Twenty Years Together

Twenty years ago today, I went on a first date with with a guy named Clyde Parks. We’ve been together ever since.

I met Clyde at a movie night sponsored by a local church. I speculated that we might rent a movie from my favorite video store. (He owned it.) I invited him to go see a movie at my favorite art cinema. (He owned it, too.)

Finally, I just suggested we get together one afternoon to hang out. When I drove down from Kosciusko, MS, to Jackson that day, my heart was pounding. I knew there was something special about this quiet, brown-eyed guy. I had high hopes.

I pulled into his driveway. I got out of my car. I knocked on his door.

He wasn’t there.

I waited around. He didn’t show. Angry and hurt, I got back in the car for the hour-long drive back up the Natchez Trace. But right before I hit the highway, I felt an impulse to pull off at the Jitney Jungle grocery store and call him one last time. As I punched his number into that payphone keypad (ah, the days before mobile phones!), I said a little prayer: “If this is meant to be, let him pick up.”

And … he answered. He’d been roped into helping a church group finish up a project, and things went far longer than planned. He’d even called me to tell me so — but, in those days, his only option was to leave a message on my answering machine (remember those?) and hope I’d get it before heading back home.

I ran back to the car, dashed over to that little grey house on Wayneland Drive, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I could tell so many stories from those early weeks together. That first night, for example, Clyde’s neurotic cat, Lucy, padded into the living room where we were talking and jumped right up into my lap. This didn’t surprise me at all — cats like me — but it did surprise Clyde, who said Lucy had never come out to visit (much less sit in the lap of!) a guest before. It was like she knew I belonged there.

Or: six weeks later, I phoned up an old college friend and said, “I think I’m in a long-term relationship.”

She laughed out loud. “Since when is six weeks ‘long term?'”

Well … it was for me. And on one level, she was right, of course … but on another, more important level, she had missed what I was trying to say: that this felt right, felt real, felt true in a way nothing ever had before.

Those days were laced with magic. For the first time in my life, I was dating someone I wanted to date: someone I had feelings for, someone I was attracted to, someone I was actually falling in love with. And while quiet around others, he opened up to me: talking, dreaming, laughing. I felt like I’d been admitted to some secret place that no one else had ever been given permission to go … and I loved being there, in that place, with him.

I was giddy. I was happy. I was in love.

I still am. Twenty years together, and I only love him more.

This year, for the first time, I also have hope that we might someday soon be given the legal rights that all committed couples should have. Just the idea that Clyde and I might someday be married makes for a very fine twenthieth anniversary present indeed. If you know us, and love us, I hope you’ll keep us in your hearts and minds … and speak out on our behalf when the time comes.

Meantime: happy 20th anniversary, Little Monkey. Whether we’re traveling the world or just sitting side-by-side on the couch, I treasure every minute we spend together. You are my heart, my home, my joy … my Clyde. I love you.