Why I am out

Aaah the last post of the year. These tend to be epic year end reviews but we'll deviate ever so slightly. I was recently asked why I was out. Now to say I was rendered speechless by the question would be the understatement of the year. I was truly thrown for a loop. While the question did not come out of left field it certainly was in the vicinity of left of center. I contemplated not answering it because I think that's a highly personal question for one and I'd also known that person for all of 2 hours [damn Megabus]. I thought about it further and decided to answer the question, not because I was under any obligation to answer it, but because it occurred to me that I'd never articulated [out loud anyway] why I made the decision to be out. So below you'll find my reasons...

Now before we hop into the reasons I'll go ahead and give you my definition of being out: it's when you publicly acknowledge your sexual orientation / gender identity. Now the word public is dependent on the individual. The acknowledgement could be verbal, through clothing, causes that you support etc.

I am out because it's important for the folks around me to know that queer people exist and are people that they know personally... think of it as putting a face to that queer thing that you keep hearing about. As odd as it may sound in this day and age, I have met quite a few people who think that they have never met / personally know a gay person. It is not my place to out people so I usually nod while at the back of my mind I'm thinking ummm your office manager has a wife and 2 kids, they are not just friends. I might check some of the stereotype boxes for queers but I also provide a different face in that I am queer and an immigrant. [ current running joke among some of my friends is that I check so many minority boxes that it would be in an organization's best interest to put me on the board to show diversity]

I'm out because I want to have genuine relationships with those around me. I spent many years trying to blend and had personas to suit each crowd that I hung with. After a while I realized that I was not reaping the full benefits of the relationships around me and decided to not leave parts of myself at home. My African, scholarly, queer and dorky selves were all coming with me and if someone didn't like it, tough.

I am out because it is important to be my authentic self [shoutout to Mama O]. I am comfortable with myself in masculine clothing which tends to be the queer giveaway once folks figure out that I'm not a guy. If I am blessed with kids, I want them to understand that who they are on the inside should match who they are on the outside. If you are in tune with yourself, it's slightly easier to navigate life. There is no faking it. Yes I take it harder when I'm rejected for being myself, but I also have fewer regrets in that I know that they might have accepted my "representative" but rejected me when they finally met the real me. I'd rather know before I am too heavily invested in a situation.

My seatmate and I had a lively discussion on being queer etc for the remainder of our journey and I'd like to think that I gave her something to think about in the same way that she did me.

Have a great New Year folks. May good health and good fortune be with you throughout the year.
Sláinte agus saol agat* - Health (good implied) and life (long implied) to you
Go mbeirimíd beo ar an am seo arís - May we be alive at this same time again
Libe lom' nyakomutsha omuhle lempil' ende - May you have a good new year and a long life

Tuesday Beat: Lights - Face Up

#Doccubus + Lights' Face Up = Awesomeness. Make it to 6 mins and it becomes officially NSFW.

 

Mid Fall Blues

Today the geeks celebrate a perfect binary day. By some fluke I happened to glance over at the clock this morning and it read 11:10 so ofcourse you know I waited for it to read 11/11/11 11:11:11.

Happy Veterans day to my peeps who have / are serving in the armed forces.

Now to the topic at hand. I am experiencing mid fall blues and can't seem to shake them. I got back home a week ago and I've been getting progressively more lethargic. Throw in the fact that I had a major exam to sit for this week and had to stack job interviews because of scheduling conflicts and I think I was long overdue for a body shut down. My mind called it a week yesterday and I feel extremely tired. I can't even drum up the energy to work on a site that I'm supposed to have finished next week. Bleh!

In other less depressing news, I have added something interesting to my bucket list. I want to hand build a cabin over a summer. I mentioned this to a friend and she just about died from oxygen deprivation courtesy of laughing really hard. For those who've never met me in person, know that I'm the scrawniest thing ever. I do however have more strength than is immediately apparent. SO the idea of me wielding power tools and messing with 6x6s will  probably be fodder for several jokes until I actually come round to building it in a couple of years.

Oooo and Ty jr maketh me proud. My niece managed to play the Halloween system and ended up with twice as much candy having walked only half the route. I am bummed out that I won't see her for Thanksgiving but hopefully I'll see her shortly afterwards.
Have a great weekend!

Life refracted

Salut! I've been super busy with conferences and the great job search. Being back in the Chi after all the time away has been a jolt to my system.

I miss my niece like crazy. I speak to her daily but it's not the same as being with her.

Being on regular people time has been an adjustment after spending months observing vampire hours.

Anyway I've been uber reflective these past few weeks and have found myself in a different head space. I decided to take Oprah's lifeclass --watch it if you get OWN-- and it's made me realize some things about myself. I also had an AHA moment after watching one of the lessons - the Terry McMillan class on letting go of anger. During the wee hours of the following day, I had an epiphany. I was still very angry about something that happened in my distant past and I had to let it go. I acknowledged it and took time to name the chain of events and let each part go. It was liberating. I hadn't thought about what carrying the baggage around was costing me emotionally, spiritually and physically.

Some mornings I wake up during the pre dawn hours. It's quiet. It's peaceful. The world hasn't imposed anything on my day. During these minutes of peace I get a chance to listen to myself, to reach into my subconscious mind and examine my thoughts without fear -- an internal fear, I scare myself out of really examining my life sometimes--. It's been an exercise in not judging myself and the choices that I made in the past and I'm beginning to see the other sides of myself through this. It's like looking at light as it refracts through a prism and choosing to see the entire rainbow spectrum in addition to the individual colors.

Final thought is a take home from Oprah's lifeclass: You become what you believe.

Tuesday Beat: Jessie J - Who You Are

This week's song is says it all - just be true to who you are.