Dear Roger: Love, Little Boxes, Breaking Molds, AIDS, and Finding Somebody to Love

The season of "Giving" is approaching and im finally getting back into my charity work. Its something I had really missed, and thanks to some friends of mine, I got out and did the Portland AidsWalk. The walk not only met its goal, it exceeded it by over 45k! It was quite an experience to be involved in it and I enjoyed myself. The scene was as Portlandia as Portland gets and I don't think I have felt so welcomed since I have been here. The boys who were part of my team are friends of mine and we made a day of it, just walking along talking about our experiences growing up and dealing with a society the expects everyone to fall into a particular mold. There were people of every size, shape and description walking in that fundraiser, they were walking for friends, family, loved ones, themselves or just because they know that Aids is a terrible disease we should have defeated over a decade ago. I walked in memory of my cousin and for all the people who live in the shadows and in fear. That was a huge topic of discussion that day, the stigma.
I remember seeing on the news the misery and torture that Ryan White went through when he was diagnosed with Aids and how horrible people treated a child who had an illness he had no control over and that was going to kill him. It was just the tip of the iceberg of how gay people were and are treated.
I've never gotten it. I know I was raised with a certain attitude in my home as a child because when my said to her friend that she suspected I was more than just a,"Tomboy", it freaked me the hell out. I was already getting harassed by some of the prominent members of the football team at school and called things like,"Dyke"  because of how I dressed and acted and my sports playing as well as being ostracized by people who had been friends and neighbors previously, so when my own mother made comments about my room decor  (Hollywood stars of the 40's of both sexes), It horrified me and probably had a lot to do with why I became a bit of a sexually aggressive young adult that had kids early.
I've grown a lot since then and reached a point in my life where I don't care what other people think about me, and I am just accepting of where I am in life. I am at peace with my place in life and accepting of difference and I wish more people were the same way. I see people that I know are living in pain, living in the shadows and hiding who they are and who they love for the sake of their careers or family or community and I see the heartache and the pain it causes and it hurts my heart for them because I know how much it hurts. It was refreshing to admit to myself and the friends I walked with that day that love is love is love and being open to accepting it no matter if its not in the form you or anyone else expected is an amazing and freeing way to be.
It was hard for me as a parent of 5 kids to reach that point. I was fast on the way to falling into lockstep with my family and I wanted my children to be,"NORMAL", with my sons being tough and strong men who would go on to the Corp of Cadets at Texas A&M and marry good girls with all the traditional trappings of Texas to follow. I wanted my daughters to be good girls who would marry respectable men who would be their equals and respectable members of the community. I wanted my daughters to go on to either Texas A&M or UT and get their Doctorates and become powerful women who would lead their communities before they gave me a few grand kids to spoil rotten. The thing is with my kids it that they are individuals, and as individuals they have very distinct paths and hopes for the future. My eldest has already made her own distinct path and TAMU is not on the radar and she has not shown any interest in dating.  My eldest son wants to go to college in Oregon and he talks of never marrying quite frequently. My other two boys are a puzzle. My youngest daughter has had her sights set on one particular fella for a long time and she tends to talk of TAMU as being the only school that is worth even considering, but I have stopped pushing that, and when we talk of the future and what my dreams of for my kids, I simply say, "I want to look in your faces and only see joy and peace, never pain or unhappiness, if I see that, then I know I did my job as a parent. Ill love you no matter who you love, what you become, where you are or what you are doing. If YOU are happy and being a good person who does no harm to others, then I am at peace with that."
I've always been a person who when told to zig, I zagged. I resented being forced into molds and little boxes. I always worked non-traditional jobs, dated or even married the type of guy who was so far removed from the family norm that I am sure my parents wished I had been gay at times. It wasn't because I was trying to to purposely offend anyone, it was just at the time, the person who walked into my life and shook up my world with love happened to be a Lebanese Semi-pro soccer player, or an Iranian gypsy violin playing/singing, blind, research scientist,(still do carry a bit of a torch for him), or a former Hell's Angel Prospect with issues of his own who ive now reached a peace with and share most of my kids with. Love doesn't always fit a perfect mold and being accepting of the form it takes is part of being a grown human and I think I have finally grown up.