Love is Love...That's Pretty Easy Math

I spend a lot of time around young people struggling to define their sexuality. Translation=I hang out with a lot of gay kids. It's one of my favorite parts of this job that I juggle. It's so absolutely consuming, this still embarrassingly virgin territory of human sexuality, that I can find myself in some pretty lonely conversations with peers pretty quickly at times. What's frightening is that it happens most when I'm surrounded by educators. That's not a shot at those people who are imparting knowledge on our youth, but more of a shot at the system in which they live, love, breathe and teach. There are enormous chunks of this world that aren't ready for "gay", and it's frustrating.

What brings all this to the surface? A couple of things, really. First, Doodle Poop has posted this stellar Ernest Gaines quote, and second, I've been consumed by Tegan and Sara again today, and their absolute uber-coolness trumps the world's astonishing lack of acceptance of their personal lifestyle (both are gay) every time. Chuck those two conspicuous things into the mix of months and months of contemplating a leap back into gender studies to help me complete a full circle in terms of my skills and understanding of all those angles dissecting the light that shines on youth, and youth culture and issues, and this post starts to make a little more sense. It's my job, but it's also my unabashed curiosity and passion. I want to be good at what I do and better at who I am. I want my days to mean something. There's a great big obvious gap when it comes to providing support and services for gay youth and I'm way beyond interested and engaged.

Take all that stuff and mash it up into the notion that whatever it is that Zoey becomes in her life, I'll love her endlessly. I just want her to be good at the things that she does, to be happy with her life, and to help people...you know, to do good things. That's it...that's all.

The kids I work with have issues far greater than their sexuality, in fact, I think that most times their sexuality is often the only normal thing that they can get a handle on. BTW...our sexuality is as basic as food and shelter so "normal" is what you make it. There aren't many other drives throughout the entire human race that are as elemental as that. In the end love is love...period.
Why we're not standing up for each other as human beings is beyond my ability to comprehend. Love is love, and there's not much else to say.

I'll love this little girl that we created out of nothing but our own love forever and ever and ever, and even at this innocent stage of her life just the very idea of her falling in love with someone makes me swoon. I'm so excited to see this little girl love. I wonder what it will look like and I wonder who will earn it, and I get a little choked up at the idea that whoever gets all that beautiful stuff will be someone who we've helped her fall for with every standard and expectation and perspective we ever gave her. Someone is going to get a lot of sweet sincerity if we have anything to do with it. Someday some boy or girl is going to be pretty lucky. I hope they understand that they'll be harvesting all of the seeds that we planted. I hope that there's nothing on the planet more powerful than Zoey's love. I hope, and hope, and hope.