This is happening now!

After all the many years of waiting for marriage equality, I never imagined I would learn that I was legally married in my home state of North Carolina from a Facebook post.

But that’s how it happened last Friday, October 10^th. My wife (we were married in the District of Columbia in May) and I have a Friday ritual of going to a late matinee. It’s a perfect way to wind down the work week and kick off the weekend.

So there we were sitting in a/perture cinema with a handful of folks waiting for “The Skeleton Twins” to begin when we checked our phones one last time. We had, of course, been following the events of the day via live streams, texts, and yes, Facebook.

The word was that Judge Osteen’s ruling would not come down until sometime on Monday, leaving lots of hopeful same-sex couples standing at the proverbial altar – or more precisely, the Register of Deeds office.

And then the frantic announcement came down – a judge in Asheville had bitch slapped Amendment One to death and same-sex marriage was now legal in the Old North State.

I had always dreamed that the moment of being equal would feel like the scenes from the end of World War II when people ran into the streets and strangers embraced to celebrate.

Instead, my wife and I exchanged no words – we simply looked at each other’s tears streaming down our faces and gently kissed. It was as intimate and reverent and perfect as one moment can be.

We thought for a minute about abandoning the movie and finding some friends to celebrate with but we stayed and held hands in the dark for 90 minutes.

No wonder those poor misguided folks were so afraid of same-sex marriage.

Afterwards, we went out for dinner and caught up on the Facebook frenzy. I remarked that I hadn’t seen such a gay FB feed since Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime performance.

It was like the best roller coaster ride ever seeing all the posts, photos and videos of couples getting married – simply thrilling.

Earlier in the day, I was interviewed by a local reporter about the anticipated demise of Amendment One and she asked me if I had any regrets about not waiting to get married in North Carolina. I told her, “Absolutely not.”

We were ready and damn tired of waiting.

I’m just so profoundly grateful that history has finally caught up with our hearts.