Gay. It may be one of the top, emotionally charged words in society today, but it has been the most emotionally charged word for me since I was that awkward, silly girl in 4th grade, who had no interest in boy crushing with the rest of her girlfriends.
Gay grabbed me by the ankles when I was too young to understand it. Pulled me thrashing and hyperventilating into the icy world of shame and isolation. That little, label word, made me feel like I was unloveable. The social aversion and intolerance for it in my church circle, school, the grocery store, weighted me down like a boulder tossed into the ocean.Gay didn't take long to talk me into hating myself. To punishing my body with sharp edges. To swallowing whole bottles of pills in hopes that one gulp would be the fatal bullet in my own game of Russian roulette.
Gay cast me out of my life and onto the outside of the fish bowl that I lived in. I have many memories peering into that dome world of denial and self hatred, crying with the rest of my family while we could do nothing but watch me gasp for air, flail, and drown. 
Gay was painful to feel, but worse to watch. That beautiful souled, blue eyed girl, allowing one little word to take her life away. With years, came coping. Resolutions. Decisions to breathe.Gay prompted me to fabricate masks. I casted molds for them repeatedly until I made them comfortable enough to live behind. Masks of kids, a $28,000 wedding, a husband, a Facebook news feed to advertise it all. My masks were straight and lonely.
Gay fueled my fire to live out everything else I knew myself to be. A writer. A nurse. A mother. It made me furiously stand for the love, acceptance, and light of others strong enough to live out loud. I can't tell you how badly I wanted to march from behind my masks with all of those proud souls instead of just alongside them. I wanted to be strong enough to stand vulnerable and brave with them.
Gay broke my heart. Spiraled with me down the slide of my 2 year long separation and divorce. Twisted my soul into knots. Brushed against my self worth until I was so bruised and raw I had to listen to it. Start standing for that drowning soul from my adolescence, and be real in a world where gays are bullied, beaten, and thrown to their deaths daily.
Gay. It is my neighbor. My cousins. My friends. It is me. Unmasked. 30 years old, and finally loving myself enough to jump back into the fishbowl with that shame stricken little girl, and save her life. That fragile, intense, inappropriate, goofy, wild, humanitarian spirit who is me.
Gay has taught me so much about who I am. The way I love. Who I love. What brings me authentic joy. What I am worth when that word is hidden away, is exactly the same as what I'm worth bearing its label.
Gay. I finally figured out I would be crazy not to love myself. All of me. When the world is stripped away. The trails have all been hiked. Love has been had and lost and had again. When the rest of the world is sleeping and my eyes flicker open, I am who is with me. And I don't love me any less for being gay.
Gay: to love myself deeply, completely, and know I am worthy of being seen, is the bravest, kindest, most humanitarian thing I can do for me, and all of you who dare to love me still.
- A Cool Grandma's Granddaugter
