Pride Week

I'm in line at Walmart this afternoon and a young gay couple are ahead of me in line. They were joking around just like any two people who know each other would while they were in line. Made me laugh a few times too, not that I was deliberately listening in on their conversation, but really? What the hell else am I going to do while standing in line at Walmart? People watching is a sport in Walmart.

Yesterday while in the market with my buddy, a lesbian couple walked by holding hands.

On Friday, I was in a conga line at lunch with a bunch of people, including a drag queen. Got my photo taken with her too :)

Last week was Pride Week in Ottawa, ending today with the Pride parade. It made me think back on the first time I'd ever seen a homosexual couple.

When I was 12 or so, my parents took us camping in the eastern US. We got to go whale watching in Massachusetts. Our boat left out of this truly beautiful little coastal city called Provincetown, which just happens to pride itself on being "The #1 Gay Community in America". While on the way back from out whale watching (which was amazing and I still remember it to this day), I recall hearing people in the seat behind me kissing and turning around to see two women making out. Confused, I looked at my mom and point this out. She did the normal mom thing "sit down and stop staring", which I did do, but I kept shooting looks over my shoulder because I'd never seen that before. It would be many years later before I saw anything like that again but I remember it. I also vividly remember seeing the man biking down the main street, wearing nothing but a speedo and let's just say that something that should have been inside the speedo wasn't. It was flopping about, waving at all the nice people on the street....

It really wasn't until high school that homosexuality came back on my radar. I remember seeing two girls get into a fight. One of them I kind of knew and I asked her why they'd been fighting and she said that it had to do with her being bisexual. My only thought at the time was "well, that's a stupid reason to fight". 

University was when I first had openly gay friends. Some were the stereotypical ones (think Jack on Will and Grace) while others were very low key. On guy I knew went on to become a drag queen and wouldn't you know it? The bitch looked better in a dress than I did. LOL. He could walk better in heels too. As far as I was, and still am concerned today, they're just people. They're my friends. In a couple of cases, they're family.

I'm not sure where my liberal and accepting attitude came from. Maybe it's a product of my upbringing, my schooling, my friends or maybe it's just all me, but I'm glad that I see the world the way I do. I fully support the right of homosexual people to get married. I fully support their right to have/adopt children. And I believe that if they lead good, decent lives, they'll go onto Heaven (or whatever wonder afterlife place there happens to be) when they pass away just like the rest of the people who are good and decent.

It's hard to find love, trust me, I've been trying for a very long time now. I can only imagine how horrible it would be to finally meeting the right person and fall in love and want to build a life and future with that person and then to have society or the law or family turn around and tell me that I'm not allowed to do those things with the person I love. That's it's wrong or it's against nature.  That's just not right.

So, if you're reading this and you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered etc... please know that I am grateful that you read my blog and that you have my support. If you're already my friend, please know that I'll never judge you for your lifestyle and if you're family, please know that I'll always love you for you. And if I haven't met you yet, I'd really like to meet you!

No matter how you identify yourself with the world, just be happy to be you.

Happy Pride Week Ottawa!

Good Night,

Sarah