Pride Celebration begets Blog

"Lesbian hair cut" sounds like a good name for a song or poem. I would link to the post where I got that idea, but he's afraid of my spam-stalker, so I won't.

Sproing is doing well. The bump on his head isn't noticeable anymore. The whole forehead is slightly puffy, but there is no specific bump like there was Sunday. He still had a headache yesterday, but it's gone today.

Some of you asked how Sproing managed to knock his knoggin. I'll tell ya'. He was running. (I bet you guessed that.) The kids like to run circles around the perimeter of the house. The back yard is fenced in, and on the driveway side there is a large double gate wide enough to drive a truck through. I know. I've driven a truck through it. On the other side of the house are the bedrooms. The side yard there is maybe 15 feet wide, and the air conditioner box (whatever that thing is called) is over there. The fence on that side has a small gate in it. Sproing was running through that side of the yard, heading for the narrow gate. He looked behind him for some reason (I'm not real clear about that part of the story) and turned back just in time to run face first into the metal gate post. He says he fell down and had to lie there for a few minutes. I've heard that Diva found him and brought him inside. I suspect Diva was chasing him and that's why he turned around in the first place. But I really don't know.

I'm getting excited about the advent of September. August is usually one of my two worst months of the year. February is the other. This August has been long, but the dreariness was interrupted by interesting interludes. Superman and I went camping without the kids earlier this month. School started and I mostly have days to myself now. I get to blog! I check on my blog buddies, and I feel more connected with people now than I have in past years. It has been raining for the last couple of days. This is a welcome break from the searing sunshine of earlier in the month.

Last August was hot and miserable (as most Augusts are around here). Early in the summer I had applied for a job in the library at Lander U. I was hoping to get that job, as it would put me in a challenging academic environment and keep me inside in climate controlled comfort. My other option was to continue driving the bus for another year. August on an un-air conditioned school bus is, to put it mildly, 3 degrees hotter than hell, and just as unpleasant. I found out 3 weeks before school began that I did not get the job at Lander. It was all I could do to psych myself up to get back on the bus. I was depressed. I had no outlet for intellectual stimulation in my life besides my husband and eldest daughter. And Eldest Daughter was about to head off to college for her freshman year. It was a bleak time.

All this came to pass. It was hot, I was driving the school bus, Light was away at school. September came around heralding South Carolina Gay Pride Celebration toward the end of the month. I forget exactly when, but it was in September. I'd been learning about homosexuality for just over a year, and still the only gay people I knew were a few of the teenagers living in my house and a couple of their friends. None of my gay acquaintences was over 22 years old. I knew I needed a more mature perspective on The Gay. I was excited about Pride.

We went. S and C and Sproing and I. (Superman got sick, if I recall, and I took Sproing to keep him out of his dad's hair. Not the best move I could have made, considering where we went, but we do what we must and it wasn't at all bad.) Sproing and I left to come home around dinner time, but S and C stayed until very late and enjoyed a lot more of the festivities. The boys said it was good that I took Sproing away. The evening brought a new level of bawdiness to the picnic. The crowd was very family friendly during the day.

That was the first time I had seen gay couples openly affectionate in public. There was PDA all over the place!! It was wonderful! (As I said, all quite appropriate during the day.) I had learned enough, become comfortable enough with the idea of homosexuality, that when I went to Pride in Columbia last year it all seemed so good and right to see same sex couples wandering all over the park. Ironic, perhaps, but I felt so comfortable, so at home among the gay majority in the park that day. I realized I had in a sense become more gay. I'm heterosexual, and I don't pretend to know what it is like to live as a homosexual in this society. But I had embraced The Gay so much that being in a park full of gay people felt more natural to me than being in any other group of random people anywhere else.

Then I left the Pride celebration and came home. Back to Greenwood. Back to hidden homosexuals. I was empty, but more eager than ever to meet real, live gay people. They are hidden in Greenwood. Where the hell do I find them?

Then it hit me. The Interwebz! I'm an old lady, you know, and it isn't yet natural for me to immediately go to the internet when I wonder about something. I'm getting better. Google is my friend. Google is my homepage.

So I Googled. And I discovered blogs!!! The first one I remember seeing was Michael in Norfolk. I commented or emailed, I don't remember which, and he wrote back. We had a little dialogue going. I asked questions, he had answers. I checked out his blog roll. I found other great blogs. Each of those blogs had blog rolls. And interesting commenters. I clicked link after link. I discovered some I didn't feel very comfortable with. I didn't go back to those. :) But OMG!! I discovered a whole new HUGE world full of gay men (and a few women).

I read blogs for a few weeks. I commented. (I like to spread my opinions around. I have so many to share!) In the beginning I think I asked more questions than anything. But it got to the point pretty soon that I was writing very long comments on other people's blogs. It was time to start my own. So I did.

It's not my blog's anniversary yet, and this subject seems more appropriate for that occasion. But I was thinking about these things today, and this is where my train of thought brought me. So here it is.

PRIDE

Proud to be (associated with) Gay

This is the Pride flag image that Kelly is encouraging bloggers to post this month. He suggests we post the flag and tell our coming out stories.

But what is my coming out story? As far as sexual orientation goes, I'm heterosexual. I did "become gay" in spirit a couple of years ago. I've told some of the story in previous posts, but I'll try to encapsulate the essence.

I used to be a homophobic fundamental Christian. Early in 2006 I met C, who was at the time 17 and just coming out. He was a good friend of my daughter, Light. I met him, got to know him, then came to love him. When he came out to his mother and stepfather they kicked him out of their home. He now lives with us.

As I began to love C, I started questioning the church's position on homosexuality. From mid-spring to late summer of 2006 I did a lot of research, a lot of thinking, and a lot of soul-searching. I came to the conclusion that God made gays, therefore being gay wasn't a sin. That's where it started, and I continue to learn and grow.

Once I realized it's OK to be gay, I became proud of "gay" and got defensive if anyone said or did anything to contradict my new-found reality. Having been in the church for 30 years or so, most of my friends were people who believed as I used to. By autumn of 2006 I was (as gently as possible) telling my friends about my revelation that gay is OK. The message was not well received. As important as faith and spirituality are to me, I couldn't make myself sit through a worship service in the congregation where we are members. None of my old friends from church agreed with my new opinion of homosexuality. At this point these people are my "former friends."

I wanted to meet other gays and lesbians. The only gays I knew were C and his partner S, and they are both still teenagers. I wanted to get to know older, more mature people with broader experience and adult perspectives. I've tried to find them here in Greenwood, South Carolina with very little success. I know they are here, I just can't find them! We got involved with the PFLAG chapter in Greenville, about an hour's drive north of Greenwood. But that city is far enough away that socializing with anyone there is too difficult. (Especially with gas prices as high as they are now!)

Eventually it occured to me that this is the 21st century; I could look online for gay and lesbian contacts. That's how I found this blogging community. I have met so many wonderful men and women through this medium, and everyone has been so open and honest with me. I now understand a vast range of gay life experiences.

I continue to learn, to grow, and to reach out to the gay community. My 5 year goal is to return to school, hopefully to get a Master's degree in some field relating to GLBT issues. I want to devote my time and talents to support homosexuals and eradicate homophobia wherever I can.