[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/hope-giving-and-receiving\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/hope-giving-and-receiving\/","headline":"Hope: Giving and Receiving","name":"Hope: Giving and Receiving","description":"We\u2019re human; we can handle almost anything because we\u2019re strong and adaptable.","datePublished":"2013-10-25","dateModified":"2021-06-30","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/author\/kpalladino\/#Person","name":"Kirsten Palladino","url":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/author\/kpalladino\/","identifier":2,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76421eab241dc39d43a493849d7bc676e4b1c60c6b1167f727466599b6882eca?s=96&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76421eab241dc39d43a493849d7bc676e4b1c60c6b1167f727466599b6882eca?s=96&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Equally Wed","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"http:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/equally-wed-lgbtq-weddings-logo.jpg","url":"http:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/equally-wed-lgbtq-weddings-logo.jpg","width":218,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/hope-sky-kirsten-maria-palladino-wedding-our-labor-of-love.jpg","url":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/hope-sky-kirsten-maria-palladino-wedding-our-labor-of-love.jpg","height":401,"width":604},"url":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/hope-giving-and-receiving\/","about":["Community"],"wordCount":983,"keywords":["abuse","discussion","essays","family","hope","LGBTQ weddings","loss"],"articleBody":" Today our editorial team put together an incredibly brief survey for our readers to partake in (it really is brief\u2014the average time respondents are taking to fill it out is less than 7 minutes). So far, a fair amount of you have started filling it out, and our staff is forever grateful. We\u2019re coming up on our 4-year anniversary since launching Equally Wed, and we want to make sure we\u2019re offering you what you need. If you haven\u2019t put your two cents in, click here to do it now. We\u2019ll still be here talking when you get back.One of the questions we ask is what do you find useful\/entertaining\/wonderful on Equally Wed, and one reader wrote a word that made me emotional: \u201chope.\u201dOK, I\u2019ll confess now that I\u2019m incredibly emotional. I\u2019m a Pisces and thus easily moved to tears\u2014both happy and sad. Now, I\u2019m not weak, let\u2019s get that clear, too. Tears and vulnerability are a sign of strength, not weakness. This area, this \u201cOpen Dialogues\u201d section, is for all of us to speak openly, honestly, casually and seriously about topics that matter to us on varying levels. Since I\u2019m opening up this discussion, I feel like it\u2019s appropriate for me to give you a blip of a background. Maybe I\u2019ll go into it more later, though I\u2019m saving much of my material for a memoir I\u2019m about halfway through writing, but suffice it to say that I think I\u2019m the strongest person I know. Cocky? Nah. Confident. Definitely. I’m confident in my emotional strength. In this short lifetime so far, I\u2019ve been alive, weak, a child, tricked, emotionally and physically abandoned, repeatedly raped, molested, forgotten, mistreated, ignored, bullied, taunted, dumped, cheated on, loved, married, cared for, orphaned, befriended, triumphed and renewed.Through it all, I\u2019ve only lost hope a few times, and that has been when my father died in 2008, when my mother abandoned me in 2009 and my only sibling, my brother, died earlier this year. Those have been the strength-testers. But I\u2019ve risen above, as we always do. We\u2019re human; we can handle almost anything because we\u2019re strong and adaptable. I also think what has gotten me through the darkest times has been my belief in humanity and my devout love for people on the whole. If you\u2019re reading this, I love you. Not for reading this, but because you exist. You are loved. I believe that we are all woven into the same universal fabric. Like a patchwork quilt, we come in different forms, some bumpy, some scratchy, bright hues, neutral colors and mixtures, such as plaid and madras. You are part of my fabric, my universe, my world. And I love you for that.It is this love that keeps me going and makes me want to do something valuable with my life. One of the ways that I feel I\u2019m contributing to society is through Equally Wed, the online magazine for same-sex and allied couples that my wife and I launched in March 2010. Brief background: I\u2019ve been a professional editor and writer for about 13 years now, and my wife has been a professional graphic designer and web developer for about the same amount of time. I had written about weddings and for bridal magazines, but didn\u2019t really notice that there were no brides who looked like me\u2014someone marrying someone of the same gender\u2014until Maria proposed to me on Feb. 29, 2008. That a-ha moment of realization of the outright discrimination through elimination hurt me to my core. The more Maria and I delved into our wedding planning and experienced an annoying bit of blatant homophobia from vendors coupled with ignorant questions from well-meaning friends and relatives (\u201cThat\u2019s legal?\u201d \u201cWho\u2019s the bride?\u201d \u201cWill Maria wear a gown?\u201d), we knew that our services were sorely needed.As soon as we got through with our 18-month-long engagement (a full-time job in and of itself), married in a garden wedding in June 2009, and returned home from our honeymoon in St. Maarten, we set to work building out EquallyWed.com, billed as the nation\u2019s premier same-sex wedding magazine. Our primary editorial mission was\u2014and remains\u2014to showcase LGBTQ weddings in a gorgeous way to 1) validate our community\u2019s weddings, no matter if they\u2019re legally recognized or not, and 2) to provide hope for couples who may not have thought such a dream could be a reality. It is this dream to offer hope that has been realized over and over, giving back to my soul just as much if not more than I have given back to our community, that caused my eyes to brim with tears when I read the reader\u2019s comment today in our survey that she reads EquallyWed.com because it gives her hope.Thank you, anonymous reader, for writing this word and to all of you for providing feedback on what we\u2019re all about here at EW HQ. You’ve given me even more hope knowing that I’ve achieved my goal of providing you hope.So I\u2019d like to open up this discussion thread to anyone wanting to talk about hope. What are (or were) your hopes for your wedding day? Who and what stands in the way of those hopes being realized? Your comments are anonymous, so feel free to share your inner thoughts. Think of Open Dialogues as a wine bar or coffee shop. The modern-day chat room. But without the pervs and plenty of safe, friendly people around you. So, let\u2019s chat! Start commenting below.Want to submit a full post on the theme of hope (or any other topic) for Open Dialogues? Write me anytime at kpalladino@equallywed.com.Photo by Our Labor of Love "},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Hope: Giving and Receiving","item":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/hope-giving-and-receiving\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]