Grief/Silence

When I need it most, my brain goes quiet. In the ugly radio silence and white noise, the ruined meat shudders and whimpers over all the collective thoughts I should have, should have had while I had the chance. As if I were suddenly rebooted into some safe mode without networking or the capacity to connect to my drives, I curl up, cut off from all possible methods of recovery.

Of course, I’m still talking and functioning. I still laugh and think about other things, still call my boifriend and have full conversations. But once I hit this trigger I shut down. I become useless. I refuse to call my best friend back and talk about the memorial arrangements.

And then this sick, awful part of me wonders why this hit me so much harder than my grandfather’s. Why is it my family's deaths are so normal for me but my friends' tear me up inside? Is it all the broken promises? Is it all the unfinished business? Is it that I know my family knows I love them unconditionally but maybe my friends felt less than cherished, less than cared for?

Because I don’t think he knew how much he meant to me. I don’t think he knew everything he did for me or how he shaped my life or brightened my day or saved my family. I don’t think he knew that he made such a huge impact on us, or how much we all loved him. How his laugh could make all the horrible things of the week run for the shadows, or how his crinkling eyes always reminded me of the kindness and wisdom I imagined in Dumbledore’s.

When I was a freshman in high school I was teased and told I didn’t belong in a certain group because I wasn’t smart enough. He was having trouble with a case and asked us for help finding a defense. I don’t think he really expected any help, but I piped up with a pretty solid way to get the warrant thrown out. It was a totally “Legally Blonde” moment, and it boosted my confidence by a million miles. He always had faith in me, even when I didn’t have faith in myself.

I’m going to miss that.

Carding

I love seeing the fam and old friends from high school and college years, going out for drinks, gambling, pool, bowling, and all that fun stuff. What's not fun, and I'm not sure if I've talked about this here before or not, is how short and sweet I am. I have a seriously sweet face, and it gets me carded all the time. I went out a few weeks ago with friends and the bar came up to my collar bone. I felt like a six year old. When I requested a Shirley Temple because I had to drive a long, curvy, country road home, the bartender actually said "Thank God."

I get carded when I want to buy lottery tickets, I've been pulled off casino floors and gotten my hand stamped to enter (did you even know they did that at casinos because they do), I've had to pull out credit cards to prove my ID isn't fake. I'd like to say it's flattering. What girl in her mid-twenties wants people to think she's forty? But seriously, yo, stop thinking I'm under 18. It's not cool.

I've learned certain things over the years: when I wear my hair in a braid, it takes off 2 years, add glasses and it knocks off another 2 or 3, pair it with skinny jeans and some converse and I'm a high school kid. But even busting out the boobs and throwing on high heels doesn't seem to help with the carding dilemma. What else can I do? Paint my face in clown makeup?

Tonight was fun, nonetheless. I had a good time catching up with people I've missed. It's always a little awkward around high school friends because they knew me as a completely different person. They knew "pre-gay, baby wanting, Mormon marrying, Tabby" and don't know what to do with the "out, single, comfortable, happy with her life and her sexuality so I don't-need-to-discuss-it-every-second Tabby."

Whenever my sexuality comes up in conversation, people think it's okay to ask for details about my sex life. "Do you do this? Is scissoring a real thing? I've always wanted to have sex with another girl but I don't want to taste it." I don't find out somebody's straight and say "Hey, do you like the taste of his sperm and let him do crazy shit like sign you up for gangbangs?" No, I don't, because I have manners. I'm going off on a tangent. I promise I'll do a whole other post on that topic. For now I'm just trying to deal with the carding sitch.

Also, I've been updating the first:girl series, so if you haven't signed up, email me or leave me a comment with your email and I'll send you the password.

Day 28 Changes

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 28 — Someone that changed your life

My fifth grade teacher was a bitch. She made me hate school and I started flunking out and not wanting to do my homework. I was a pretty great student before she came along, so she definitely changed my life. I could be a lawyer or a marine biologist, or a zoologist. Or a cop - I think I'd like to be a cop.

My high school drama teacher changed my life. He gave me a therapeutic outlet when I needed one, he got me into theater, which got me into college, he was the only person who noticed when my anorexia was getting out of control. He founded the GSA club at my school and convinced me that I should join, even before I knew I was gay, though I was a huge gay rights activist at 14.

He grounded me, gave me balance, gave me a safe space to scream and cry when my world was crashing down and then taught me how to rebuild. He could turn a drama class into a playground for two year olds, or send us drifting high above the earth like astral projection. There were no limits as to what our bodies were capable of with him. After college, he gave me a reference for a steady job. He looks out for me, he laughs with me, he tells me to cut the crap when I'm holding myself back. He's everything a teacher is supposed to be.

Intelligence

I've never associated higher education with intelligence. I think that with the internet, libraries, public and mass access to information, this is more true than ever.

My family never placed much importance on education. My siblings and I were told to do well, but if we didn't, there was no punishment. During junior high I had 32 missing homework assignments for one class but an A+ on every test. I skipped school and didn't do my work (it was boring and I had better things to do) but I still tested better and engaged in classroom discussion more than most of my classmates. Perspective - when I was 3 my favorite word was Alstroemeria, granted, it was my favorite flower.

Alstroemeria varies in color, but all have a spotted pattern

My siblings and their spouses all went to some college/junior college/trade school/etc, and the same with my parents, but none have a bachelors. My grandmother left college to marry my grandfather, who dropped out of high school to join the military at 16. Some of my extended family have 4 year degrees or beyond - one of my relatives has an MA is a mumblemumble in MO. (political relatives - who willingly admits that?) But I don't think of them as any more intelligent than my little familial hub.

I've always thought that learning is more about what you soak in from the world around you. How much attention you pay to your environment, to the people around you, to the news. When I took psychology I felt like they were trying to teach me things I'd already learned just from observing life around me. I feel like after the fundamental lessons, classes don't make people smarter, open minds make people smarter.

If you don't know what type of rock that is, look it up. If you don't understand what the central nervous system does, you can search the internet. If you are confused about the Russian Revolution and the mystery surrounding Anastasia (which is now not all that mysterious), there are encyclopedias and history books which can help you out with that.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna

 

 

 I look at her and want to cry because it's not like the Don Bluth movie.

She was so young and beautiful and innocent. Coincidentally, she looks like my grandma.

A curious mind can learn infinitely, beyond the textbooks and classroom doors, the college years and professors. But an ignorant mind can go to school for ages and not learn anything. 

Or maybe I just think that to make myself feel better because I never went back to finish my four year. School and I have never mixed well and probably never will. The joy and love I experience writing for myself is equal to how much I hate writing papers/assignments.

Day 10 Friends

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 10 — Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to

This is farther than I got last time, so go me!

Dear Adam,

I miss you. That might be my most honest sentence in this whole letter. It used to be that you needed me, or I needed you, and that need kept us close. But now you're engaged (congrats! I love her! Can I just take a minute to boast that if I hadn't made you fully aware of how much whats-her-face sucked you never would have met your beautiful, amazing, talented future wife? Chalk one up for me) and I'm doing well, and we don't need to talk like we used to, so we don't.

It's interesting that in all the years we've been friends, we've never gone out for pizza, or hung out at your house or mine, or gone to the movies. We don't spend time together unless we're ducking out of a religious activity, out walking or sitting at some park talking about our issues! You have to realize how weird that is, right?

Anyway, I've known you my whole life and just because our lives don't suck anymore (relatively) doesn't mean I want you to exit stage left. Who else is going to help me find the little dipper? Who else would talk me out of dying my hair yellow? You're important and I like having you around. Plus, my life is going to suck eventually and no one knows me better or can get me to talk better than you do (including best friend from Day 1 with whom I have a hard time communicating). You make me say what I feel. You don't assume and let things slide and let me avoid and I love that about our friendship.

Thanks for being there,

-

Day 8 Redux kcnightfire

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 8 — Your favorite internet friend

I'm going to direct this to kcnightfire, considering she comments on my blog more than anyone else lately. Go check out her blog!

Admittedly, I probably have really bad taste in art. I dated someone with a Salvador Dali in her living room but the beauty of it was totally lost on me. What does a pig in a tree have to do with Alice in Wonderland? I guess I should probably read the story and not base my opinion off the Disney movie :D But, if you asked me to name the most wonderful painter of all time I would say Vincent van Gogh. Starry Night has to be one of my favorites, but the other? I love his entire Wheat Fields series- not so much the haystacks or the reaper and sower, but the Plain at Auvers, Harvest in Provence, Wheat Field with Cypresses.

They all bring me comfort, fill me with wonder. When I look at any of his paintings, it's like looking in a window, except the world inside is richer and more beautiful than the one around me. They make me wish I could see the world the way he must have, and they all remind me of home. Sounds weird, I know, considering he lived thousands of miles away, but if you stood on a hilltop across the river from my house, you would see his environment. Everything he knew, down to the windmills and gold fields, the sky so blue, the clouds bright and crisp, all rippling through my backyard.

I don't have any talent in the painting arena - I've tried. I took exactly one art class in high school and realized I can draw a pretty decent duck and paint a sunset well enough that you'll figure out what it is eventually :) I also took ceramics for a semester before I failed out because I was too much of a perfectionist to get anything in on time. I can pick apart a sonnet and discover the undertones and symbolism in a heartbeat, but interpreting art is so different. I love reading your posts about certain pieces and galleries because I'm so in the dark about most of it and it's kind of like you're handing me a flashlight.

I love reading your blog. We must have some similarities in our thought process because it's easy to follow where you lead. You're smart, informative, funny, and dnt spel lke thIs. All things I enjoy in a blog :)

I could say this is a day late going up because I was asleep/hallucinating all day from my spider bite yesterday, which is half true, but also because I was avoiding this letter, the other half truth. This letter series isn't really meant to be read by the people they're addressed to, so I wanted to share something where you wouldn't be obligated to write back - I didn't want to drag you into it.

Sorry I'm such an-!

-Avoider

Consequences

Okay- so back to that part where I was dead. Want a recap? Go here.

After the nothing, I remember something around my waist, dragging me down, choking me.  I couldn't breathe.  I threw back by head and a sharp pain lanced through me, but the thing let go and I propelled myself to the surface.  I broke through, gasping, coughing, crying.  Oh, god, my head hurt.

My best friend came up behind me, clutching her cheek. I had launched my head straight back into her face. I wanted to say I was sorry, but I still couldn't breath, couldn't think. My vision was blurry and I felt like I was going to vomit.

The two pulled me out of the water and I tucked into a ball and tried to breathe.  Crying made it hurt worse, so I tried to stop.  I think they were talking about calling 911.  "No," I objected, "my mom will be so mad," because getting in trouble was so important right now. But we were trespassing, and they were good kids, so we all tossed out the idea of emergency services.

"Did you hit your head? What happened? We didn't hear you come up for like ever but you can hold your breath so long that we didn't know anything was wrong for sure..." I could tell she felt guilty under her valley girl accent.

"I can't remember," and at that point in time, I couldn't. I remembered diving in and then waking up, floating above the floor of the pool with her arms wrapped around me.

"My mom's a nurse. She'll know what to do," so they half carried me to her car and I curled wetly into the back seat, sobbing quietly like Harry Potter clutching at his scar.

I'm sure we didn't tell her mom the whole story. If we had, there is no way she would have put a bag of frozen peas on my head and told me not to fall asleep. I had been underwater for more than a few minutes. There could have been serious brain damage.

I had hit the bottom of the pool hard enough that there was no bruise. When the blood vessels broke, all the blood had been squeezed out of the area into my scalp (yeah, found that out later) and left the area of impact bone white. Luckily, that made it easy to cover with make up. I never told anyone about that night, not even Ladybug, because I was pretty sure he couldn't be trusted not to tell anyone.

A few weeks later, my friends decided I should get over it. I had gained an aversion to the pool (I almost drowned, you guys) and they wanted to see the old me restored. They brought our boards to a special section of the beach where the waves crest higher because of the rocky shoreline. It's a secluded area, and it requires scaling down the side of a small, shale cliff to get into the cove. I shimmied down the rope and we made our way out into the water. The waves were maybe three or four feet. I made my way out cautiously, smacking a huge piece of bubblicious to keep the extreme taste of salt out of my mouth.

I took one wave and started to relax. The sets got closer together, making it hard to get past them into open water. I made my way back out and grabbed another wave. I lost control and was pinned against a huge rock near the cove.

The waves battered me as I tried to keep coming up for air. I panicked. I started to remember hitting my head in the pool.  I remembered hands around my waist, fire in my lungs-in my panic I couldn't remember what to do or how to get away from the rock, the waves, the current. One of the guys grabbed me, pulled me behind the rock, and towed me to shore. I gagged on saltwater and fear. I lost my board somewhere in the undertow but I didn't even care. I never wanted to go in the water again.

A scan later showed that I had fractured my skull in two places during my shallow dive. Twice since, I've felt the blow of hitting the bottom of the pool. I've gone to the ER both times. Now I can pay attention to the signs and take the right medication to hopefully prevent it from happening again. The doctor says that it's my nerves reliving the moment of impact-I say it's dying, over and over and over again.

This summer I was comfortable with spending a lot of my time swimming in the ocean. I was able to remember why I love it so much, but I still can't bring myself to dive. The sound of bubbles rushing near my head is the most terrifying sound in the world. The thing I most loved is the thing I now fear most.

These are the consequences of my arrogance. 

It would make a great story. Too bad I'm not Greek.

Hubris

When I was a kid, my cousin/ basically my brother (from this point on be under codename: Ladybug-don’t worry, it’s a loving nickname) and I were enrolled in swimming lessons. I began when I was four or five and he started a few years after when he reached that same age. I would take the earlier, advanced class and he would take the younger class right after mine, so we were around to watch each other.

The classes were held in our outdoor community pool, which was absolutely freezing so early in the morning. For whatever reason I can't feel the cold. By the time the car pulled into the parking lot I always had my jacket off, shoes in hand, ready to jump in the pool, and when my lesson was over I refused to come out.  

Ladybug, like most other kids, had a much more difficult time. He would shiver and shake and most days he would beg to climb out early, wrapped in a thick towel as his teeth chattered, while I would eagerly ask if I could take his spot and jump back in.

I excelled in swimming, could hold my breath for two pool lengths or dive off the diving board and forget to come up until a worried instructor feared I was drowning and pull me out. (That tended to make them mad) I thought diving was the most wonderful feeling in the world and I practiced all the time.

Since I grew up right next to the ocean, when I wasn’t in the pool I was at this crap strip of beach ten minutes from my house. The waves were never very big unless there was a storm coming in, and each crest was filled with kelp and/or seaweed that tangled its slimy way across every inch of skin. I didn’t enjoy the shore much, but once I got past the breakers I loved the freedom of being able to swim in the (very cold) water when the pool wasn't open for summer.

I swam all year round, and because I can't feel the cold, one stormy January day I stayed in for more than 3 1/2 hours without a wetsuit and almost came out with hypothermia. It took several piping hot showers on the beach before my skin turned pink and I could uncurl my hands. But I was fine, a teenager, invincible. I didn't let it bother me.

It was this excellence, this confidence, this arrogance, which would be my undoing.

I was 16 and "pool hopping" with two of my friends. They were both 17 and enjoying the freedom of legally being able to drive friends after dark. We were in the spa of a very fancy hotel for only a few minutes before I left them. I could never take the heat for long, and preferred the cold water of the pool a few yards away.

The deepest section was only five feet, but I was 5'1" at the time and had been in this pool many times before. Shallow diving was my specialty. I dove in off the side- once, twice, six times. The rush of bubbles along my cheeks was thrilling, the ice water refreshing against my skin. It was a cold night and the stars were especially bright overhead. My breath puffed into the air as I climbed up the ladder.

I dove again, casually, carelessly, no longer thinking or making an effort. I'd done it a thousand times before. I cut through the water, too quickly, too steep, and couldn't stop myself. The bubbles rushed by my ears and I tried to arch my back. I couldn't pull up. The angle was all wrong. A tremendous pain lanced through my head, my neck, my spine-a pain so intense I could never have imagined anything like it.

And then there was nothing.

Avoidance

I avoid a lot of things.  In face to face conversations I have a hard time admitting my feelings, even if it's just admitting to physical pain like a headache or stubbed toe.  When I write my yearly Christmas letter, there are giant elephants dancing across the stationary which I refuse to acknowledge.  I won't talk about the man who messes up the family dynamic, even though my extended family is burning with questions about him.  Even when I blogged consistently for a whole year, I avoided talking about the girl that broke my heart.

I avoid doing laundry until it's necessary, and same goes for washing my car.  I avoid making my bed because, honestly, I'm just going to crawl back in it in a few hours.  I avoid important conversations, simmering arguments, anything which I believe will be taxing and a pain in my ass.  I avoid it until I absolutely can't anymore, and then it blows up and smooths over and everything is, usually, fine.

So I was really proud of myself this weekend when I stumbled onto a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime called "Girl Positive."  I'm not usually a Lifetime movie kind of girl, but this one caught my eye and I couldn't shut it off.  The movie stresses the importance of cautious sexual interaction and the reality of HIV among the suburbs and non-risk groups in the US.

When I turned it off, I realized- I'm in my mid-twenties and I've never been tested.  Can you believe that?  It never seemed quite so insane to me because I've never had intercourse with a man, but after watching that movie- how ignorant could I sound?  Like that is the only way to get an STD/I or HIV.

It's not like my sexual education was lacking.  My health class taught me all about being safe and staying healthy, but when I came out all possibility of testing positive for anything sort of flew out the window for me.  Gay and Lesbian sex was not exactly stressed in the health curriculum in my little Mormon and Catholic town.

But, instead of procrastinating or avoiding, like I would normally do, I called up my local clinic to get a blood test.  Now I have to wait.  The waiting part sucks.  I probably should have stuck with avoidance.  But at least once I know, I'll know, and hopefully it'll just be a reassurance- a peace of mind.

When I drafted this post last night I was scared.  I had expected to receive a call yesterday, but it was just radio silence.  Because we missed yesterday's deadline, I know that because of the clinic and the hours this particular doctor works, I might not get a call until next week.  Now I don't feel quite as scared.  The chances of me testing positive for anything are so slim that it's not worth worrying about until I know.

I just need to relax and let what happens, happen.  I'm sure it'll be fine.

Awakening

I dated boys for many years.  It started when I was 12.  When I was 13 I was dating a 16 year old, but he was my best friend, and very gay.  He was the best boyfriend I've ever had.  When I was 14, I had a "friend with benefits" open my eyes to the underbelly of the internet that the school had blocked.  Oh my God, girls could do that?  To each other? Obviously, he found it hot, but I don't think he expected it to turn me on so much.  Whatever got me in the mood, though, so he soothed me, convinced me it was absolutely normal for straight girls to feel aroused by it as he palmed his way under my shirt.

I will be forever grateful to him for showing me the true use of computers. 

However, it was with this way of thinking that I spent my high school years.  I was in unsatisfactory relationships, seeking adrenaline rushes, boyfriends, affairs, and taboos to feed this sexual void in me.  I couldn't figure out what was missing.  And then I slowly began to wake up.

m:2, we'll call her Mary, was my first girl crush that had me thinking sexual thoughts. I was in year 12, so ready to be done with high school, and she was a grade below myself. She had curly black hair (do you see a trend?) that was always in a ponytail, and a huge silver guitar for a belt buckle. She rocked out on it with headphones over her ears like she was practicing for a garage band.  She wore jeans and pullovers and the skater sneakers that make your feet look huge.

She was funny. She had a dry humor, a sarcastic wit, and her responses were lightning fast. Her brown eyes could swallow you. She never really smiled -it was always more of a half smirk, but that fit her perfectly.

At the time, I was convinced that I did not have a crush on her. Me? Gay? No way. I went to school with lesbians, I was friends with lesbians, I was part of the GSA. I'd heard them all talk, when you're gay you know it all the way from when you're a kid.

I remember the first time Mary hugged me. There was skin to skin contact and it was a long time before I let her go. No boy had ever made me want to hug him like that. She smelled wonderful and her body fit along mine like we were two halves of the same whole. I fantasized about hugging her, kissing her, seeing her without her sweatshirt. We went on this school trip and stayed at a hotel, and when we all went swimming she had the most amazing body. Her arms were like woah. But of course that didn't mean that I was gay. As my feelings grew I passed them off as a fluke, a one time thing with just one girl. It helped that Mary wasn't gay, so what was the point of trying to talk to her about it?

I graduated, and found out two months later that she came out and was identifying strongly as a butch lesbian. Way to go, me.

I started college that fall. Again, I found myself crushing on a girl. Luckily, m:3 (I'm realizing that I like a lot of girls whose names start with M) was not the girl I was sharing a room with. My roommate and I got along well enough. m:3 had the room next to ours, and she was something else. She was slightly taller than me and much curvier. She was gorgeous. We traded clothes, dresses, makeup. We hugged all the time or snuggled on the couch together under a blanket watching TV. She would curl into my arms and beg me to play with her hair and it was so long and beautiful and felt like silk between my fingers. We sometimes cuddled and fell asleep in the same bed or on the couch, but she was firmly straight, so I couldn't possibly think of her that way at all.

We started having crushes on the same guy, and I realized that I was jealous. I didn't want them to date because then she wouldn't be spending time with me or cuddling with me. I never had dreams about kissing her, never thought of having sex with her, but I craved skin to skin contact. She was so soft, so smooth, so warm that I snuggled up to her like a cat. I was happy just being next to her, sleeping beside her.

I went nine months in silence, not thinking that I liked her in a lesbian way, but I knew something about my feelings for her was different. She graduated and moved away after I let my jealousy get the better of me.  She refused to speak to me and I was crushed.  Soon after, the summer of my life stormed in like a hurricane.

It began with Patty: she was a very short, curvy thing with gorgeous black hair and dark eyes. She had an attitude that was so strong, confident, sexy. I couldn't take my eyes off her. After m:3, I was a little wary about all of my wonky feelings around girls and I wasn't about to get heartbroken again. I befriended Patty quickly during our shifts together at work, and her laugh was extraordinary. She taunted boys and girls both with her bountiful assets, but I couldn't get a read on her. Would she be offended if I asked her out?

She was constantly teasing the lesbian girl who worked with us. I knew her vaguely- she had been infatuated with m:3 and made her extremely uncomfortable, but Patty didn't seem so uncomfortable, so maybe she'd be open to the idea.  I remembered that m:3 was no longer talking to me and I decided I'd be damned if I let another girl slip away.

We were joking one day at work and I tried to be casual about it. "So, Patty, you want to go out on a date sometime?"

"Tabby, you're such a charmer!" she laughed. "Ran out of cute guys to ask?"

"You're prettier than they are," I threw out the compliment unabashedly, but she laughed and took a sip of her water. "God, I wish more people were as sweet as you," she said and walked out.

I sighed and leaned my head back against the wall. She thought I was joking.   She thought I was super sweet, which was great, but also that I was straight and joking.

That night I went out to a party, got drunk, and made out with a boy. It was wholly unsatisfying. The next week, Patty began dating the lesbian girl from work. Shit.

More Ugly/ Truth

I have a confession. I may have mentioned it before, or maybe I left it in a dark corner of my mind to deal with at some other point in time. I have dealt with an eating disorder for the last seven years of my life. For the first three years I was in denial. I was still eating, so obviously I didn't have anorexia.

I never got down to 80 pounds, I never looked like a skeleton, but I was depriving my body of the nutrition it deserved. After I dropped to a size one, and mind you, I'm built like a Viking, so a size one was pretty spectacular, I realized something was wrong. I wasn't eating the foods I liked, wasn't eating hardly anything at all. I forced myself to eat, slowly, gradually, stretching my stomach so I wouldn't throw up if I ate normal sized portions.

After three and half years of depriving myself, everything tasted so good. I went on a two year binge. I gained weight without realizing. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a size one girl when I clearly wasn't. I still see that girl in the mirror, and don't understand why I can't see what I look like now.

Last year was a turning point. I ran out of money, and eating out less often helped me drop a few pounds, temporarily. I came home to take care of my family, and could afford to eat like I had been. I gained back the fifteen-twenty pounds I had lost.

Last week was another turning point. I had to have a minor surgery, and it effected my ability to eat. I've been eating next to nothing for a little over a week and already lost five pounds. I feel better than I have in a long time. I feel more energetic, feel the urge to exercise and take care of myself. The way I felt when I was anorexic.

I can feel where this road is headed. I look ahead and see where I will be walking in a few weeks, a few months. I understand, intellectually, why anorexia is wrong and unhealthy, but it always feels so right, so comfortable. I feel happier when I choose not to eat.

I see where this is going and will do nothing to stop myself. Anorexia has best my best friend for so long, been my coping mechanism, been the only rock I have to lean upon, and even though it is unhealthy, it makes me feel good. Right now, after so much rejection, so much pain and stress, I need to feel good. I need to feel this. I wish I could be stronger, but the reality is, I am not.

Backlash/Constance

Constance is now a household name for those active in LGBTQ cultures. We look to her as part of a larger movement, we look to her as a bearer of LGBTQ rights in the next generation, we look to her as a girl who has been wronged for just being herself. We are all trying to do the right thing for her, as she has done the right thing for herself and the LGBTQ rights movement.

She has been wronged. She was wronged by small minded people who belittled her views, her beliefs, her sense of being. She was wronged by a bunch of whinging teenagers who are ego-centric and wanted their special night. Those whinging teenagers did what they felt was justified. The kids didn't say that Constance couldn't bring a date of the same sex, those were the school officials. Those same officials canceled the prom for everyone, devastating the teenagers who were raised to believe Prom is the best night of one's high school days. So the kids threw their own prom, and felt justified in doing so. I can understand that, from a psychological perspective.

I honestly think that except for a select few, the kids didn't invite Constance because she was the reason their prom was canceled, not because she was gay. Call me idealistic or naive, but these kids have gone to school with Constance for years, and I'm sure most know her well enough to look past her sexuality and regard her as a person. And Constance is, above all, one of the most loving, tolerant teenagers that I have ever heard of.

This is why, when I heard about the "Constance quit yer cryin'" Facebook page, I was shocked and appalled. I decided to head over there and check it out. Instead of posts from the kids of the school, I found a huge backlash from the LGBTQ community. There were countless posts saying "You homophobic, bible thumpin', rednecks, with IQs of 98, don't have the right to judge anyone!" among the few and far between posts of "Don't stoop to their level and call them names because that won't do anyone any good."

This was horrifying for me. The amount of hate spewed onto the wall of that Facebook page overwhelmed me. I could see the blood oozing from the old battle wounds of LGBTQ people, which had been ripped open and gouged anew by the hateful act done to Constance. It became clear that this hate crime (because really, that's what it is) was a personal assault against everyone in the queer community.

However, I was upset with the way people jumped in the fray to backlash against these teenagers. Hate begets hate; tolerance begets tolerance. By flaming those teenagers, we are reaffirming the belief that LGBTQ people are hateful, sinful, mean, and angry. We are doing nothing to change the views of the people who do not accept us. Constance's own quote about this was taken up as a battle cry. She wrote:

"ok i think that if people that are supporting what i am doing really support me they need to stop sending messages to people at my school because some of them are mature and stay out of it some of them support me and then there are the other people who are against me but since you dont know who is who please stop doing that because its not their fault. thanks."

"thanks everyone and you know i dont agree with what the school did obviously but i never wanted my classmates to have to suffer from it and many of them dont get that and want to blame me for everything and think i am doing this all for a faulty reason but i just want the negativity to stop because i try to be respectful and positive i find it to be more effective. please tell all your friends so as to get the word out."

This was immediately followed by posts saying that Constance was afraid that the students would take it out on her, and that caused for, wouldn't you know it, more hate towards the students. Well, Constance is a teenager in high school, dealing with peer pressure and being accepted. If you look at everything she says, every action she takes, you will realize that she is the type of person who wants everyone to like her. On top of that, she wants everyone to accept diverse sexualities. A good view of LGBTQ sexualities starts with the queer community taking the high road, not cussing out some 14 year old who didn't have anything to do with the original decision not to let Constance take her date to prom.

"Kill them with Kindness" was the phrase I grew up with. If someone didn't like me, I made them like me. I baked them cookies, I shared my lunch, I drew them pictures in my sloppy 5 year old way. In high school I was nice to everyone, helped everyone. As a community, if we want to change minds, we need to (figuratively) help little old ladies cross the road.

We have had names thrown at us like daggers, names which summed up who we were into a disparaging phrase or hateful word. Aren't we proving just how small minded we are to blame their bigotry on Christianity (which has a huge queer tolerant following) or "redneck towns" (my brother is a 'hick' and he has no problem with LGBTQ people) or any other generalization?

The fabulous Jesse James wrote something that struck me to the bone:
"Every day I get up and for some reason or another, in some moment or a few, I have to fight a little, stand up a bit at least, JUST TO BE ME.I’ll call Violet sweetie in the grocery store and when that guy stares at me, well, I’ve spent years now practicing how to be brave enough to stare back and not to let myself look away until after he does...We wake up, we brush our teeth and then we put on some combination and specific variety of armor that let’s us walk out the front door without dying, so that we can take the blows if and when they come. "
I fight every day by letting all those disparaging comments slide off of me, and I pull myself together, put on a bright smile, and charm that person like crazy. I am the girl who brings tulips to the lady on the corner that thinks I'm going to hell, I am the girl who brings a crying child back to its mother in the store. Every day I fight in my own way, and it is just as draining as fighting a full blown war. However, everyone I know says, "Oh, isn't she a darling girl? She's so thoughtful and compassionate." Occasionally there is a "It's such a shame that she's...that way," tacked on at the end. But everyone likes me, and I believe that's the first step.

Maybe the way people jump to violence, name calling, and cussing upsets me so much because I feel like it undoes the daily progress I make. I am trying to change minds, one at a time, until I can change my neighborhood, my town, my state, my world; every time there is a blurb on the news about a violent LGBTQ response to something, I have to start all over again.

If you want to make a real difference (I took this information from the wonderful Dorothy) write a letter or sign the petition:

CONTACT:

Itawamba County Schools Superintendent Teresa McNeece:

tmcneece@itawamba.k12.ms.us
662-862-2159 ext. 14

Itawamba Agricultural High School principal Trae Wiygul

twiygul@itawamba.k12.ms.us
662-862-3104

One more way to speak out. Sign the HRC petition to say "I stand with Constance McMillen.”

Activism/Compassion

I made a better activist for LGBT issues as a straight high school student than I do now as a gay, capable, intelligent adult.

I had this moment today where I realized that I had stopped caring. I had stopped caring about marriage equality and social equality and everything else. I went to the rallys, sure, but not for the right reasons. I went because I was gay, because these are my people, because I owe it to this community to be there.

When I was in high school, I never even thought about liking girls. It just didn't even register that I could. "The small valley I grew up in didn't really have any gay people, so how could I be gay?"

But even as a heterosexual teenager, I followed gay marriage every moment of every day. I organized campaigns, I got kicked out of classes for protesting, demonstrating, arguing against my Mormon teachers.

I followed it because my heart broke for every couple who loved each other and couldn't get married. My heart broke for the lesbian couples where one person had to legally adopt the child that was rightfully their own. It broke for the gay couples who weren't allowed to adopt. For the couples that were ridiculed and discriminated against. For partners who weren't allowed to stay together when the other was dying in a hospital.

My heart broke for them. And now I know for us, for me. So why is it that when I became a part of the LGBT community my heart stopped breaking? I lost all compassion. I was so caught up in the fact that there were cute girls at the rallys, and so fed up with organizations asking me for money, so fed up that we were losing in every part of the country, that I think I just shut down. I stopped thinking about it all so that I could ignore it all and not feel the disappointment and the heartbreak.

I realized today that I didn't care anymore, and that made me feel awful. I felt cold, callous, and completely detached. I don't want to be detached. I don't want to forget that this isn't just about marriage equality. That term sounds so detached from the issue it is representing. Like it's all about wanting to be married. That's scratching the surface, to say the least. It's about the struggle that LGBT couples go through every day that straight people don't. About the injustice that we receive. About all the places that won't rent to gay couples, and the adoption agencies who refuse to trust us with children.

I remembered today, why I cared. Why this was so important to me. Even though my heart is breaking all over again, I'm glad that I'm not detached and jaded anymore.