In July 2000, San Diego Pride held a mass commitment ceremony for several dozen same-sex couples. Single, I attended to witness all the love. “Please turn to your partner and repeat these vows,” the minister said. On a whim, I turned to the handsome stranger next to me. “You wanna do this?” I asked. He said yes. We held hands and repeated the vows. The last one was: “I promise to support you to your highest potential.” Afterward, we kissed and Eli asked: “Now that we’re married, what’s your name?” It’s now been 23 wonderful years of fulfilling our promise. — Joseph Bennett

Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real-life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging”, as I know each of these pieces represents something…