When I was angry...

  I found myself staring angrily at the screen last night. Scorn and rage were coming out of my fingertips and as a person I thought was my friend continued to speak ill of me behind my back and online I was ready for a full on war. Words are my weapons and I was ready to unleash the hell of verbal assault on this individual. While I was coming from a place of hurt, especially after all I had thought our friendship was, it was a dark hole and the spiral was very real. My positive outlook often can help me through these times, but last night I couldn't hear that voice, only the pain and anger built up inside me. I could feel the tears and the fear that comes from the natural reaction to being put in a position of defense and knew I could take this to a higher and more dangerous level with very little effort. It surprised me that my anger had so much energy, it took little to set me off and my foot went right to the floor for maximum acceleration. The world is full of knee jerk reactions spilling over into a terrible tailspin and that is where I was headed.
  My default position used to be that kind of angry response to any kind of slight, real or imagined. I could rail for days or even weeks on my high horse and it was (and is) draining. Emotional and physical manifestations of anger take a lot out of a person, emptying you and leaving you seeking even higher levels of that emotion to sustain it. I would spiral into dangerous places in my head and that could lead to crippling anxiety and my old friend depression as I felt trapped by my own feelings and needing to strike out in any way I could. Not physically mind you, I have always been more of a talker, but I would do what I could to make sure my voice was raised and my anger known.
  The last few years have taught me some sense of my own faults and I have worked very hard to address the demons I let take control for far too long. Be it my dependence on drinking to forget or hiding out in my own black space, I strived to be better and make my voice a bright one in the world. While my exploration of craft beer has led me to find new friends and experiences, there always remains a darkness in the back of my mind. Some small and unintended remark still gets my head up and looking for revenge, fight or flight engaged and my fingers poised to attack. The blindness of anger and rage give me a hyper focus that blocks out all the good I have come to know and sends the spiral into a deep and fast descent.
  Such was last night...until a friend reached out and touched me in my heart. A simple message and I could feel the anger dissipating, ebbing away like a bad headache under a cool cloth. They reminded me of the innate goodness that surrounds me just by giving me back my own humanity and helping me realise what I was doing. Petty bullshit and drama is not who I am anymore and I was leaning hard into the wind with both of those. Perhaps I should just be better than that, maybe I should let go of the hate that boils up when I am pushed to my limit and beyond. Words do matter and I was using mine in all the wrong ways for worse reasons. It was almost as if by stopping me with her message, she gave me permission to let this go. I am not sure why but I just felt that way almost immediately. The wonderful thing about our social media lives, much like our real ones, is that we can just cut out the person who tries to make us come down to their level. Block, delete and walk away from the black hole that is trying to suck you in. Being prone to the darkness means I can take that turn on a dime, good friends mean I don't have to.
  Thank you to the person who sent me a lifeline when I was drowning in my own vile anger and goodbye to the person whom I thought was my friend. Valuable lessons from both and while I mourn the loss of one, I am indebted to the other for letting me see myself again. Life is too short to be angry all the time and I will endeavour to remember that better next time someone tries to get me to react that way. Try to be good to each other, it really is such a beautiful way to live.


Polk

Pride in the Name of All Love

I was trying one day not so long ago, to explain to someone what privilege meant and why there was a Gay pride parade or week. Many people see it as a glorification of one lifestyle over another and actively seek to disavow it. We saw the rise of the hash tag #heterosexualprideday on Twitter last week and it was almost laughable if the people projecting it weren't so serious. I hate to deflate their very tiny minds, but it's like when a kid asks on Mother's/Father's Day," When is kids day?" You pat their heads and say, "That's everyday sweetie, here's a cookie." It bothered me because I have never had to worry about what people would think about who I love. I never had to consider whether my sexuality would cost me a place to live, work or affect the safety of my body. I cannot even begin to understand how it must feel to grow up under a system that actively calls who you are into question and many times damns you for being true to yourself. I will not pretend to know the fear of coming out to those closest to you and holding your breathe waiting for their reaction. But what I can do is say I'm with you. I stand beside you, supporting you and loving you. Not loving you no matter who you love, because that quantifies and degrades a persons' love for another. I love you as a person, whole and open hearted. Families exist in all shapes and forms, anyone who wants to impose their narrow minded view of what that is needs to be shouted down. Ignoring people who spew hatred based on anyones' sexuality, colour, creed or ability is as bad as watching someone beat another person up and doing nothing. Recently deceased Nobel Prize winner and Concentration camp survivor Elie Weisel put it best in his speech at the White House in 1999 :

"In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil. "

  I no longer think that it is enough to just stand by and silently support our family and friends in this diverse community. Being silent while bigots, homophobes and racists of all shapes and under various forms of religious and secular cover spew their particular brand of hatred is as bad as doing it yourself. Saying stuff like "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is at best passive aggressive and at worst condemning a person for who they love and wish to share their lives with. Supporting any organization that targets people for their sexual orientation is the same as participating in that discrimination yourself. Giving them your money or time means you condone their beliefs whether you do or not. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can't be a supporter of any organization that actively demeans anyone without getting some of that stain of intolerance on your own soul. You have the right to believe whatever you want, but that right does not extend to anyone else and their lives. I am not sure who these people think they are fooling, but their power is waning and their time is up.

So today and everyday I say to my family and friends who are gay, straight or somewhere they are not sure of yet that I love you and I will stand with you no matter the cause. As long as we come together under the banner of tolerance and humanity, nothing can stop us from changing the world. Raise your rainbow flag, head on out to your local events and show the world that you are part of the changing future, not the hatred of the past. Speak up, love and support those who struggle in their lives and lend a shoulder, a hand and your voice to the rising chorus that will drown out those who choose to spew hate at anyone. Love yourself for who you are and embrace the people around you with passion and commitment. The world is better with more open hearts and love will win, have no doubt, I promise you.