Joy O'Donnell

• 35 years old
• Current Status: Single. "Divorce" in process.
  In New Relationship
• Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis January 2004
• Irish American
• Emeryville, California

My fairy tale started when Karen and I became domestic partners in 2000 and then married one another in 2001 at a ceremony with over 100 of our closest family members and friends. This was long before marriage equality was on the national radar in any serious way. For years, we thought our domestic partnership and commitment ceremony/wedding were enough. We did not yet understand what it felt like to have civic validation for our love and commitment—along with the promise of the over 1,000 federal and state rights attached to marriage.

Then, on that euphoric and historic day—12 February 2004—we became one of the first couples to marry in San Francisco City Hall and we finally began to get it. For over 2 years we educated people nation-wide about how in particular my disability and inability to marry intersected. In particular, we talked about how scary it was to travel and not have any kind of assurance that if I fell ill, Karen would have the ability to see me in the hospital and make critical—potentially life saving—decisions about my health.

In 2005 Karen and I chose to end our relationship and discovered that even though our marriage had been invalidated and we were no longer married—we would have to "divorce" legally as any heterosexual couple would. Confusing as that might be, we discovered that divorce is a privilege just as marriage is and we are thankful to have access to it. Many same sex couples do not have access to divorce and consequently become financially devastated when separating because there is no legal, equitable division of assets and debts in addition to child custody agreements.

Having Multiple Sclerosis as a young woman in the prime of my life is challenging enough without the added daily mental panic caused by marriage discrimination. MS is a completely unpredictable disease—on any day at any time I could become blind, unable to walk, unable to use my brain—either temporarily or permanently.

During the past year, I learned to fall in love with myself and consequently was able to trust again—and love again—but in a whole way I never knew possible. As I turned 35 last June, God brought my beautiful new girlfriend Kas into my life as a way of saying—"way to go kid—love yourself—love your community—you deserve all the 'happily ever after' you can muster in this lifetime—now get out there and make that happen for everyone else who may want it too."

I will keep working to create marriage equality, equality for the differently-abled and equality in general for all people because I don't believe in second-class citizenship, in any form, for anyone. I do still believe in little girl fairy tales—of loving forever and ever—but now my fairy tale includes so much more than before. Love is all you need but what you do (and don't do) with it, is everything.