What Pride month means to me
Celebrating for myself and others
When the studio owner at Salute the Sun Yoga, where I teach yoga and where I’m hosting a Pride-themed donation yoga class later this month, asked me to share what Pride month means to me, I got to writing. Here’s a little of what I shared with her. I hope it resonates with you. ❤️ 🌈
Pride month is a significant month to me, for many reasons. First, my father was gay. He came out to me in 2000 when I was 20 years old and then, sadly, he died just 18 months later. He spent almost his entire life denying or not feeling able to share who he truly was. It was only at the very end of his life that he was able to be proudly out as a gay man to his family and close friends -- and, even then, it was only in those certain close circles that he felt comfortable being fully himself. He was raised and I grew up in a place and a time that valued heterosexual couples, families that looked like each other -- a man, a wife, and 2-3 kids. Despite the culture in which we grew up, he found his people -- many of those gay men that were his best friends were a huge part of my life growing up. Those "uncles" who are still living are still like family to me. I reflect often (this month and always) on how the secret that my dad held for most of his life -- who he was, at his core -- may have eaten him from the inside. He died of glioblastoma multiformae, a softball-sized tumor at the core of his brain.
Second, I recognize Pride as a member of the queer community. When I fell in love with a woman five years ago, I was married to and had a young child with a man. I realized with my awakening of feelings for this woman that the person I had been acting as (a woman in a long-term heterosexual relationship) was no longer true and no longer fully me. I had denied, ignored, or otherwise suppressed my true self for years and all my true feelings came bubbling to the surface with the cataclysmic feelings I had for a beautiful woman (who I happened to meet in yoga, by the way). In those moments of transformation, I thought back to my dad, to the secrets he kept his whole life, to the self he denied for so long. I decided to take a different path, in part to honor him but mostly to honor myself. I listened to that feeling inside my heart that was leading me to my truest self. I was beyond lucky to have the support, the community, and the space to land safely in that space of shedding who I was and becoming who I would be. My epiphany of being in love with a woman crystalized during pride month five years ago.
Fast forward to present day. I'm engaged to my beloved, the woman who opened my heart up to something new and otherworldly five years ago. I recognize Pride month as a celebration of not only our love and our ability to be together, but in honor and memory of all those who could not, did not, or do not have the time and space to truly, fully, lovingly be themselves. When I came out and shared my story, I hoped to demonstrate to others that it was possible. It's possible to change your mind. It's possible to do this messy work of changing and becoming. Find your people and your support and trust your heart. It will not lead you astray. Happy Pride, friends.
