GCLS News

When last you heard from me I was doing a Pampered Chef show to raise money for the Golden Crown Literary Society scholarship fund, because it is a cause that I really care about.  The GCLS is a wonderful non-profit organization that supports lesbian fiction, its readers, and its writers. As a small community its so important to me to have the support of the women who are going through the same trials and experiencing the same joys as I am.  I truly believe that what benefits the community benefits all its members in the long run, and GCLS is one of the few organizations working to make our community stronger.

So with that in mind it’s not hard to understand why I am committed to attending the GCLS’s annual conference in Orlando this June, but I have a prior commitment that has come in to conflict with the conference this year, and its a big one.  You see Susie and I have only spent one night apart in the 7+ years we’ve been married (and it was a miserable night at that).  I know it probably seems silly to some folks but we are just the most happily co-dependent couple you’ll ever meet and there’s not anything so important to us as ending each day in each other’s arms.

What’s more neither of us have ever spent a night away from Jackie.  Its not so much that we worry he couldn’t be without us as that we aren’t sure we can be without him.  We are about as tight-nit a family as ever there was and we like it that way. So when Susie was offered a big promotion at her summer job (I won’t go in to details here but it was major career opportunity) that conflicted with the timing of GCLS we were both thrown in to a bit of a panic. There is just no possible way for our little family to be both places as once, and we don’t travel apart.  My wonderful and understanding wife offered to turn down the promotion, saying she might get another chance someday and she didn’t want her career to take priority over mine (even though she makes about 12 times what I do).  I was grateful for her offer, but I couldn’t let her do that, clearly I would have to miss GCLS.  As hard as it was to say, there would be other conferences.   But Susie dug her heals in and said she wouldn’t take the job if I’d miss the one event that meant the most to me all year, and I wouldn’t go to the conference if it meant she missed a chance like the one she’d been offered.  We were at an impasse when one of us (I don’t remember who) suggested the unthinkable.  What if I went to GCLS on my own?

Before the thought had even fully formed the answer was no.  It would mean spending at least two nights apart from each other and it would mean one of us would be without Jackson as well.   Who would even watch him.  Susie would be working from 8-5 every day of the week and as much as everyone at GCLS loves him, I work long hours and not all of the spaces at the conference are appropriate for a three year old. We’d have to employ the help of the grandparents.  We called them just to test the waters, and not surprisingly they were giddy about the chance to have him and offered to drive to Louisville (where Susie will be working) and spend the weekend with him.  I could feel my heart sinking as it came together that not only might I be away from my wife for the longest stretch of my married life, I would also be the mommy who was away from Jackie for over two days. Once again I know this all probably sounds very dramatic to a lot of families who have to be apart, but we didn’t HAVE to be apart, it would be a choice and thats a big deal for.

I’m hard pressed to think of another event that would even make me consider taking that trip alone.  I love women’s week, but I’ve missed it before and will probably miss it again.  We’ve both missed holidays at home and vacations with our extended families.   We’ve even missed funerals and a wedding or two. But there’s just something different about GCLS.  This my community, the women who have given me so much, and who I want to give back to.  There is no beach, or night clubs, or distractions, just a group of women who believe in what I do enough to spend their time and money for one weekend a year together. Susie and Jackie will still be in Louisville when I get back on Sunday, but the women of GCLS only gather once a year.  It will be hard for me to be without my family for the first time and I’m not too butch to admit that I will shed more than a few tears without them, but we’ve ultimately decided that two days apart from each other is better than two years apart from the women of GCLS. So while I will be cutting back my time at the con (just Friday and Saturday) this year, and I won’t have my little lady killer of a wing-man or my devastatingly georgous date for the dance, I will be there.

Ya’ll mean that much to me!