Voice

It had already been just a bonkers, backwards day. It took 40 minutes to get the loaner car to drop off our newly purchased car to have a few things fixed. I got to work and the power immediately went off, meaning I had to do my 2 hour zoom interview about preaching from my phone, which drained my battery to 2%. I used my low battery to then write down directions (like it’s 2009 or something) to the bank meeting I had to go to (which, by the way, I didn’t even need to go to, they were just trying to sell us on more accounts).

So all of this fun adventure of a day to find myself in a random McDonald’s to get some lunch at like 3pm (since I couldn’t warm up my lunch in the office with no power) and charge my phone enough to get myself home. I find myself in a random McDonald’s at 3pm, right when the local middle school gets out *face palm. I tried to have patience for the middle school boys running around and yelling. I know what it’s like to be cooped up all day in a classroom, learning about Pythagorean theorem or photosynthesis or whatever when all you want to do is play with your friends. When they approached me the first time, I tried to be polite. I could hear their whispers about betting each other who could get this bitch in the tie, whoever he/she thinks she is, to say hi to them first. But I tried to be polite. I just wanted some lunch and enough battery to get home.

My patience ran out and my fear took over when those boys followed me to my table. My patience ran out and my fear took over when they started to collect trash. My patience ran out and my fear took over when they ripped a plastic sign off the order kiosk and threw it at me, laughing and shouting indiscernible slurs that I knew I did not want to hear. My patience ran out and my fear took over, when all I wanted was lunch and a power outlet.

Getting back to my loaner car, I was shaking. All I could think about was Nex Benedict. All I could think about was the 400+ anti-LGBTQ+ bills that have already been passed this year in the US. All I could think about was how my existence, my presence, my appearance, my marriage, my vocation is more often a bullet point of debate than it is a beautiful reality in a diverse world.

I’m still very much in recovery, trying to be gentle and take good care – of myself and those around me. I’ve been having nightmares most nights since. Nightmares I haven’t even told Katie about because it just makes me sad and scared. Nightmares of being stuck in places that have hurt me. Nightmares with those who have yelled (yes, yelled) at me that I’m living in sin, their voices so loud it wakes me up in a panic. Nightmares of reaching out while I’m trapped or drowning or injured and people scoff as they walk by, not doing a damn thing to help. I’m trying to be gentle and take good care of myself and those around me. But it’s hard.

My therapist this week affirmed it’s good to prioritize slowness and gentleness right now.

She also encouraged me to not let this situation take away my voice.

So with all the atrocities in our world, in our country, in our own lives, I have a strange hope. A strange hope that we still have a power in our voices, and that cannot be taken away.

So

Vote. Care. Speak. Move. Dream.

Our world needs you and your voice.