Ang and I met in September 2007. I was working in a bar/ restaurant cooking in the kitchen. It was a nice little place where everyone knew everyone. Which wasn’t always a good thing if you wanted to keep your business private, but was kind of nice too because you always felt like you were around family. I had been working there for about 6 years at the time Ang came into my life. I had started out there as a bartender and did that for about 5 years. I waitressed a little, if someone called off, and was now cooking in the kitchen. I decided to give cooking a try when I was about 4 months pregnant with my first son Logan. I couldn’t lift the kegs and cases anymore, the cigarette smoke started to make me sick and I figured who wants to look at a pregnant bartender. So the kitchen seemed like the best bet.
Every night after work I would sit down, have a few drinks and chill out with the locals. I only lived next door to the place and I knew my husband and baby were sleeping anyway. One night I sat down to order my usual, Captain and Coke, and Martha, the bartender introduced me to her friends.
“Shannon this is my friend Darleen and her daughter Angela.”
“Hi” I said, “it’s nice to meet you.”
A little while later, after a few drinks I walked up to Ang and touched her arm.
“I love your tattoo!” I told her. She looked at me, smiled and said, “thank you.” We started bs’ ing about our tattoos, taking turns showing each other our artwork. After a while it was time to go home and for reasons I couldn’t understand, I’d thought about her all night.
The following weekend after work, I sat down and ordered my usual. I looked down the bar and there she was. Only this time she was sitting with a guy who I’d never seen before. I assumed he was her boyfriend. My friend Dan came over and we grabbed a café table to sit and talk. To this day I can’t remember a thing Dan said to me that night , I just kept staring at her hoping she would turn around and see me so I could say hi. She did and immediately we got up and sat together and talked the rest of the night. I asked her if the guy she was with was her boyfriend, she laughed and told me that he was her brother and she told me she was gay. I had lots of gay friends so that was no big thing to me. I told her I had to work the next night and that she should come by and we could hang out afterwards.
The next night dragged on and on and on. I was so excited I couldn’t wait for her to come. I kept finding excuses to go out to the bar to see if she was there yet waiting for me. Finally my shift was over. We were slow that night so I actually got done earlier than I was supposed to so I ran home and changed and did my hair and makeup. My husband asked me where I was going and I told him just out with some girlfriends. It was a Saturday night and Logan was already asleep so I didn’t see the harm. I went back to the bar ordered a drink and sat down. I couldn’t figure out why I was so excited. Maybe because she was somebody new to hang out with or maybe it was because she was my own age. All of my other friends were a lot older than me. I saw her walking in and pretended not to notice. She walked up to me and I said,” hi”. She looked a little surprised to see me all done up and not in my work clothes. I told her I had gotten done early and went home to change. We hung out for a while and when some of the other girls were done work, we all decided to go to another bar to shoot some pool. At the next bar Ang and I were inseparable. We played pool together and picked out songs on the juke box. We laughed like crazy and just got to know each other a little better. She drove me home and I told her to crash on my couch. We were trashed and she lived a good 20 minutes away. When I woke up Sunday morning she was gone.
I sent her an email on Monday at her work. I told her I had a blast and that we should hang out again sometime. She wrote me back right away and said how about next weekend. I said absolutely, I couldn’t wait!
Friday night, (OUR FIRST KISS) we went out with some friends, and Ang, Ellen and I ended up back at my house. I grabbed all the pillows and blankets I could find, popped in Pirates of the Caribbean and we all laid down on the floor to watch it. I was very specific about the sleeping arrangements I guess because Ang still laughs about it to this day. Needless to say Ellen was on the left, Ang was in the middle and I was on the right. Within minutes Ellen was out snoring loudly enough to make Ang and I crack up laughing. We laid facing each other somehow inching closer to each other every couple of minutes or so. We closed our eyes and when our noses touched we kissed each other 3 times and then we fell asleep. Saturday night was my friend Kelly’s Halloween party. We did some bar hoping before hand and each place we went we were sitting together and totally acting like a couple. I was introducing her to my friends and getting her drinks for her I was even holding her hand. I think she thought I was just drunk and it was no big deal but I was loving every minute of it. I didn’t even care who saw us or if someone told my husband. I just felt happy and excited and I didn’t want the night to end. We ended up at Kelly’s and didn’t stay very long. There was always some kind of bullshit going on at her party’s so we decided to leave. We drove back to Stevie’s house and everyone walked inside. I grabbed Ang’s hand and when she turned around I slammed her up against the car and kissed her. I think she was in shock, she kissed me right back and we held hands and walked in Stevie’s. We ended up making out on his couch that night and walked over to my house as the sun was coming up. My husband was not too happy, he went fishing and Ang and I stayed and played with Logan all day. When he napped we did too and after dinner she went home. Neither one of us mentioned what had happened the night before and when she left I was sad that it would be a whole week before I’d see her again. All week we emailed each other back and forth, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her and what had happened. I thought about how much I liked her and what it would be like to be with a woman. I thought about what it would be like to be a couple and live together and about my friends that were gay and how their lives didn’t seem much different than those of straight couples. I thought about how it would affect my son and what he would have to deal with throughout his childhood if he had a gay mom. Ok so I was jumping the gun a little bit. I had only made out with this woman one time but my mind was racing with all these thoughts.
My marriage was failing miserably and had been for a while. So every weekend I spent it with Ang. Going out at night after work and hanging out with her and Logan during the days. She slept on my couch every weekend, I begged her to stay and told her it was because I was worried about her driving home but we both knew better. Neither one of us wanted to be apart even for a second. We just loved being together. Logan took to her right away. He was glued to her side and would cry terribly when she had to leave. Each Sunday she would leave later and later. And each weekend she’d answer her phone less and less. See Ang had been with her girlfriend for 12 years and hadn’t been happy for like 10. She says it was a relationship of convince, which I completely understood being in the situation I was in. Her girlfriend worked on the weekends so that’s how Ang got away, and my husband had better things to do than spend his time with me and Logan. During the day we were 3 peas in a pod. We’d go to the park or go shopping. She’d sit and play with Logan while I’d make lunch or do my housework. My husband would come home and I’d tell him it was his turn to take care of Logan so I could go out and have my free time. I never left while Logan was awake. He was always bathed and fed and asleep before I went out. I felt less guilty that way. And I was always there when he woke up in the morning. The nights would come and Ang and I were out the door. Always going out to a bar so I could have a few drinks to get up the courage to hold her hand under the table or in the car on the way home. Halloween night my mom, my sister, and her boyfriend, me and Ang all dressed up and went out trick or treating. It was so much fun. On the way home Ang and I stopped at a bar, rumored to be a gay bar, in our costumes. Everyone there got such a kick out of us and from that night on that was our spot! Every weekend that’s where we went. We knew everybody and they knew us. They called us “The Girls” and we had a blast every time we went. Everyone thought we were a couple for a while. We met this guy named Ned who became such a good friend to us. He would always ask me how things were going with my husband at home and he would tell me if I wasn’t happy to change my life. He would always say he could see how much Ang cared about me, that it was obvious to anyone who knew us.
November came and my husband was away hunting, so I jokingly asked Ang if she wanted to be my date for Thanksgiving at my mom’s house. She said yes and so we took Logan and we went. I wonder if my family thought anything of it at the time. I guess not they’ve never said so. But we went and we ate and had a nice time.
Things went on as they had been throughout December, although I wasn’t happy at home I had decided I wanted another baby. Christmas time came and we went to my parent’s house in the mountains for the holidays. I emailed Ang the whole time I was away and hated that I wouldn’t get to see her that weekend. I hadn’t gotten my period that month so my sister and I went to the store and I secretly bought a pregnancy test. I went home and took it and sure enough I was pregnant. I flung open the bathroom door and announced to my husband and my whole family that I was pregnant. And in that instant of being totally thrilled and excited Ang popped into my head. How was I going to explain this to her? I felt like I had cheated on her even though we weren’t truly a couple. I felt like I’d betrayed her in some way, like I had lied to her about being unhappy at home and then boom I end up pregnant. The truth was I was trying to get pregnant so Logan could have a sibling and I was trying before I’d met Ang. I never thought about how it was going to change things for everyone else. Luckily for us it changed things for the better. It became a blessing to our relationship and made us even closer than we already were.
It took me 2 days to figure out how to tell her the news. Every time I tried to sit down and write her I couldn’t think of what to say. Finally I did it and it went something along the lines of. Hey what’s up? How was your Christmas? By the way I’m pregnant, if you don’t want to hang out with me anymore I understand. Smooth right? Being the totally awesome person that she is she wrote me back and congratulated me and said of coarse she still wanted to hang out. So we started doing things together that didn’t involve bars or alcohol. We’d got out to eat or go to the movies. I did go out with her for New Years Eve even though I was completely exhausted. She still came over every weekend and sometimes we’d just stay home and veg out. She started taking me to meet her family, we went to her Grandparents for dinner, and I went to a concert with her and her girlfriend and her mom. She even made her girlfriend and her mom sit in the back of the car. She said it was because I was pregnant but I knew better. So for nine months we were best friends. No fooling around, no holding hands, no kissing in the car before we went home, just friends. And we got to know each other on a level that most people don’t now a days. It was kind of like when people courted each other before they got married and slept together. She opened all the doors for me and carried my stuff to the car. She took me baby shopping and put together all the baby stuff for me. She pushed Logan in the stroller and carried him when he had to be. And we talked and talked and fell in love with each other as a person, without any sexual tension or expectations that you normally have in a relationship. Most of our time together was now spent with Logan since I was tired at night and couldn’t go out late. So we’d take him to the pool or the zoo and come home and play out in the yard until dark and he continued to fall in love with her more and more everyday just like I did. Eventually I stopped hanging out with my other friends. Like I said they were all older and their kids were grown and they wanted to go out and party and I couldn’t so it just became me and Ang. People at work would question me and ask why she was there every weekend. I blew them off and told them nothing was going on because at the time nothing was. Nothing physical anyway but mentally I was in love with her. At this point I still hadn’t realized it fully. I didn’t think we would ever become a couple even though I thought about it all the time. I actually started marriage counseling to try and fix our problems at home for my kids’ sake. But that was a complete waste of time. Toward the end of my pregnancy I started to think about all the things that Ang had been there for, with me and with Logan that my husband had missed. Logan’s second birthday party, his first trip to the zoo, the first time we took him to the pool, baby shopping for Wyatt, and when I had my belly hennaed. She even walked in the room as I was going into labor with Wyatt and was there when I brought him into this world. All the times she was there for me, all the things she had done for me, and she never asked for anything in return. Just being with me was enough for her and I started to realize that being with her was what I wanted all the time. When she was around nothing was wrong, and when she wasn’t I was miserable without her. The day after Wyatt was born Ang and her grandmother came to visit us in the hospital. Ang brought me flowers and her gram brought an outfit for the baby. I wished she could stayed there with me all day. After we went home things went back to the same, I was on my own basically during the week, taking care of the kids and the house, waiting desperately for the weekend to come again. When Wyatt was around 2 weeks old my step mother came out to visit and she could see that things were pretty much the same with Wyatt as they had been with Logan, me doing all the work and being exhausted. She insisted that I leave the kids with her and go out with my friends for a couple of hours. I was so excited. I called Ang right away and she came to pick me up. We got to our favorite bar and I ordered my first drink in 9 months drank 3 sips out of it and started to cry. I felt guilty for leaving Wyatt so soon. She took me home right away. The next night I tried again. Only this time we went to my friend Kathy’s house not so far away and I called to check on the baby, once I knew he was asleep I could finally relax. We sat on the porch and drank some beer listening to music. Then Kathy and her beau wandered off and there I was alone with Ang again buzzed of my second beer. We were standing up leaning on the railing of the porch and one of her cd’s was playing in the radio.
I said,” this is my jam, you gotta give me this cd.”
She said,” what r u gonna give me for it?” and I said,” what do u want?”
She leaned over grabbed my face and kissed me right there on Kathy’s porch. In that moment I was so relieved. I wanted things to be like they were before I got pregnant, I was afraid that it would be awkward or take us forever to get back to the way we used to be. I was afraid we would never be that way again. But when she kissed me I knew she wanted it to. This time it was crazier than before. All I wanted was to be with her all the time. I couldn’t stand the sight of my husband anymore I didn’t want to even sleep in the same room as him. I moved all my stuff to the upstairs bedroom. And when Wyatt was two months old I had had enough. One night Ang and I went out and were sitting at a small café table in the corner of a bar talking and laughing, waiting to hear our favorite band play, and I looked at her and said,” you know what, you’re my soul mate, I know that sounds cheesy but it’s true. The only time I’m happy is when your around.”
With the biggest smile on her face and she looked at me and said,” me too.”
I said, “ we deserve to be happy, I deserve you and you deserve me, let’s be together.”
I gathered up my things and she just sat there and watched in disbelief. I think she thought oh she just drunk, she doesn’t mean it, and we walked out the door. We got in the car I told her to take me home and on the way I called my husband. I told him that it was over between us and that I wanted him to move out and that I was in love with Ang. When she heard me say that she started to veer off the road. She was in complete shock. We went home that and I asked her not to leave, I don’t know how she had the guts but she walked in the house right beside me and we stood there and faced him and told him the truth. I told him I loved her and that I wasn’t going to change my mind. And he moved out the next day.
On October 2, 2008 Ang moved in with the boys and I. A whole new life had begun. Not only did no one in my family know but my friends didn’t either. Ang’s ex started throwing her things out the front door into the rain, my ex was still coming by for his things and to pick up the kids for a visit. It was the craziest couple of weeks there for a while until we got everything situated and it started to feel like a home again. Now we were together all the time not just on the weekends like before and we couldn’t have been happier. I maintained my roll, cooking and taking care of the kids and she pitched in whenever she could and helped me with it all. She did the things I wasn’t used to doing like the mowing and the fixing. We even painted the whole house together, I think it was a metaphor for a fresh start for the both of us. She got up with Wyatt in the middle of the night, and would give them baths and put them to bed for me so I could sit and relax for a while. Eventually everyone knew what had happened, remember what I said about small towns. But it was fine. None of my friends cared and Ang’s family accepted me and the boys completely. I think they finally saw Ang happy for once. My family on the other hand was a different story. My mom and my sisters were ok with it at least they’ve never told me any different and they’ve always been nice to Ang. My father however, was a little bit harder to convince that the world was not going to come to an end because his oldest daughter was now a lesbian.
That first year was exciting, there was always something going on. We had finally moved all of Ang’s stuff in and we were getting used to each other’s routines. Not to mention we had a new baby in the house. Wyatt was still a newborn and needed a lot of attention. Logan adapted really well, he didn’t even realize anything was different really. He was so used to Ang always being the one to do things with him that he loved having her there all the time. He used to ask her when she’d leave for work if she was going home, it took him a while to realize she lived with us now.
We did EVERYTHING together, cleaning the house, shopping, yard work, you name it. Taking the kids to do stuff, making home movies and scrapbooks of all the fun things we did.
My Dad came around eventually. My youngest sister graduated from high school and asked me to attend her graduation. I went for her but said I would not attend her party without Ang. My Dad invited us both and we went. I think it was probably somewhere around the second day of our visit that my Dad realized that he loved Ang too. Ok maybe not quite that soon but it wasn’t long at all. I don’t think it was her he didn’t like. I think he was afraid of the way he’d feel when he saw us together. And once he realized that we weren’t gonna make out with each other in front of him, he was fine with it.
One night when the boys were with their dad, Ang and I went out to meet Ned at the bar and we told him all about our new life together and how crazy things were. He told me something I will never forget.
He said,” give it a year, and I promise you everything will be completely different, in one year look back on this time right now and you will be amazed at how much better things will be.”
And he was right. Every time things would get a little hectic with my dad or with my ex, or with Ang’s ex I would think about what Ned said to me and try to stay positive. On October 2, 2009 I thought about Ned and his advice and he was right.
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