Pride to me means quiet strength in breathing the same amount of airspace as those around me, to paraphrase a writer whose name escapes me. Pride is recognising the courage with which we confidently move through the world as equal but not the same participants.
My life as a gay man has been one of delight that I am for the who and what I’ve met along the way that I may not have otherwise experienced. A life of living with and enjoying human diversity. It hasn’t been a smooth road but its given me a tribe that has become family where we share both sorrows and successes. I’ve loved being a gay man and never wanted to be otherwise.
My mask tells a story of a much younger me learning early to hide full expression behind an impervious barrier in a childhood landscape that was blue and green and straw yellow. It’s a landscape that hasn’t left me though the barrier has been mostly eroded.