Walking Amongst the Brave...

Pride Sunday was a beautiful day. A full day. An exhausting day. An emotional day. 

Rarely does it take me days to process my feelings into words and yet here I am. I expected last Sunday to be very different day for a number of reasons, but then it tumbled upon me in so many unexpected ways. 

Pride has always been one of my favourite days of the year, it’s a bright, shiny, soul filled day. Full of laughter and rainbows and puppies. Creativity unleashed, inhibitions left at home, comfy rainbow leggings and crazy hair.

This year it was all of that but also painfully bittersweet, which quite frankly it should be. Pride exists to remind us how far we have come and how far we have left to go. Both as a society and as individuals and quite frankly never have I personally realized this truth more than this year.  

WE SEE YOU

Each year we design new PADS shirts for Pride and this year an extraordinary queer young woman in our community designed them and brought me to tears because she chose to highlight the colours of the trans flag. We echoed the design on the van. To say as loud as we could to the trans community: We see you. We stand beside and before and behind you. You are beautiful and brave and you are not alone. We are stronger than the hate in the world.

I saw the same message in so many places - a t-shirt that said support trans kids, trans flags galore, but my heart just aches that it’s not enough and I feel utterly helpless to create safety and change in this space and time.

LAND OF THE BRAVE

In recent years Pride has always filled me with joy, of how far we’ve come and yet this year the celebration felt both too loud and too quiet simultaneously. Maybe because so many in this “land of the brave” are on the battle field. Among them people I love with my whole heart.

Yesterday I also found myself in a beautiful moment as a young friend shared that it was their first Pride since they came out. My heart burst for them as their grin beamed and eyes twinkled and we celebrated their moment. As I stepped away to tape more shimmer on the van my eyes started to leak, not for them but for me. Because it suddenly struck me that it was also my first…

All these years Pride was where I went to be among the brave, posing to myself and others as an ally. To smile at their freedom, young and old - living and loving out loud. When my old scars were still too deep and raw and quite frankly buried in fear to do anything else. But long before I knew why, I found so much comfort and joy in queer spaces.

LIVING IN TRUTH

It will come as a surprise to those of you that know only of my 21 years of marriage and 24 years with Brian, that I have loved 3 humans in my life and the first and last were beautiful, extraordinary women. 

Over 30 years ago, when I fell in love for the very first time, I didn’t even know what I felt or what we shared had a name… I didn't know the word gay, only sweet, stumbling, awkward young love and then the slurs painted on her car and the darkness of her bruises after we were seen together.  What had felt so right and good between us, I learned was painfully “wrong” to many. A big piece of me died all those years ago. It had to.

Knowing who you are and how you love is one thing. But this year was the first time in nearly 3 decades that the stars aligned between who I am, how I love and that I’ve been whole enough to show up for another human and let them steal my heart. The invisible becomes visible in such wonderful ways. The joy she brought into my world was undeniable. And in a weird and beautiful way, she made it so much easier to finally share who I was (with more than the very select few who have helped me as I've worked to heal those old wounds over the past decade). She brought such healing simply by our journey together. When hands intertwined as we walked the pier, enjoying a sunset kiss without fear or judgement, instead finding only the fond gazes people give to those they witness being enchanted by another.

A dear friend asked boldly a few months ago: “isn’t that a zig when you usually zag?!”. I burst out laughing because her assessment was fair, however, it assumed (as most would) that all those who have heterosexual relationships are heterosexual. That is not the case for me, though clearly I'm monogamous with a capital M and my love life is exiguous at best, leaving those who have known me a long time a little surprised of late. 

Some have a die hard favourite ice cream flavour, others like variety - particularly rainbow sherbet or salted caramel or that damn black cherry with chocolate crackle superstore sells. And by others I mean me. Please show up with any of the above on any day of the week and this girl will be delighted. I also quite enjoy vanilla. As long as it's made with sweetness and love, I'm game.

I jest, but honestly, trauma and loss has such a tragic way of complicating our journeys that makes us need humour to survive. With love - even awesome, beautiful, pure love there is often heartache and wounds we cannot bear alone. Risking oneself again is bound to end in some heartache and so it has, but I am choosing to carry the joy and the experience forward to whatever the future holds. But I'm also human, and this incredible community has a way of breathing oxygen into lungs that are gasping for air. 

FAMILY 🏳️‍🌈

When new - if far less tragic - wounds appear over old ones, the body goes back to gasping. Like so many, I’ve done the work, I’ve dug into demons, I truly thought I was good. Yet, being in relationship shines light into those dusty corners of your soul and reminds you that you are a cracked pot, sometimes utterly incapable of holding it together, yet still, somehow watering flowers along your path.

This week I asked one of the wisest old souls I know why my heart chooses broken people to love... and without skipping a beat he said to me: "Mom, we're all broken people". And he's not wrong, I am broken people. And, for those old wounds and the new ones, I needed Pride. I needed FAMILY. 

They showed up in spades. Seeing my beloveds faces in the crowd, total strangers dancing their hearts out, sweet smooshy puppies in booties rainbow bedazzled with such care by my young friend celebrating their first pride, queer kids living their truth... but perhaps most poignantly, the picture that is etched on my heart was the elderly gay couple, easily in their late 70's that stood on apartment steps above the backs of parade watchers, lost in their own moment - no rainbow attire or emblazoned t-shirts, no sparkles or jewels - just two very dapper, silver haired men exchanging a knowing glance and tender kiss in Vancouver, BC on a sunny Sunday. Oh the journey they have likely walked to get to those steps.

Pride is the beauty and joy that celebrates even when there is so much to grieve both in and around us. My heart is hurting, for my trans friends, for my young love - they all deserve so much better than the world gave and is giving them. 

But it also found healing that only exists when you have a deep knowing of both the pain that hate can cause and the soul filling joy that exists in being known and seen and walking amongst the brave.