Though gays and lesbians couldn't legally wed in 1986, my partner and I held a ceremony among the redwood trees in a park outside Oakland, California. Our parents refused to attend, but our siblings and other loved ones came, and the mood was joyful and profound as I committed to my beloved in front of a supportive audience of family and friends.

In 1999 the California legislature approved Assembly Bill 26, allowing same-sex domestic partnerships.

Our union now had a legal name. We were "DPs," which gave us hospital visitation rights and made health insurance slightly more attainable.

We celebrated with friends at a Thai restaurant.

The next iteration of our partnership was a civil union performed in 2003 in Vermont. Though California didn't allow same-sex civil unions, it recognized those obtained in other states where they were legal. When I invited my mother, she said, "Yes, I'm coming. I try not to make the same mistake twice."

This broke my heart open.

Over the next decade the status of same-sex marriage in California was as convoluted as an M.C. Escher stairway. For one month in 2004, before the state supreme court ordered a halt, San Francisco issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and we were one of the approximately four thousand couples who were wed. The simple ceremony at city hall was electric, and the officiants and clerks were as thrilled as we were. To the cheers of strangers, we descended the staircase as a—temporarily—married couple.

Between 2004 and 2013 our marriage was in a state of abeyance, as both political sides passed legislation and issued court challenges. In 2013 gay marriage became legal in California, and two years later the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges made it legal in all fifty states. Cue another big celebration. By our count we've had four weddings—and one Thai dinner—in our attempt to obtain a legal record of our love.