Does your heart beat only for this person?

My claddagh ring on my left hand

The photo to the left shows my hand, a pale small hand with side fingers on resting on a black keyboard.

Those of you that know me personally probably already know this (the magic of Facebook status updates!), but I figured that a grand announcement on my blog was also in order.  On June 17th, I proposed to my partner and he said yes.

One of my reasons for writing this post was to really say something about why I proposed.  I also wanted to address where that puts me in the cogs of society's expectations of couplehood.

Ever since I knew that my partner and I were serious, I swore that I would not get legally married until I could marry whoever I chose, regardless of sex/gender.  This was important to me because I've dated people of various genders, and I felt like I was using opposite-sex relationship privilege just because I had it.  The reality is that I felt like I had to choose which parts of my identity I was betraying.  I have disabilities and I really need to know that if something happened to me that my partner would have the power to make healthcare decisions on my behalf.  I'm a working class person that doesn't have the finances to do the paperwork that would give me somewhat similar rights and benefits that marriage would confer with a cheap marriage license.  I had to hope that my health doesn't get any worse and that I wouldn't need to access Medicare (the US health system for the elderly and disabled that requires poverty to access) because of marriage penalties for disabled folks on SSI/SSDI.

In short, while I've chosen my partner as my beloved, I had to slog through intersections of classism, dis/ableism, and heterosexism to decide if I wanted to take the legal marriage plunge.  These decisions take some of the romantic heat out of a marriage proposal....but I think that this kind of analysis of "the personal is political" makes our engagement even more meaningful.

So for the fluffy details, we're going to get married in Las Vegas, Nevada and we're aiming for December 13th, 2013 (date not final though).  My partner has always wanted to get married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator, so we're going for a campy fun wedding.  We're planning to wear geeky costumes (as we both want something that we'll be able to wear again, so cosplay was a logical conclusion).  We're inviting any of our friends and family that can make it to Vegas for the event.  I'm putting together a wedding webpage that will have all the details (including registries...Target, Amazon, and ThinkGeek, in case anyone is curious).  We're currently undecided about having a reception back in North Carolina....I'm still recovering from surgery, and the combination of time plus money is difficult in our lives.

So there's the big news *grin*

The title of this post comes from this link on Offbeat Bride.  It's a part of the Klingon wedding vows (if you ever doubted my geekiness....)