I didn’t know what to title this post. I’m not even sure what I really want to say in it, just that I want it to be. I honestly don’t know if I can even compose myself long enough to say what I want to say, so instead I’m just going to let my family and heroes say it for me.

I love you so much. And I couldn’t be more happy. Damn right you should have those same rights. And in your lifetime too.

A lot has changed sweetheart and you should cry if you feel like it because no on thought it would ever be this equal this quickly. It makes me have a lot of faith in our world.

Love and support for you always Chris so happy for you today!

I love you extra much today and hope you’re celebrating!

Love you so much! We are so thankful Tim has you in his life.We are so glad Tim has his family!

Well congrats. All I can say is it’s about time. It’s been long overdue. Now if they can finally get rid of that stupid confederate flag.

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.
“The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered.”

The feeling I have is so different from just being happy, the feeling I have is something like loved, respected, valued, validated, accepted, cherished, celebrated. Maybe I can say something about that.

My whole life I have been different. I didn’t even know I was gay until middle school, but I knew that I made friends differently, laughed differently, saw things differently. And not always in a positive way – sometimes I saw everyone else enjoying things I could not bring myself to enjoy. It feels alienating, lonely, and frustrating. When I found out I was gay I was scared, angry, broken hearted. What can it possibly be like for young men in the future to never have to feel those things I felt, besides completely amazing. And even I was not the first, not the worst off, never put into an institution where I had to be ‘corrected’, never put in jail for loving someone, never tied to a split-rail fence and beaten and left to die in the cold of night. I wish I could thank so many of those men and women who have been honored today, without them I would not have the fabulous life I have grown to love. For every heartbreak we had when one of us died, were turned away, rejected, ignored, assaulted… we made it. We never stopped loving, we were brave – we were so so brave, we risked everything, and today we celebrate a journey none of us choose to make, but made anyway. Here is a day to us, and tomorrow for those that helped us get here. For equality for women, for equality for black people, for equality for transgendered people. We have a long way to go, but we have come so far.

With love,
Chris

In leu of an update tonight due to sleepiness from the grandeur of Ireland, I present to you this poem written by Robert Frost that has been with us most of the day. 

Mending Wall

Robert Frost, 1874 – 1963

 Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

4:32am Central, or 10:32 London
Good morning everyone! I probably won’t have time to upload this post until tonight I get on the Heathrow Train when we’re at the hotel and I have a steady internet connection, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be writing it throughout the day! (What is Chris doing up at regular London time and why isn’t he crazy jet lagged? Well, let me tell you!) You may think I should be crazy jet lagged. Who is this person? But if you hop on over to my page of bookmarks, you’ll notice that under travel is an article titled: “Overcome Jetlag” from Lifehacker. They suggest that when traveling to skip a meal or two to trick your mind into adjusting it’s circadian rhythm to the next time you eat. So, I skipped the in-flight meal, wine, and port, and fasted for what has probably been about 12 hours now. AND I FEEL AMAZING! No cranky Chris in front of the Sagrata Familliga THIS time. I have never felt better waking up on a plane.
I got a head start on all my fellow passengers to the bathroom and used some much needed deodorant (how did I get so smelly so fast?), brushed my teeth, and got my face all clean before anyone else even awoke! I can already tell I’m going to be obnoxious to Tim today so I am going to have to put a cap on being pleased with myself TOO much. There is also a good chance I’m going to crash, but something tells me Fish and Chips and a Pint will take care of everything I need. You have no idea how badly I have been wanting Fish and Chips for the last 12 hours. I had decided if it was the in-flight meal (Yeah I know, I wanted Fish and Chips so bad I convinced myself it was a possibility to be the in-flight meal, and further more that it would have been worth sacrificing the last 8 hours of fasting when now I think, ew gross Fish and Chips on a plane???) You know me, I am easily blinded by the thought of fried food.
Breakfast is shortly on the way so I’ll stop off for now. I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend so far and ignores the fact that I have chosen to honor those who died by completely leaving the country. I know I will probably be on a list for this, and for going to China.

12:51pm (London)
We are on the Heathrow Express. It seems that the Heathrow Airport should have been featured on The Biggest Loser because I think I just got my steps in for the next two weeks and though I’m at sea level I can hardly breathe. We just finally got our tickets checked, which was a panic because my traveling partner said something to the effect of we might get kicked off the train which apparently was in jest but freaked me out anyway. Anyway I’m now blogging backwards on the Heathrow Express in London and we’re on our way to see if we can get to the Hotel and then sneak into Westminster Abbey before it closes. Okay. Apparently I need to look out the train windows now…. more updates soon!