this session. It could be that I was burned out on my job, then changed roles, and have been enjoying just being. No struggles. Living life and loving it. Well, today I was jolted and realized that the state I live is sometimes way more than I can handle. This article, and the picture on piecesofgray.blogspot.com, are enough to either make me move out of Utah, or join my brave friends in the fight.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8237567?source=rv


I pick staying in Utah and fighting. :-) See you at the rally tomorrow night. For details, go to http://www.equalityutah.org/.

The easy silence she creates for me.....

I am not sure how to describe my beloved as when I try and explain her it takes me to the deepest, most silent part of me.... I am loved unconditionally, my quirks are embraced (most times), and I couldn't love my life more than I do now....

I was just listening to her ipod and these lyrics instill such sweetness in me every time I hear them....

Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me

Children lose their youth too soon
Watching war made us immune
And I've got all the world to lose
But I just want to hold on to the
Easy silence that you make for me

This is what today felt like, and I would be so lucky to get one more, and then one more, and more and more and more.... Sweet, Sweet, Sweet.

Community

The thing my beloved and I do the best, and feeds me the most, is simply being. We are good at that. Lovers more than doers. We kind of live in our little world. Most time has been spent with family and our few very closest friends.

I have come to love and truly appreciate my community. We have different friends. Some we see every week and some we see a few times a year, and I love and value all of them. I've come to most appreciate Wednesday night dinners with our friend P and her kids. It is so nice to be able to talk about the deeper things as adults and let the kids play. Sweet boy has really come to love them. He hugs them when he walks in, when he leaves, and says he is looking forward to next week. He gets so excited when we pick him up on Wednesday nights.

Recently, we had a lovely spontaneous breakfast with sweet K and C, and a S*perBowl party with some other friends, and about a month ago, a nice breakfast with a friend I don't see very often. This week, we are having a super fancy birthday party for a special friend. By heart, I am an entertainer, but we've had this story about needing our house to be bigger, remodeled, etc. It has been so nice to let all of that go and to know that the people in our world don't care. They just love us and want to share in the good energy of our small, quaint home. We did buy new dishes for the party though. We've never bought good matching dishes, and we wanted this party to be special, so we splurged a little. It is amazing what you can do without major remodeling. Changing a few lights here and there, getting a new coffee table, hang new drapes (thanks K and C!), get new dishes. It can really change the feel of things and I love our house all over again. K - I promise we will have game night in the next couple of months.

New Job

I have been with my company for almost 7 years now. I've worn a few different hats, but always been client facing, in either an implementation or relationship role with sort of a technical flair. I've been through being acquired twice, and acquiring other companies twice, along with many, many management changes. I am used to the ups and downs. Last fall, they did a complete restructure of how every department interfaces with clients, new technology, etc. Right now, it's pretty much a mess. During the reorganization, I had to pick if I wanted to use my technical skills, or my relationship management skills as my unique role was no longer going to exist. I picked technical.

So far, it has been great. I am playing with a whole new level of players, my clients are internal, and I am still in a role that it unique and has a lot of freedom to do it the way I want to do it. But, there are a few things that are driving me nuts.... One is that I am used to being in fire mode. Coming in each day with client issues beyond my control. I have always worked more than a full week, checked e-mails upon waking in the morning, and kind of been consumed by my work. I am adapting to leaving for the day, and really being done. This is a good thing, really, but I'm getting used to it. The biggest thing that is driving me nuts, is that my internal clients are stressed beyond belief. So, even though my ultimate goal is to increase efficiency and get rid of some of their stress each month, a few of them have overall crappy attitudes right now and the word metrics is as bad as any four letter word. Is just one more thing they need to do as managers.

I think the low moral is the hardest part for me. I don’t feel very empathetic right now. I kind of feel like the extra happy nurse on Gray's Anatomy that bugs the crap out of everybody. I do this everywhere, even in my own life. Trust me, I can get extremely angry or sad or let down or worried in the moment, but it is always just in the moment. So, when I hear somebody struggle with the same issues over and over and just waiting for a magic wand to appear, I stop listening. It's just how I function and is just who I am. I've always let things role off of me. But, this is extra hard for me because now that so many people are pissed off at management, they just don't want to do anything more than is necessary. I get it, I really, really do, but because I am not in the same boat right now I feel like I have to quickly remove myself from any negative conversation. I've always been the listener in my office, and somehow know a lot of things about a lot of people that they normally wouldn’t share, but right now I just can't be. I really love my current projects and what I am learning, so I will just ride this wave out for a little longer and see what happens.

Utah Adoption Laws

Letter to the Utah Legislature........

I write to you today with an open heart and would like to share with you how adoption has shaped who I am, and how important changing the current adoption laws in Utah would be in the life of one little boy.

My partner and I are both professionals who are moms to a great kid. Our son is a very bright, articulate and fun loving child who has his sites set on a career in engineering. He loves playing with friends, art, music, video games, reading and sudoku. He is not just surviving, he is thriving. We are a family like any other family. We brush our teeth and do laundry just like everybody else.

In getting to this happy place, our son has had to overcome a number of obstacles. With birth parents too young and incapable to care for him and his two other siblings, he had experienced a number of traumatic events in the earliest developmental stages of his life too graphic to mention. While his extended family loved him deeply, it just wasn’t enough. DCFS got involved, and immediately all three children were removed from their home. I got a phone call from my cousin, his grandmother, who asked that I take him into my home. I agreed without a moment’s hesitation. About a year later, his biological parents made the brave and wise decision to relinquish their rights and allow the children to be adopted.

The two youngest were adopted by another family, and I was blessed to be able to adopt my son. Shortly after, my life partner and I met. Had I not been single at the time, the current Utah law would have prevented me from adopting him. He has been through years of therapy and a lot of hard work. He has done most of the work, but my partner and I have been able to provide him with a lot of love and many opportunities to develop his interests and celebrate the uniqueness of what he brings to the world. For the first time ever in his life, he has a permanent place to call home.

We are in the process of expanding our family, and we would adopt another child if possible. Recently we learned of a child who was abandoned by her mother, who was too young and addicted to drugs to take care of a child. Had the laws been different, we could have pursued taking this child into our home. As it is, we will hope that she finds a great home. Instead of adoption, one of us will give birth to a child to whom we will both make a spiritual and financial commitment. Regardless of the rights that we deserve, our children should have the basic right of having two legal parents who wish to make a legal commitment to them. In a world where many parents abandon their responsibilities, thousands of wonderful people are asking for the right to make a legal commitment to their children.

As infants, my brother and I were adopted by two loving parents who provided us with many opportunities, a lot of love and guidance, and a childhood that we may not have experienced had anything prevented them from adopting us. In the event of something happening to me, they would see the importance of our son remaining in his loving and stable home, and wouldn’t try and prevent it. However, for thousands of other Utah families, this is not the case.

As a family who contributes a great deal to our community, and asks for very little in return, it angers me that my child cannot have the benefit of having two legal parents. I urge you to recognize the diversity of the family and allow these wonderful children to their basic rights and protections.

Best Regards,

Blogging... Blogging... Blogging....

So, this is my first post. I recently discovered that my sweet friend Keri had a blog. At first, I thought how strange to just post a journal on-line for everybody to see. Then I read it. I was obsessed for a bit and started clicking on other blogs. Simply amazing is all I can say. Such beauty, such honesty. Sometimes joyful, sometimes painful.

While I am a tech geek by day, I am really not into the on-line thing. I rarely answer e-mails, and am pretty much just a lurker in most groups that I go to. I find joy in learning about others more than putting my stuff out there. Truthfully, this could be the first and last blog I post. I have no idea if anybody will read it. Not sure how committed I am to it.

My life is crazy busy with work and family and all sorts of other fun stuff. I have the most amazing wife and son and am completely grateful for every part of my life. I am not sure where my journey will take me each day, but I know it will be real and beautiful and full of love....

May peace and love be with you in every part of your journey.