Coulda done without that.
On Thursday night I had my Organizing Information class. The professor gave us time to go to the computer lab upstairs and work on next week's assignment. So I was sitting at my computer, actually working on what I was supposed to work on, minding my own business when I began to overhear a conversation going on in the row in front of me.
My stomach began to churn when I realized that my classmates were talking about homosexuality. There were three of them. One was a liberal who reprimanded her students for calling each other gay slurs. She said that she tells them there's nothing wrong with being gay and not to use homosexuality as an insult. The second girl didn't really say anything, just listened to the other two without offering an opinion. The third girl said, "If I taught in that school they wouldn't like me because I would just tell the kids to go on and keep using it." I wasn't really surprised when she said this because earlier in the conversation I had heard her say "homosexuals." It's my experience that people who don't like gay people refer to us as homosexuals. I think they use that word specifically because it allows them to not say gay "PEOPLE." It's a nifty way of dehumanizing us.
And I certainly felt less than human as I accidentally eavesdropped. I was surprised that the conversation as a whole bothered me. Even if they had been pro-gay I would have been freaked out, for some reason. Needless to say, hearing one of the girls unapologetically express her disapproval of gay people sent me into a mild panic attack.
The last time something like this happened was at lunch with my mother and sister at the Cheesecake Factory. The people at the table beside us were talking about gay people and were saying some pretty hateful things. I became very flustered and tried to distract myself from them by babbling nervously to my mom and sister. I felt a godawful mixture of fear and shame, with a tiny bit of anger thrown in. And the fact that I was ashamed made me even more angry and afraid. It was not a good lunch, despite the delicious sandwich.
Thursday night, my hands shook worse than usual, and I had to work hard to calm myself down. Thankfully they abandoned the topic and didn't pick it up again.
So I was an utter mess when the aforementioned professorcame to talk to me about my assignment. I was so wound up I could barely talk. Maybe it showed, because she gave my arm a friendly pat. She's so friendly and kind, and having her pat my arm grounded me immeasurably. I'm sure she had no idea that she helped calm me down. I'm so grateful to her for what she uniwttingly did.
I was in bad shape when I got home. My subsequent heavy drinking was a direct result of that. Between feeling awful and then feeling really good because someone I think is great was nice to me, I was a mess. For some reason, I saw fit to drink half a bottle of Absolut. Getting wasted didn't really help anything, but it did numb me for a while. Now I can think about what happened without freaking out, although there's an ache in my heart that hasn't gone away.
I wonder how this bodes for my future legal career fighting for gay rights. I need to toughen up, right? I really don't know.