*To be honest, I’ve been pretty exhausted the last couple weeks. My in-laws and my family were in town and it felt suffocating to have that many people around after being in quarantine so long. With everyone in close proximity, I think that I reverted back to a mindset where I felt like I needed to conform to the people around me in order to fit in. Trying to fit in is how I survived growing up. I couldn’t explore my sexuality, because no one around me accepted or understood gay people. I told my family I was depressed, but no one knew how to deal with that, so they chose to ignore or dismiss my cries for help. I was losing my religion, but if I told anyone I would be pressured even harder to accept the lord or be labeled an evil person. It was like living in a bubble but as soon as you stepped in the bubble shrank around you and left you with barely any air left. Long story short, I cut myself this week for the first time in 4 years and that made me realize that I am not healed from the trauma of growing up not being accepted. While I am disappointed that it got this bad, I am grateful to know that I still have a lot of work to do in feeling accepted by those around me. To be honest, I don’t really know how to navigate healing, but I’m going to keep exposing myself to more ideas and education and hope that I find what I’m looking for along the way. *

The Children of the Ocean

What is so wrong with being swayed by the ocean tides? 

The fish in the sea do it all of the time, and for much longer that we.

Why am I attacked when I change my mind, 

Or when I bend into the shoes of others? 

Is it only noble to be as firm as a tree? 

The tree doesn’t know much more than a radius of experience 

Yet the ocean currents flow all over the world. 

Why am I expected to choose a side and fight for it? 

Why can’t I bask in the ebb and flow of the ways of the world? 

Even the greatest scientists don’t know much at all,

And history has shown us that they too fade. 

Maybe our laws are flawed and rigidity gets us by another day.