Midnight Music 21
I put on my purple shirt to go out tonight - not because I felt obliged to, but because I actually wanted to see if anything happened. If someone started a conversation, or if I saw a stranger wearing a conspicuous amount of purple, then I'd perhaps feel a bit better about the way things were going.
So, I'm considering doing something that actually explains my concerns. If I wear a shirt to make people think about their prejudices towards the GLBT community, it'll probably say something about being gay. If I turn my status to encourage my friends to get checked for cancer, it'll actually use the word 'cancer'. What it comes down to, for me, is that we're hiding the real concern behind a layer of crypticism. Apparently, it's no longer okay to say 'Cancer sucks. Really bad. I don't want to see you suffer through it; get yourself checked on a regular basis', but it's fine to replace the bad words (cancer, queer, suicide) with a token that nobody will understand unless they're already in the choir.
-sigh- I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't mean to get all soapboxy like this. I had my feelings hurt by an offhand remark about being gay tonight, and to come home and see the five gay people that work at Google tell a bunch of kids that 'it gets better'... sometimes I feel like we're lying to the people we need to protect. That saying 'it gets better' isn't hitting the root of the problem.
Sometimes, life sucks. Sometimes, people will make your life hell for being different. One day, your current problems will seem small and insignificant, but no matter how much they fade into the background, no matter how better it gets, they'll never go away entirely. When we have a perfect society, they might disappear. But, even at twenty-two, as much as I don't want to kill myself any more, there's still a few words that hurt me. And being proud and wearing purple wasn't enough to remove the sting from this day.
Let's just put some music on. That might cheer me up.
Click to view-sniff- That's a bit better.