3/12/10

Finding Hope in Constance McMillen

I knew I was gay at my senior prom.  Yet, I did not share this with anyone, not even my best friend.  Ironically, it was this very best friend who I was in love with.  I went to the prom with her younger sister's boyfriend.  Pretty twisted, huh?  I needed a date and he needed a ticket to prom.

I remember like it was yesterday welling up with tears on the buffet line in my Jessica McClinton gown.  My crush (best friend) was already in touch with her lesbianism and she 'missed her girlfriend.'  I don't if I was stricken with pain that I was not her girlfriend, or if I was simply freaking out because I felt doomed.  Surrounded by young couples dancing, kissing and enjoying one last blissful night before college, I feared I wouldn't experience that kind of joy.  I thought I would never be able to dance with the woman I loved as carefree as my straight peers.

Ironically, after years of openly experiencing that kind of teenage bliss, I am once again hiding.  Only now, instead of high school, I am in a grown-up closet filled with Navy uniforms.  Sometimes I still feel like that seventeen year old in her red ball gall, praying no one finds out who I really am.

Yesterday, Jo and I worked out at the gym on base. Despite the need to constantly keep my hands and words (honey, baby, sweetheart) in check, I love the equipment and spending extra time with my love.   I play my favorite lesbian tunes on my iPod which gives me a secret thrill.  Today, I was working out to As Cool As I Am By Dar Williams. Ironically, upon the line You tried to make me doubt, to make me guess, tried to make me feel like a little less, something on the television grabbed my eye.

Constance McMillen. I'm sure by now, you have become familiar with her name. In case you have not, she is the teen whose prom has been canceled because she asked to bring her girlfriend and wear a tux.

While I would typically rant about her school board, I only feel Hope.  Constance provides Hope in this crazy country that is denying us the right to marry, serve openly in our military, share benefits with our spouse, adopt children.  Constance, at such a young age, chose to be who she is, without fear of judgment.  She gives me Hope that in the near future we will live in a world where everyone can go to prom with who they like, dressed how they like.

I wish I could boldly stand up like her.  For now, I will smile on the elliptical knowing that this young woman is out there, changing the world for us all.  And I'll turn up my iPod and rock out, surrounded by all of the military personnel who assume I'm just another Navy Wife.


And then I go outside and join the others, I am the others. Oh--and thats not easy, I don't know what you saw, I want somebody who sees me.