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My last 2018 Pride Reflection

I will say that I have had an ever changing relationship with the concept of pride month. It has to come to have it's own personal meaning for me that is apart from what it may have been originally which was a fight for recognition as a people deserving respect and especially during the AIDS crisis demanding that everyone deserves to be mourned. I remember that it was in 2015 that I was thoroughly decided to really take a hard look at my sexuality and "figure things out" and it just so happened that it was during pride month that marriage equality was passed. And it felt so strange that I dwelled on it so much. It impacted me more than I thought it would and I couldn't explain it and it really made me stick to my decision to find my answers. And that is kinda what led me to the former GCN, my side B community, and different varying side B blogs. A year later during pride month I returned to the states after nearly 7 years living in south america and before the month was over Pulse happened and it was the first time that I felt connected somehow to the broader lgbt community. I felt sick, I cried, and no one around me cared. Until that point I had been perfectly happy watching from the inside of my closet, but that made me realize how important it was to me to be able to have my closet open and stick my head out from time to time. Last year I took the month to do a word study on the words pride and humility in the Greek and Hebrew of the old and new testament. So slowly over time pride month has somehow become a month of reflection for me. I see it almost in the same way I see Mardi Gras. Here in Louisiana mardi gras is a very big deal and it has a whole season with special foods and specific colors. People use it as an excuse to party and get drunk and that's all we were ever told about it growing up in an evangelical home. But mardi gras also has a lot to do with culture here. I don't go to the parades but seeing the colors associated with it make me smile and I appreciate how it can bring people together and I don't begrudge people that it has meaning to. That's kinda how I feel about pride - it has history and we can't deny that, people do things I don't approve of in celebration of it and we can't deny that either. I guess it's a funny kinda rose with more thorns than petals, but we can't say it's not a flower. Just like you can't say a tomatoe isn't a fruit.