Life, love, strength, and other abstractions

The Senate broke my heart on Tuesday by falling four votes short of the 60 needed to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It's really depressing to realize just how far we have yet to go on the road to achieving equality. Even more infuriating is the fact that most of what upsets me politically can be filed in my brain under "violation of common sense."

Personally, though, things have been going well. I got 100% on my first quizzes of the semester in both English and women's studies, which made me happy. And even though I miss my friends in Saginaw, I don't doubt that transferring colleges was the right thing to do. And I've been able to maintain a balance between the life I had there and the life I have here.

Last winter, while I was still at SVSU, I started talking to/spending time outside of class with literature majors. I had been a creative writing major, so hadn't interacted with them much previously. And I'll confess that after I made the decision to transfer, I was wary of making new friends in Saginaw, for fear of losing touch with them as soon as I moved back to the Detroit area.

But not only have we maintained contact, we've also had some incredibly honest, intense conversations since I left.

There are a lot of things I'm still ashamed of in regard to what happened while I was a student at SVSU. I wish I had handled certain things better (or handled them at all, for that matter). And because I can't go back in time and change things, I've just been trying to live my life as honestly and unapologetically as possible.

So, while we're on the topic of living honestly/unapologetically:

Confessions:

1) I always leave women's studies class full of rage and usually spend the next little while wishing I had been born male. This is particularly scary to me because I've always been so proud of/embraced who I am and what I do as a woman.

2) I also occasionally wish I wasn't gay. Like being female, it's something I love about who I am. But part of me still wishes I could rid myself of it for entirely cowardly reasons. My gay friends are the strongest people I know. And I've taken until just recently to even begin the process of coming out because I've been scared and confused and still doubt whether I'm strong enough to live as honestly and openly as they do.

But these little internal battles I'm having with myself wouldn't even be taking place if part of me wasn't trying to embrace these challenges, and be strong and explore.

What I've discovered has been (and continues to be) eye-opening. The honest/intense conversations I've had with my friends recently have all caused me to question things I had never thought to question before. It really hurts, but ultimately, processing/accepting those things makes me feel really good about everything. And lately, more and more, I just feel like life will be life, I will be me, you will be you, and everything will be okay.

And somehow it'll all be worth it.