"Get a load of the fag"

Well on a personal note last night was the Phi Sigma Pi get to know all of the "brothers" who were available to be big brothers to all of the incoming Initiate Brothers---- me being one of them. 

Well last night I got really dressed up. Dark Green dress slacks, dress shoes, white dress shirt, a really beautiful checked brown tie, a cream colored suit coat complete with pocket handkerchief and a really dreamy scarf that tied all the colors together.  I parked my car in the pay lot near the Student Center at KSU and started the very short one bock walk (not even) to the Student Center where we were meeting.

Coming towards me were two gentlemen that I have never met and they were walking diagonally towards the library.  The one turns to the other and says "Get a load of the fag."  I darn near ran to the Student Center doors.  I haven't been called "a fag" in a very long time and I know that this "very nothing incident" could have been so much worse.  Today though all I kept thinking about was the young men in the last week who have all died because they were bullied.

Now granted I have a partner, loving and caring neighbors who accept me and would do anything for me and a family that overall is supportive.  I am and I know it, BLESSED beyond words!  But it shook my very core.  Maybe my attire was a little over the top but I am a FASHION DESIGN Major, hello!  I thought I looked great, I felt great. First time I felt that good about my looks in a long time and it was all taken away,  I hear those words often today "Get a load of the fag" and my heart breaks because for some gay people the teasing never ends until they take there own lives.   Will the bigotry, prejudice, teasing and hatred ever stop?  Will I live long enough to see it?  I hope so.

In the meantime I feel like doing something to make a  difference.  This post is just the start!

A Difficult Post for a Difficult and Awkward Night

This is going to be the most difficult post that I have done in this blog to date.  It deals with so many different issues that have permeated my entire life, I am not even sure if I could accurately capture everything I want to try to say or need to say so the weight of these circumstances are conveyed accurately.

July 31st came and went in my personal life quietly enough, that date is my parents wedding anniversary.  I know you are already wondering how on earth this becomes my most difficult post.  Well my parents have married for 45 years and quiet frankly they never should have never been married that long in the first place.

I am sure somewhere along the way they really loved each other, even cared deeply for each other.  From what I remember of that period of most of my childhood is the mental, emotional and verbal abuse that my father used all of us, but primarily on my mother.  The majority of my childhood and early adult life I feared my father more than anything else, the real monster in the closet.  There were points where my mother temporarily left my father and we were placed in a "safe place" only to go back into that environment.  She has always felt she never had any way out.  She felt she couldn't support us on her own, and we will never know for sure if she could or not.  That process repeated itself over and over at least four times.

Earlier today my mother called wanting to get together for dinner to "celebrate" their anniversary so we said yes, what else was I suppose to do?  Most of me sat there vividly remembering that painful past, that seems like just like yesterday.  I wonder has the dynamic changed, now that my parents are older and in very ill health.  I wonder if my mother has forgiven him?  I wonder if my mother regrets staying all these years?  I wonder does the past ever cross either of their minds?  I wonder does any of it matter now to either of them?

Its hard trying sitting on your emotions while eating supper.  Its hard finding an anniversary card that isn't all romance, flowers and rainbows.  Well I did both things, I sat smiling, making small talk one more time and now I sit and blog about it, emotionally a wreck.  Maybe, I will revisit these ideas and this post in a few days and go more into emotionally what all of this means to me.

Until then I am so glad I am so glad we had this time together.