Owning your Truth

 

So much has changed. It seems that life ebbs and flows and comes in and comes out like the ocean. I have felt like society's view of gay people has done this very same thing. Coming out back in '93 was scary and jarring, unnerving and uncertain as to the response. But when I did come out to many folks, their response was that they had already sensed this in me and who I was and were okay with it. But it was still something that I shrouded in shame and guilt and having to navigate as a question mark rather than an exclamation point.

There in lies the onward struggle....finding my exclamation point moment for my life...the search and the journey to wholeness and fulfillment of who I am at my core.

And it has been a journey...

• Coming out to friends and family.
• Coming out to close friends I had crushes on, only to be not reciprocated.
• What the Bible says, what I had been taught, what a conservative upbringing in Lutheranism actually meant and how to navigate that for myself.
• The GUILT and SHAME of all that fire and damnation.
• Loving someone who just could not reciprocate it.
• Forced in a nine passenger mini-van for 4 months with someone who you thought was a friend, only to find that they had backstabbed you and was dating the person they had introduced YOU to.
• The dating scene...UFF.
• Yearning for Prince Charming but ignoring the actual reality of your situation until you give it space.
• Growing in a community that was a double edged sword...self-centered and body conscious...and a meat market...but also having self-loathing and body negativity.
• Jumping into a moment that scares the piss out of you, only to find that it brought you out of your shell and provided a year of growth and possibility (Thank you, Mr. Max)
• Jello Wrestling for Charity.
• Clogging Coyote-Ugly-Style on a bar full of lights and patrons...raising money for charity.
• New uses for hot glue and mirror shirts
• Christmas Cabaret One Man shows.
• Friends and connections beyond compare.
• Moving into uncertain territory for a job I KNEW I could do, but was I ready for?
• Meeting the man of my dreams...growing from there.
• Relatives throwing rocks from glass houses and I quickly began to realize where the true support actually was coming from.
• Never having been called a "Faggot" or "Queer"
• Same Sex Marriage Act  passing and marrying the man I love with all my family and friends.
• Living basically back in the closet in a "Good Ole Boy's Club" community all to be a teacher of the craft I loved.
• Learning that the word Tolerance felt different 
• MOVING up to NWA and realizing that this community would ask me to share my story with my kiddos and grow from there.
• Living out and PROUD and sharing my life with my students...
• Recognizing the importance of living a life and creating a classroom environment that I did NOT have when I was growing up.
• Finding my purpose in life.
• Figuring out what to do with guilt and shame. Still am...
• Having a country elect someone who encouraged anger and hatred to have a place at the table.
• Having elected officials tell it's community what you can and cannot say in your life and in your community and in your classroom.
• Making you feel less than others and not valued.
• Being called an ABOMINATION and how to deal with that.
• Hoping that I can still make a difference in my classroom and in my student's lives by living authentically, in the face of opposition.
• Hoping that you are a presence for your LGBTQ+ students that you are OKAY, you are loved, and you are IMPORTANT.
• Wearing LOVE everywhere I go in the face of BIGGOTRY, HATRED, and discourse...as Jesus would truly have wanted.

And for God's sake, it is OK to SAY GAY. To be GAY, to be comfortable in your own skin, to be who you are and NO ONE can take that away from you. Be the presence folks (and kiddos) need in a world I didn't have growing up in and being PROUD of it all. Helping others in their time of need and trying not to live in fear of being hurt.

SO SAY GAY.

GAY and PROUD OF IT!

GAY and OK!

EXCLAMATION POINT.

Journey on, fellow journey folks!