the fact that i have to leave sdlc is sad, stressful, and a little bit frightening.
in the past three days, i have experienced love like i never have before. the sense of community, of acceptance and affirmation, was something exceptional. i have never felt so safe. i have never felt so raw, so close to others. i felt like for the first time, i was home.
i came out for the first time to a large group, and experienced a sense of freedom i didn’t know was possible. i made amazing friends, and i can’t believe it was only a few days ago that i met them - and yet we were all sharing things many of us had never said aloud before.
to return, not only back into the closet for me, but to a world where people are miles apart standing right next to each other, where there are barriers between you and the outside world because having armor is the only way to stay unbroken in a world of bigotry and cruelty, to a world where i once again have to be afraid of the stares and the eye rolls and the casual slurs, fills my heart with dread. at sdlc i was at a better place emotionally than i have been since i was a child. i have shared things i have never said aloud before and felt nothing but solidarity and understanding and love.
when people say something “changed their life”, it’s easy to write them off. but no matter how hesitant i am to move away from speaking from the “i” perspective, i can say with certainty that at least 95% — if not every single person — of the students who attended that conference came out a different person. i understand things about myself, about my identity as a queer person and my responsibility as a white person, about what it is like to feel safe. and i understand things about other perspectives from hearing so many stories about the experiences of my peers as people of different identities and from different backgrounds.
thank you, student diversity leadership conference. thank you lgbtq+ affinity group, thank you fern cliff, thank you home group 2. thank you qinan and jesse and kelsie and everyone who i have now only really known for three short days and yet feel closer to than people i have known for years. the memories i made here i will keep with me forever. i will think of this community every time i feel myself begin to shatter under the stress of injustice. whether or not i am able to attend next year’s conference in atlanta i will always - always - remember what it was like to be sitting among you feeling nothing but peace.
