It's Just Emotion That's Taking Me Over...

Reminder...only 5 days left to enter the giveaway contest!

I thought of the title to this post and now I can't get that stupid Bee Gee's song out of my head. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so damn clever. Anyway, Kathryn asked me:

Are you guys ready for this? Are you completely panicking? Are you unbelievably excited??

Right now, I'm not sure how to answer that. Each day brings me something that I can't really quantify as far as emotions. There have been points in my life where I thought, gee, I could never be happier then this. But right now, I've never been higher on the happiness scale. I feel excited, anxious, nervous, happy...all at the same time. I find myself glancing towards the new mail icon on my toolbar every five seconds to see if we have an email from Lucy. I feel wonderfully confident when we correspond with her, then a sense of impending doom the next day because she hasn't messaged. I keep wondering how life is really going to change. I think it's finally settled on my shoulders, and as usual, the people behind that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach are...The Human Resources Department. Yes, HR. The ones who suck every last ounce of fun from everything. How is HR responsible for this you ask? Simple. I asked our HR benefits director a question on what I need to bring to California with me to make sure the baby can see a doctor while we are over there. I got the following response:

1. Add your daughter on the benefits site. I have attached the user guide/link to the site.
   
2. I will need a copy of the adoption paperwork before I can approve the addition of your daughter to your coverage

My daughter. There it is, in print. Wow. Cold chills went up and down my spine, my stomach knotted, and I felt like I might start sweating. The same feelings you must experience at a Celine Dion concert. Dread mixed with sobering reality. Daughter. It would have been so much easier if she was on the same page as me and just wrote Finster (Finsterella?).

So yesterday I hung up a new curtain rod and painted the closet doors in the baby's room. I thought, ha you're doing "Dad Stuff". I smiled. Then I thought gee what if I turn into my father? Not a bad thing, I smiled because my father is a great dad. Then I started thinking again about the other worry--once this happens, am I giving up my Gay Card?

I'm admittedly a little conceited. I'm always very sure I'm right. And whenever I look at how straight people do things, I think "Man I'm so glad we don't do that". I'm glad we're slowly getting our rights, but I don't want to be straight. It's not who I am. I have nothing against straight people, I just don't think gays need to give up their identities and be exactly like them. That's my problem with a lot of the organizations that supposedly represent me, like HRC or GLAAD. They confuse equality with conformity. I mean, I'm glad they are out there fighting the battles, but sometimes I feel like the message gets morphed from "We want to be accepted" to "We want to be just like you", and actually, not all of us do. So I conducted an experiment. Last night I finished up my baby room chores, then informed Gregg I was going out to the bar. I took a shower, got dressed, and headed out to Charlie's, one of the more popular gay watering holes. It was packed. Pulsing dance music. Crowds of hot men. A few fabulous drag queens. And me, wondering how long I have to stay here. Normally I like going out. But something changed. I had one beer, hung around the dance floor area, and kept thinking it's time to go. All I could think about was...my daughter. Well and my husband. And how I can't wait the two weeks for this to be reality. So I guess I did have a good time. I didn't stay long. I thought about all the times I've come here, about all the things in my life I've done so far. The dance clubs, Pride Festivals, cocktail parties, other unmentionables...and I thought, that was fun. I'm glad I did it. But you know what? I stood back and looked over the whole place as I was going to the front door, and I thought, I'll miss you Charlie's, but not as much as I thought I would. It's time to move on. To our daughter...