In the Beginning...

I actually don't have anything to say right now... there's too much in my head. I just spent all of July steeped in my identity as a homosexual male, and it isn't so much a sense of "more questions than answers" as it is a cluster fuck of confusion and at the same time, direction. I spent the first two weeks of July back home in Michigan, chatting with the local gay community (via gay.com... it was the best I had available without a car) and trying to find out where to live in Michigan. I was very disappointed. They're all scattered to the wind there, and all the big gay places are located in the big bad places, like deep into Detroit and such. My family and my friends want me to come back, and I know Crystal needs to move back, but me... I want to fly away and never come back. I want to live in a place where I can be gay and proud and free from everything that's held me down, where I can go to school and graduate and move on to become a leader in the LGBT social justice movement. I don't know why, but I can't turn my back on this stuff, and my gay identity is so separate and removed from my home identity that the two just don't seem to coincide. Basically, my trip home was supposed to tell me where to go, and it just made me realize that I don't know where to find my happiness.

So, after being home for two weeks I flew straight to Maryland to Campus Pride, which is a week long retreat (almost) for LGBT student leaders. Again, mixed reactions. At first I hated it and wanted to leave, too much kumbaya shit, not enough getting down to business and saying "This is what the world needs you people to do to make a better tomorrow." But on Monday we went to DC and I finally tasted that... it was like finally being able to see The Movement. It's a term everyone threw around, but I finally saw it in it's existence. The charged emotions, the anger and frustration, the professionalism and the strength of the people fighting for me and for others, the feeling that change is possible, affordable, and creatable was amazing. After that it was like the world opened up, I was involved and engaged, and finally found places to put my passion that were previously shut off from me. I also met some amazing people, and it gave me heart to know that there were others like me out there, and things I hadn't seen, that Dayton wasn't all there was to the world of gay. Overall, I felt like camp was a life-changing experience, but the problem with life-changing things is that they are only the first step up the ladder on the diving board. Some people think it's when you dive that everything changes, but it's that first step when you commit to that climb, knowing that just up ahead is the scariest shit you've ever faced and knowing that you don't know what's about to happen, that's the life changing moment. For me, I've decided to take that step and start climbing... taking each rung as my leadership tenure at Wright State, moving to a place where I can continue my passion, finishing my degree in a field that mosts enables me to credit myself as an LGBT leader, moving into an organization where I can start working, and someday diving off that board headfirst into a country that loves me and others like me, but that at times hurts me, hates me, and treats me like less than I am. It's a lot of work, but I want to pour myself into it and do everything I can to make sure that the next generation only has to fight for the little things, and serve as watchdogs for my community... instead of being forced out of jobs, losing their kids, being unable to marry, and being openly bashed in the public eye as monsters, rapists, and second class citizens.

Anyway, after that camp I went straight home, and then woke up to go to Wright State's leadership retreat. Much less kumbaya shit this time, which I loved, and it was people I already knew for the most part, or people that were easy to meet, so it was much more relaxing. The education sucked, just a lot of powerpoint presenting and blah blah blah, but I got to talk about what I've learned and I could see on some people's faces that they were surprised at how much I know and how much passion I have, and one faculty member even came to us and said "If you ever need any help with anything, please let me know. I mean it." It was just good to bring that back home and see how easy it is to start inching in that difference, and looking forward to what I'm about to do and getting excited about what that change is going to manifest as. I also met more amazing friends and people, and I'm excited to go back and get my hands dirty, making my mark on the lives of LGBT students not only at WSU but in UD where they don't get the things we do, and in other smaller colleges, and in the community itself. It's like practice for moving forward and onward.

There's so much to do that right now I can barely think, I just know my brain is so ready to tackle the problems of the world, but my body is sore and can barely move... I need to be careful not to burn out and slide all the way back to page 1.