The trip to City Hall

A few days ago, on Wednesday May 27, Justin and I traveled down to City Hall to make this whole upcoming marriage thing legal. Along the way, we had adventures in municipal bureaucracy, feeling like adults, and pristine chocolate shops. But now the papers have been signed and we've entered into history, just like that. Although we won't officially be married until our officiant signs the papers at our ceremony, we're definitely already on file in City Hall. I was reflecting on how interesting that is--how this marriage license, along with our birth and death certificates, is one of the few pieces of recorded history that will be filed away in official municipal archives, for future historians to find. This privilege of marriage (the one reinforced so harshly by the lines I slightly guiltily signed that so starkly and discriminatingly read "Bride: Female" and "Groom: Male") extends not only to to hospital visitation rights and shared property rights, but also to the right to be remembered by history, at least for something other than being born and dying.