First and foremost, I want to make something clear: I am 110% about marrige equality. I have written countless papers, made countless presentations, posted endless articles on Facebook, participated in many discussions - you get the picture. This is not to say that I've done enough; in my opinion, we've not done enough until the issue is no longer. However, I am going to let the past Bees that have written so eloquently (and President Obama, who spoke so eloquently) on this topic exist without my lengthy addition.
Moving on - the land from which Mr. Palm Tree and I hail is small (I've probably mentioned that 9094832908 times). Small in terms of mind, people and area. I've made no secret that I'm not a big fan of it and I try to distance myself from it as much as possible. I say this because I think (or maybe it's just that I hope) its all-around smallness contributes to the lack of seriousness, for lack of a better term, surrounding marriage.
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| source | Then again, instances like this exist and Kim Kardashian sure isn't from a small town fifty miles north of Pittsburgh, PA. |
Despite growing up with a really, really rocky (understatement) example of a marriage, I have always valued it. I have always known - or rather, held out hope for what it should be instead of what I saw. Sure, when I was younger I romanticized it (who doesn't?) but as I grew up I started to place importance on what I felt were the true touchstones of a good marriage: stability, trust, partnership, love, communication.
