HOW IT ALL BEGAN: SETTING THE STAGE

My relationship with Tracy began 22 years ago.  We met and were inseparable almost immediately.  There is a joke in the lesbian community that the second date is moving in together.  We didn't move that fast but it was fast.

Tracy was always a bit eccentric.  She was fun and laughed all the time.  Her laugh was infectious.  People used to say she should work on a laugh track.  She woke up with a smile on her face and  was ready to go.

After knowing her a while I found out that she was homeless and using crack cocaine.  By that time I really liked her and she swore up and down that she would stop, blah, blah.  Over time, she got her act together and we moved in together, she got a job.  Life was good.  She had her dark moments but who didn't?  We had one argument where she got mad and she swung a door open really hard and didn't know I was behind it and it pushed me head first into the closet.  She was quite apologetic about it.  I know that pushing me into the closet was an accident but the level of her anger was unacceptable.  We had a talk about it, she acknowledged it.  We moved on.

Years later she got picked up twice by the police for drugs.  The first time I bailed her out and she went to drug divergence.  The second time, I told her she had to get herself out of jail.  She went to drug divergence again.

Then Tracy was assaulted by a large man.  He didn't like something she said and he assaulted her.  No one would stand up to him because he was so big.  She lost her job because she had PTSD and could not go to work or leave the house.

We had an apartment fire and a flood in separate apartments.  Both times we had to move out of our home temporarily.  I went to graduate school.

In between these events, we were mostly happy. We made plans and went on trips.  Our trips mostly centered around family vacations.  We only went on four trips without family in 22 years.  

We bickered probably more than most.  She came from a boisterous African-American family were everyone yelled and talked over each other all the time.  I came from a conservative Caucasian family from the Northeast.  We did not yell or scream when I was growing up unless someone was in trouble.

more to come...