Dear Me

Dear Me,

Someday we will title this post what we originally intended it to be called: "Dear Gay Kid." Someday we won't care what the people following us on Twitter who might disagree with this post's content—or, in fact, its premise—think.

Because someday we will be happy. We won't be happy always, but we will be happy more, and that's all we can ask for.

Because we won't care that we're gay. Well, we will care—it's a part of us. But we won't wake up in the morning and go, "Shit, I'm still gay?" We'll wake up in the morning and go, "Shit, it's 7:30? I'm going to be late for my job as an editor at a Big Fancy Publishing House." Then we'll kiss our boyfriend—husband?—and the fact that you were scared to come out will not matter. You will swim in his eyes, and do you really think you'll be worrying about instilled hate in the presence of unfiltered, raw love?

You won't—we won't. Here's a secret: love always wins against hate. Always. Sometimes in a roundabout, almost confusing way, but it wins in the end. Like that Dr. Seuss quote: "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

Someday it won't matter what even your family thinks about your sexual orientation. Your brother won't like it. He'll change his mind. The world is changing rapidly; we change with it or we get left behind. Your mom will cry—tears of relief that you finally told her; tears of trust and unity.

But that hasn't happened yet. Guess what, though? You told your sister. You said, "I hope you don't hate me," and then a thousand other things, and then "I'm gay." She said, "You think I'd hate you for that? I'm a little offended." You remember the exact words. They were through a Facebook message. You remember the sheer, almost crushing terror beforehand. Afterwards everything is a tear-stained blur.

Remember how you were growing up and "f—ot" was the only word you knew to describe yourself? Remember when you'd rock back and forth in the bottom of your shower, crying your eyes out because only the positively torrential streams of water would drown out your wailing? You don't know this yet, but you'll want to die—twice. You'll be within days of doing it before you tell someone.

But people's minds are changing, even now, as you sit there crying. Soon more people will support marriage equality than not. Soon it won't even matter who supports you or not because you will be able to support yourself.

Someday—May 13th, 2014—a presumably straight girl in your Physics class will get all her nearby classmates nodding along when she declares, "Love is fucking beautiful." That day, you will come home, and you will cry. You will cry and you won't know exactly why but you'll deduce later that it's because people with no horse in this race support you. People will be fucking beautiful.

You will be fucking beautiful.

Just stay around to see it.