You Are Not Trivial

I used to think, you know, if I could help just one person. But tonight, I saw a flip side of this. What happens in the world if one person being their authentic self is precisely the thing needed by another person in crisis, and they won't make it through without your unique talents and abilities? Seen this way, depriving the world of your authentic presence could make the difference between another person getting along in life, or not. So I think to myself, if I don't share what I have to offer, what happens if it's not there when the next person in the world needs it? This may never happen, but if what I share is something required - however unlikely that may seem or feel to me - and I don't offer it, then I have allowed the chain to break simply by withholding who I am and what I do. It isn't about, "maybe" you can help someone. It's about what if you're the only person who CAN help someone and you aren't doing it? What if you're not there to do your part, for them? What if the authenticity inside you is the essential thing needed for someone else to survive? This kind of thing might be more common than we think. How many times has a life been saved because of a chance song or a happenstance smile on the street?

I have said that when I was in my twenties, I went out to San Francisco because I wanted to see the Castro district, some normal gay life. What I didn't say is that wlhen I saw those two men across the street simply holding hands and walking together, that gave me the hope, in the moment, that being gay could work out, and so I changed my mind about suicide and came back to Rochester. I had really gone out there because I couldn't accept that I was gay and I wanted to take myself out far from New York State so that my family wouldn't hear, and I wanted to see Castro before I did it. I was 20 years old, and I came back and finished my first college degree.

To this day, when I see two men or two women or two anything other than cis hetero couples holding hands, that simple act gives me courage and reminds me of that time in my life. A little thing, two people holding hands, but their simple authenticity has remained with me for the rest of my life. I think maybe courage is a good thing. But I think authenticity is eternal. That stays, and it ain't up to me, either. Just what I am coming to believe.