Happy Pride! from 9 Gay Worms

Happy pride, everybody! I have been so offline lately (and so off-calendar, I suppose) that it didn’t dawn on me that it’s already June until I was in the shower around 5pm. I spent this first June day sleeping in under a frigid dawn, eating cinnamon rolls, playing Tears of the Kingdom, lifting weights, buying plants, digging up dirt, and slicing some resoundingly delicious charcoal-grilled chicken that Josh threw together for us on the back porch.

Being gay is a big part of who I am. I used to find that exhausting; I guess I still do in some ways. It is frustrating sometimes to feel so notable for so little— being gay is literally not a big deal. It does not sum up who I am as a person on this planet. It really does not matter. But to so many people it does— in so many terrible ways.

But what I think does really matter is showing other people in the world— young, questioning, or anywhere inbetween—that open queerness is cool, beautiful, and attainable. I was tormented for being gay before I even knew that I was. I didn’t experience my first serious relationship until I was almost 23. The society I have lived in my entire adult life is somehow the most progressive it ever has been, but still is so deeply unsafe for us everywhere.

So anyhow— I am sitting here on the couch after a long day of enjoying my charming gay life with my dorky gay boyfriend and feeling very grateful. I’m sipping on a strawberry beer while our two cats fight for my attention with purring and headbutts. The neighbor is mowing in the sunset and the world smells alive through the window-screen beside me; salty and loud and full of dirt. There is a scratch in my thigh from the blackberry bush that needs trimmed out front. Our house is in mild disarray; laundry to be folded on the floor, boxes and bullshit cluttering the dining table, stains from dinner dotting our blue kitchen countertops. And I love it all so deeply.

I spent many years in the trenches of gay shame and suffering. I got so numb to the idea of romance and true, genuine love. I threw myself into my work because I loved it, but also to keep myself from thinking too much about how miserable it all was. My relationship with Josh— and being queer in this weird world overall— has really allowed me to find peace in knowing how not-so-different I am from anyone else— I probably just have a cuter living room than you.

I can love and be loved, and I should be! And you should be, too. I hope that’s what you can take from Pride this month— that love is not linear, it does not always come easily, but it is here. All around us; in blackberry bushes, kitty purrs, mystery chicken stains in the kitchen, and simple worms rolling around in the dirt.