Just Engaged
Alex and I went to a conservative Christian university in Tennessee. He studied French and I majored in Spanish Language and Culture. We weren’t allowed to date in college because being in a homosexual relationship in our university meant that you were kicked out if you didn’t agree to corrective therapy. I was already being forced to attend scare-you-straight therapy sessions and didn’t want to subject him to that, thus we secretly dated for around a year while we were in Tennessee. He moved to France, I moved to Costa Rica - and while we were separated I studied French every day with the goal of being conversational by the time we were reunited. When we both got back to Tennessee, I had been assigned a new counselor and the pressure of living a double life drove me into a deep depression. My love for him was the only thing that kept me from killing myself. I graduated, got hired as an English professor in the Catholic University of Chile and moved to South America. A year later, he applied to the same program and moved to the southern hemisphere to be with me. Last night, while all of my North American friends were here for Thanksgiving, I got down on one knee while we were all giving thanks for the good things in our lives, and asked him if he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He said yes and we stood there and cried while we held each other and our friends cheered. It was the best day of my life. The only day that will top yesterday will be when I marry that boy. I don’t know if my family will want to come. I don’t know if my parents will ever hold our future child - but I know this: as long as I have him, I’ll need no one else.
