A Shared, Joyful Endurance Event

Readers of this blog know that I'm only able to do the crazy endurance events I so love, thanks to my partner in life, Christi.

Back in the summer of 2002, when we met and fell in love at the Hollywood Bowl, I never dreamed that we would ever be able to marry. Civil unions had become legal in Vermont in 2000, and same-sex couples in the Netherlands had been given marriage rights in 2001, but when Christi and I got together, the tide did not seem to be with equality.

Quite the opposite, in fact: in 2006, just a few years after Christi and I became a couple, my home state of Colorado joined 25 other states in constitutionally banning the recognition of marriages between two women or two men.

We knew the commitment in our hearts to each other, and it seemed that for us, that would need to be enough.

Flash forward to 2013, and things could not be more different; in fact last week, the day after Christmas, Christi and I were married in New Mexico!

Ashley and Christi in front of the Santa Fe County Clerk & Recorder.

I never imagined that after nearly 12 years of sharing our lives with each other, marriage would feel any different than these past years of commitment have, but it does feel different, in wonderful ways. My life partner is now my wife, and together we are married in the greatest endurance event there is: life itself.

Thank you, New Mexico! And see you on the trail, friends!