A New Beginning

I have decided to restart a long dormant blog. I am going to give it a go and post at least once a week.

I am going to use my voice to to speak my truth, what ever that may be. Right now my truth is in flux. We have a new president, and that scares the living hell out of me. He has and will say anything to keep the crowd, and he is dangerous to my very right to exist.

I am angry, sad, scared, and hurt by friends and family who do not know or see the ramifications of their actions. I watch as they hide behind their reasons to vote against my interest. I listen, as they do not listen to me. I am told to walk in their shoes, but there is no expectation for them to walk in mine. I will continue to speak, to rail, to rage against, to shout until my voice fails, until they understand. And if you think that I am whining, I am being ridiculous, a baby, you haven't lived my reality. So here it goes...


My first memories are sitting on the beach, alone, the sun warming my back, digging in the sand. I watched my family play around me in the water and on the sand. To this day I love the beach, the feel of the sun, water and sand. It reminds me of the warmth of a family that loved a boy who was always a little awkward, anxious, and sad. I was young then but I knew or felt that I didn't fit in. I sought out the warmth of my family, Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents, who hugged and kissed and made me feel special. I could wrap myself in them and be safe, be secure, not worry.
Move that boy forward 10 years, he is 16 or 17, in high school. That scared little boy is now a young man who hates going to school. He sits in the bathroom every morning and worries about what his day will bring. Who will throw something at him, who will spit anger on him, or how he will be humiliated that day. He takes solace in the sisters that constantly protect him at school, and the few friends that offer him a refuge. He wants out, he is battered and scarred, he wants to run away from all of it. He comes home to his family, parents trying their best to protect him, sisters who love him but he "knows" see him as a burden, and a brother who he looks up to and wishes (and always will wish) he was a little more like. He leaves school and runs, it hurts but he runs. He runs from a family that he isn't sure will accept him.
That young man will try to commit suicide because of those scars from high school, he will blame it on a lost love but it is because he he hasn't accepted who his is. He will go to counseling, he will take pills to stabilize himself. He will break ties with people, he will remake ties, he will fix himself. He now has a core of friends who sometimes infuriate him but, ultimately, love and support him. He will find a refuge build it and hope that it is stable. He will have his ups and downs, he still struggles with depression and anxiety.
He has, 20 years later found someone to love, he has come to the end of a hard fought battle to accept himself. His family is still a refuge, the offer him love and acceptance. His people have won many hard fought battles. He feels secure.
Then there is an election which most of the time doesn't bother him much, he know usually that both people have the best interest of the country at heart. Then the anger and hatred that comes from some of his family and friends, his refuge has become a unsafe and destructive. The person elected threatens to take his and many others security. People tell him that he is safe they love him but they used their vote bring his whole world to a halt. He tries to tell them that they have begun the destruction of his world, this world he has fought his whole adult life to build. His hard fought battle now gets harder, his safety has already been threatened. He has had things thrown at him, been punched, been spit on, been called a fag, faggot, queer, homo, every name they can throw his way. He thought that was in his past...it may now be in his future again.