The Wedding Vows
These have been requested numerous times so here are the vows from the wedding:
Daniel’s Vows
Tia, my love,
Perhaps there was a time when we weren’t together. It doesn’t feel real, but it seems I remember such a time. I also have a memory that there was also a time when my contentment with life was mixed with restlessness and a sense of incompleteness. But that memory too is distant.
Fundamentally, that is why I choose to be here with you today. Some things are easier, some harder, but you’re part of the context in which everything in my life happens — a context that makes me feel at ease, complete and happy, regardless of the day-to-day details.
You are, as you know, a most unusual person, in many ways.
Sometimes that shows up in the decisions that you make, such as the decision to be very open and honest with me from the day we met, when you are usually more guarded. Sometimes it shows up in the things that you do, such as when you had a particularly bad few days and realized how hard that was on me, and wrote a series of letters and love notes, both to make me feel loved and rewarded for caring for you, and to tell me what you need. And every day, how unusual you are is apparent in the ways you are able to understand me, your ability and willingness to work with my quirks, and the generosity you bring to our relationship.
As I’ve mentioned many times, you’re crazy — crazier than most, but far saner about your crazy than the rest of the world
And so I give myself to you, and make these vows to you.
For the rest of our lives, I will work with you to make our lives great, and to make us happy. I will be open and honest with you, and express my emotions, challenging myself to continue to be more expressive and more vulnerable. I will always be growing and learning, including in any ways needed for our relationship to thrive. And I will always be worthy of your trust, always deepening the safety, joy and love that feeds our relationship.
And I promise to grow old together with you, but never to grow up, at least not too much.
I love you.
—
For the most part, you and I don’t care about the traditional symbols and rituals associated with marriage, just about the substance of our relationship.
And yet, somehow it is unimaginable for us not to exchange rings to solemnize our marriage. These rings, which we’ve designed together, represent the simple, subtle-but-not-too-subtle way we tell the world of our commitment to each other and share a glimmer of the beauty we create together.
And so I give this ring to you, to provide one more link between us at those times when we are not together, to fidget with endlessly, and to wear on your finger for ever and ever and ever.
My Vows
My Daniel,
I look back at my life before you, and it doesn’t seem real. The memories seem incomplete without you, I was incomplete. For fourteen years, I have been an incomplete Tia who was afraid to truly love, trust, and need anyone else. I lost the ability to be myself.
You know what the best part of today is (Besides the karaoke and my hair colour)? The best part of today is that we get to finally be complete, as a duo.
You are by far, the most compassionate, honest, intelligent, and dorky person I have ever had the pleasure of falling in love with. When I am with you, nothing can go wrong. Even when things are getting tough, I’m still with you. You have the patience of a Saint, every day I am in awe of the things you put up with around me.
It makes me intensely pleased every time you laugh at some stupid and dorky comment or random sound effect I make. Every time I hear that laugh, I’m reminded how of right you are for me and how much more I love life with you and being able to be myself entirely.
You always keep surprising me in ways that you work with me, compromise with me, and be understanding. You listen to me and understand me greater than any other human on the planet. This is right I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And I look at you, and I… I’m home.
My mnhei’sahe is unfulfilled without you. That is why give myself to you. I vow this to you:
For the rest of our lives, I swear to be your partner in everything. To journey with you through life and create the adventure of a lifetime. I work to remedy my mistakes, grow as a person, and live to be old; so that you can keep your promise to grow old with me. I promise to continue to grow, be worthy of your love and trust. Most importantly, I promise to continue being sane about my crazy.
Mi volas esti kun vi por ĉiam. Mi amas vin.
—
Do you wanna come with me? ‘Cause if you do, then I should warn you – you’re gonna see all sorts of things. It won’t be quiet, it won’t be safe, and it won’t be calm. But I’ll tell you what it will be: The trip of a lifetime!
It’s dangerous to go alone.
[get ring]
Take this.
[give ring]
History of the word “Faggot”
Forgive me if this isn’t of interest to anyone, but I figured that if I did the work to put this together I might as well put it in my blog.
This was originally from a reddit comment I made, but it discusses the history of the word “faggot” as a pejorative.
It’s earliest usage was simply to refer to a bundle of sticks. The first written example of the word was in the 1300s.
Around the 1600s the word faggot was often used to refer to heretics who were burned at the stake unless they recanted their heresy. Those who recanted their heretical ways were made to wear an embroidered emblem of a figure of a faggot (bundle of sticks) on their sleeve.
Homosexuality has been associated with heresy since 1116, when the Henricians were condemned as heretics. From that point forward, the Church explicitly alleged that heretics practiced vir cum viris (man with man) and femina cum feminis (woman with woman). By 1209 Pope Innocent began the Crusade against the heretical and sodomitical Albigensians in France, and the burning of heretics (labeled as homosexuals).
Sometime around the late 1590s was when faggot is believed to be used as a pejorative against women. It’s believed that during the 1600s when the term was used as a pejorative for heretics, that’s actually when faggot could’ve been used for the first time to refer to homosexuals since many heretics were also accused of engaging in homosexuality.
The word faggot at this time was put towards the heretics due to the bundle of sticks they’d be burned over, but as well tied into the pejorative for women (think witches and homosexuals being feminised derogatorily).
That being said, the word “faggot” as meaning just a homosexual male was a creation of the US at around 1914.
The word faggot has been a pejorative for quite some time prior to it being solely for homosexuals, however, homosexuality and heresy were often closely associated during the era when faggot became a pejorative. It could be argued it was used against homosexuals since the 1600s.
Citations
The term faggot or fagot, meaning bundle of sticks, shows up around 1300 in English. It almost certainly came from Old French, possibly going back to Greek phakelos. Since those bundles of sticks were mainly used for fires, it’s not surprising that the term came to mean burning sticks. Then there was that nasty business in medieval times where heretics were burned at the stake. Some later cites indicate heretics who repented and were spared a fiery death had to wear a picture of a faggot on their sleeve to show what might have been their fate. But no print evidence exists that homosexuals were referred to as faggots before the twentieth century, with the origin definitely in the U.S., not Britain.
As a last thought, a current notion holds that the Yiddish word faygeleh, “little bird,” might have been the source, but lacks evidence other than the claim that the word was commonly used in Yiddish prior to WWII to indicate a homosexual.
Source: Straight Dope
Resources:
- Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, edited by J. E. Lighter, New York, 1994-1997.
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Rictor Norton, A History of Homophobia, “4 Gay Heretics and Witches” 15 April 2002, updated 18 February 2011
