Love is Love: This is Real

Love is love.

There was a time when that phrase meant just one thing to me. It’s a song by Culture Club, a beautiful ballad from the 1984 cult-following film, Electric Dreams.

But five years later, in July 1989, my life changed dramatically. I took two gargantuan leaps – I came out of the closet, and I dove into my first ever gay relationship with Steve. Today, 29 years later (gasp!), Steve and I are still together.

Love is love.

That phrase means so much more now. It means freedom to love whom you choose. It means the power to nurture that love, to let it fulfill you independently and collectively. It means there is validity in that love. Nobody can tell you otherwise.

Yet many will still try. We have so many legal and societal advancements – marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws, gay-themed TV shows on prime time, acclaimed and rewarded gay-themed movies, expansive recognition of the LGBTQ definition, increasing acceptance from the heterosexual community. But there remain many ugly roadblocks, from hate crimes to religious overzealousness, subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) discrimination to the lingering idea that somehow being gay is a switch that you flipped on and you can flip off at will.

I refuse to focus on the negative. Instead, let me tell you about my relationship with Steve. We met in Miami, where we both lived decades ago. In fact, we went to high school together, although back then we were merely acquaintances in the same graduating class. Six years after high school graduation, Steve walked back into my life. It was late spring 1989. I knew what was happening inside me. I kept convincing myself that as long as I didn’t act on any of my feelings and desires, as long as I kept it all bottled in my soul, nothing would change.

Steve changed everything. Never in my entire life have I felt such deepness for another human being.

Love is love.

About a year into our relationship, we were already living together in a local Miami apartment, we experienced the dreaded too much too soon syndrome. We went our separate ways for five months. I like to think we each grew in those five months. I think we both understood ourselves better, and we certainly understood each other with much more clarity.

Barely half-a-decade after that reunion I got a job offer in Dallas. I wanted that position. It underscored a huge leap in my career and I really felt like I needed to get out of South Florida. I was in my late 20’s and felt bold enough to explore, to write a new chapter in my life. Literally.

I swallowed hard and worked up the nerve to tell Steve. He was nicely entrenched in his career and job. I said to myself that no matter how much I loved him, and I did, I would not force him to come with me. It was not fair to uproot him because of my professional and personal dreams. So, after dinner one evening I told him that I had accepted the job offer and that I was moving to Dallas. I told him that I loved him dearly but that I couldn’t demand that he come with me. He had no job to go to, and I was asking for a major life change.

He looked me in the eyes and without missing a beat said, “When do we leave?”

Love is love.

Today, nearly 30 years later, after buying three houses and selling two, after enduring job changes, career revamping, an illness or two, and after watching the tide ebb and flow regarding gay acceptance, Steve and I are still together. Our love for each other is a mountain, a natural structure that has a few chips and pokes but has never experienced an avalanche.

You can’t tell me that what Steve and I share isn’t love. You can’t tell me it isn’t real. You can’t tell me it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t care what rules your existence, whether it be societal mores, religious beliefs, or an inherent inability to just live and let live. Steve and I share a life, a world. We keep a house, pay bills, share ups and downs, and most importantly respect each other while never taking the other for granted.

Love is love.