Nine years ago today, I stood in my living room and managed to fumble what should have been the most important sentence in my life. And, to be honest, I can't remember anything but the fact I fumbled and why. In this case, it was because the preacher started reading from Corinthians and all I could think of was the scene from Hackers where Cereal Killer is trying to get everyone to play well together.

Yep, nine years ago, I got married in my living room. It was the cumulation of a very rough year in our lives, but also the capstone to major life changing events like having my last name legally changed to Moonfire and getting eye surgery so I could be free of glasses for a few years (might need them soon, though).

Fluffy and I joke about our marriage. I've seen too much pain when people are shackled together "forever" so I wanted a decade-long marriage with renewals. She wanted it to last into the next lifetime. So, we compromised on fifty years with renewals. In forty-one more years, when I'm seventy-five, we'll decide if we want to stay together another fifty years. It think she's banking on me being lazy at that point; we'll see.

It was also a point of change in other places. It was the day where my mother said something that really started me on the path of getting away from here.

"I'm so glad you married a woman."

I'm not saying that I was unhappy there, but there was something about the tone of her voice that just bothered me, but it took me a few months to put a finger on it. That was one aspect of my life she never liked, though she claimed she was okay with it... just not with her children. Send her younger son, who was obviously obsessed with women, to spend the summer with a gay couple, no problem. The older one, who didn't show attraction to anyone, keep them away from those gays. Oh, and throw women at him.

I did marry a woman. Fluffy is a wonderful human being and she has the strength of character to handle my rather epic mood shifts, bouts of depression, and constant whining that I don't have enough time to do things. She also is my crowbar to get me off the computer at midnight and the person to kick me in the knee when I'm being an asshole.

In other words, a perfect mate.

But, her gender doesn't really matter to me. It was just how it came out in the end. Like many things in life, I have trust that what is provided to me is what I needed. You just have to not be picky about the form it comes in. And I'm not.

I'm happy. Marriage is probably one of the best things in the world that happened to me. I didn't do anything right. I didn't propose properly or plan it. I spent a year trying to get up to the courage and I came out as "um, I think I just proposed to you."

...

Okay, it really wasn't that special.

And I fumbled on my vows because I was thinking about a movie.

But, the last nine years have really been the greatest years of my life. I saw the world in a new light, and while it isn't perfect, it is exactly what I needed.