We Went Out
I’m not a writer but I write when I feel something. The events in Orlando have me feeling plenty of things right now. Devastation. Confusion. The heavy weight of sadness. I’m not alone in that. Unfortunately I’m not alone in that.
So many things contribute to what I feel at this very moment. I am sad for the lives lost and the families grieving. I am sad for those lives lost in tragedies prior to this. I am sad for the people living in fear, the people living in hate. I am sad that this could have happened in any gay club to any gay person in America. The people who lost their lives were no different than me and my friends who go out to these clubs. We’ve traveled to Orlando from all over the country to attend the Girls in Wonderland event for the last three years. We go to local gay bars. We go to gay bars in big cities. We go to gay bars in small cities. We go to gay bars during Pride month and we go to gay bars when it’s not Pride month. We go to gay bars to celebrate birthdays. We go to gay bars to celebrate break ups. We go to gay bars to celebrate friendship. We go to gay bars for no reason at all. And this could have been us. It could have been anyone. But it was these fifty people in Orlando who lost their lives, not us. We’ll never know why.
A lot of people have shared their story with someone. I sure as Hell have. Today, I’m not asking that you share a coming out story though, I’m asking that you share a going out story. I’d like to tell a story of a normal night where I went out because that’s what these people did too. They went out like so many of us do. Except they didn’t come back. We did. And there’s really no explaining why it was them and not us.
As we learn the stories of each individual victim, I want to come together and unite as a community and share our stories too. We are all connected and need to remain that way to muster up every bit of strength. It could have been me and it could have been you but it wasn’t. No one will ever be able to explain why we went home and they didn’t. Share your story with hashtag #WeWentOut. Here is mine:
That night we had a reason to go out. It was Girls in Wonderland and we traveled from New York to Orlando to get there. Alexandra and I were both single and in a new environment. We knew we wouldn’t know anyone else there besides each other and found comfort in that notion. When we got to the resort we spent the entire day at a pool party with thousands of people, caught a tan, tried different positions down the water slide (on the stomach is not a good approach) and absorbed the positive and fun energy around us.
Later that night we hopped into one of the outfits we had planned and set aside for weeks. I wore a coral head band that I thought was super cool at the time and a long white tank top. Alex wore a new pair of Supras and a matching SnapBack. Okay a matching everything. We made new friends and found acceptance in every circle we entered. When the sun went down, a certain buzz of excitement was surfacing. The first evening event of the weekend was approaching – a night out at a club in Downtown Disney. Neither of us have experienced the gay scene in Orlando before and the amount of people, locals and others traveling just like us, was insane. We took a shuttle from the resort with a bunch of other people and headed downtown. Inside the club everything was alive and electric. That is the only way to describe it. As soon as we walked in and felt that energy we were awake. Not a familiar face was in sight, just each other’s. We were two best friends in a new city for a long weekend, celebrating equality and freedom, looking for nothing but finding everything. We were escaping from our own realities in New York. I can still hear the music bouncing off the walls, I can still see the neon lights dancing across stranger’s faces. No one knew us there in Orlando. No one knew our names, no one knew what we did for a living. We could have been anyone or anything. Instead we were ourselves. Anonymous