Tag: pride

Feel your pulse, own your pride

4 years ago Orlando was changed forever… the LGBTQ community was hit right in the heart… 49 times…. 49 lives… 49 stories that ended that night. It was the night of the Pulse Nightclub massacre.

I was sleeping that night, peacefully in bed with my wonderful boyfriend. We woke the next morning to dozens of messages… we opened up social media and there it was. Every news station, every friend marking themselves safe, videos footage of flashing lights, crying crowds, parents desperately trying to find their children… there was emergency blood drives set up as Orlando didn’t have enough blood to help the wounded… how crazy a thought is that, not enough blood.

My heart was broken. I didn’t lose anyone that night, but I know people who lost friends and family… I have friends who were supposed to be there but for some reason… they decided to stay home. I held my friends, I held my boyfriend and we cried. We cried out of fear… out of hurt… out of sadness.

Orlando is a cultural melting pot, a transient city filled with people from every background… it’s what makes it great. But after that night… and the weekend following… Orlando showed it’s true colors. It said “We are Orlando Strong”, “we have one pulse”… that became the heartbeat of the city, love is love is love is love is love. Strangers hugged, vigils were held everywhere, people cried together, your race didn’t matter, your religion, your orientation… nothing mattered, we held each other.

Every year on the anniversary I remember the sadness i felt when i woke that morning and for days after… but then i remember how I started to see rainbow flags appear in store windows in the days following…displays listing the names of the ones lost, straight families walking around the parks with T-shirt’s supporting the LGBTQ community and Orlando… the clothing brands that released merchandise to raise money to help the survivors… that sadness turned into pride.

Pride for my community… pride in who we are as individuals. I became one of the rainbow wearing, rainbow flag owning, proud gay men. Why did I do that? What made me realize that being gay was something I should own? The simple answer, because 49, proud, loving, diverse people had their pride taken away from them… as well as the survivors who still suffer from PTSD from that night.

What brings us together… all of us… is that pulse, that heart beat… we all have one.

Feel your pulse. It means you are still here. You still matter, you still belong. Pride doesn’t end at LGBTQ, it includes pride in your heritage, being proud of your race, proud of the battles you overcame and the ones you are still pushing through. Never let anyone take away your pride. Someone tried to take that away from us that night… but we came back stronger.

Pride.

June is pride month. For the LGBTQ+ community it’s a month where we celebrate how far we have come and continue to strive towards acceptance and equality.

It’s the month when most companies come out with rainbow colored merchandise, adjust their logos to rainbows and just generally show their support. It’s a beautiful time, where I spend too much money on rainbow pins, tumblrs, clothes and rainbow food (because why not!)

This pride month for me is a bit different though… with the stress of work and some other things going on… I seem to be struggling to find my inner rainbow as it were. Over the last few months I seem to be going on a rollercoaster of ups and downs emotionally where I can be fine and happy for short periods of time and then feel drained, exhausted and sad for longer periods. I lost the desire to write… something that I was truly enjoying…My anxiety is on high alert and I feel the desire to eat everything in sight.

Yesterday while reading a blog post about losing yourself to work… made me realize that I really have dived in head first into my new job, leaving everything else to the wayside, if I am honest my work location is probably the least health environment you could imagine… especially if you are not in the right mind set.

I started to think, have I lost who I am? Who am I? Most of my working life I have always thrown myself at my job, to work the hardest I can to grow and learn, but by doing so I think I may have lost part of who I was… I truly believe this is when we turn into that dreaded “grown up” we heard so much about as kids.

When your stress to happiness ratio is sitting about 10 to 1, It’s hard to balance everything out… that’s when you hit the “burnt-out” phase and your body shuts down.

Yes there are so many factors that cause stress-bills, work, yard work, HOA’s, rats and everything else. It’s the moments that everything piles up so much it feels completely overwhelming, that’s when you have to push through… and that’s what I’m dealing with.

June isn’t over, I am trying to find the person I buried under the pile of work, bills and broken things… somewhere under that’s mess is 21 year old, (rainbow clad), laughing and dancing Shane.

Happiness is worth more to your mental stability than anything else, if you can’t be happy leading the life you want, are you really living or just surviving.