Thursday, October 11, 2012

In Case You Missed The Announcement I'm Gay, "It Gets Better" Is For You, Melissa Etheridge Lyrics, And Other Thoughts On National Coming Out Day.


I'm gay.  I'm queer.  I'm (gasp!) a lesbian, though that's the description with which I am least comfortable.   It says less, I think, about who I am.  In case you missed that announcement, I don't want to leave anybody in the dark.  It IS National Coming Out Day, after all.  And there is a lot to be said for coming out, both for personal wholeness and for the bigger picture - for saying out loud "THIS is what gay (queer, bisexual, transgendered . . . ) looks like.  I'm not a political position.  I'm not a theory.  This is me."

I can't imagine National Coming Out Day though ever not being, for me, about the people who aren't out.

Two years ago today I sent tons of love to my brave beautiful sister.  And I tried to stand up as an ally and a supporter, and inside I ached, physically ached, to be able to say "Me too!".





One year ago I posted a picture on Facebook of myself wearing my bright pink "OUT" hoodie with the tag "NCO Day 2011".  I couldn't catch my breath as I hit "Post".  I purposely did it just before I left the house for the evening so that I couldn't monitor the reactions in real time.  My heart pounded while I was away.  And, ironically, almost no one caught it.  In fact I don't think anyone who didn't already know learned that I was gay that day.  I mean, come on, it's a blurry picture and "NCO" is pretty vague.







Today my Facebook cover photo is the first picture I publicly shared of me kissing a woman - the woman I adore.   (And it includes three gorgeous dogs and the little girl who lights up my life.  Just sayin'.)   This year I get to write this blog.  This year my friends list is different, and my "irl" friend list is even more different.  And I am so flipping grateful to be here.

Because I don't think brave people come out and people who don't have the guts to live honestly stay in the closet.  I believe I am blessed to be at a place and live in a world where I have everything I need to BE ABLE to live life authentically.  I believe as Melissa Etheridge sings "every day I lived in hell I chose to stay", but I also believe that the moment that I had the love, the strength, the people, the hope to come out -- that was the day I started that journey.  And it took courage and strength and tears and all I had,  it took so much of me that I can't even comprehend it all yet, but there also was no other choice.  The day everything was in a place I could do nothing BUT begin the baby steps I had to take.

And too many places in the world, in the South, and in my dear closeted friend's homes, it's not safe to come out.  There are people starving for authenticity who can't do it yet.  So that's what National Coming Out Day means to me.  It's the day I remember them, I remember me, and I want to send them, and me,  all the love in the world.  I want to tell them this:  I watched those "It Gets Better" videos.  I saw the pictures.  And I WISHED they applied to me.  I thought they were for the people who were brave enough to come out - who were on that journey and were struggling.  And they are for them.  But they were also for me.  They were for the girl who chose to spend one more day in hell because she couldn't face rejection, and loss of friends, and loss of support from the people she leaned on the hardest, the girl who wasn't ready yet to lose everything she knew because she didn't yet know that, if she let go of the cliff edge she was hanging from, the ground was only a few feet away.   I didn't know that these two things were both true -- It was going to hurt more before it got better, AND living the way I needed to right then, hiding that huge chunk of me, was already the hardest thing I'd ever have to do.

And I live in the US of A.  I can't wrap my mind around the plight of my glbt family around the world who have so much more to lose.

So that's my post.  I'm out.  I'm gay.  To my LGBTQ family who aren't out - oh heavens, I love you!  I remember how this day hurt.  It's ok.  Be where you are.  And when everything you need is in place, you'll walk out into this gorgeous sunny world and all the love you need will be here for you.  All that love is already wrapped around you right now where you are.  I hope you feel it today.




(Photograph by Austin Robert Photography)

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