Find Your People

We need you to be unapologetically YOU. And none of us can do that alone.

June. I came out eighteen years ago this month. At the time I was so newly emerged from the depths of evangelical Christianity I had no idea what Pride was, let alone that it was Pride month. All I knew was that to my great surprise, I’d fallen in love, with a woman.

I was never “in a closet,” so I didn’t expect “coming out” to be highly momentous. But it was. Thankfully there were people like my brothers, who unflinchingly and unquestionably had my back. My parents, however responded differently. One received the news that I was in love by telling me “You can’t do that” (and then spent years trying to get me to change). The other, upon being introduced to my partner in a public park, proceeded to pray out loud to “command the demons out” of me.

I wish I could tell you it got better. That my folks came around and now we’re closer than before. But that’s not how things went.

What I can tell you is that the world is big and whoever you are, whatever the ostracizing issue is, there are people out there who will love you no matter what, and it’s essential that you find them. There are also people out there who get you, and it’s important that you find them too.

Whatever it is about you that gets rejected, I want to talk to that raw place and say this—

Life is precious and so are you. It’s a big world and there are people in it who are able to love you. There are also people who get you. Don’t stop caring about the ones who don’t get you or can’t love you, but find the ones who do. We can work on relationships, we can deeply love those who judge us, and we never stop caring about the people we care about, but also...

Go. Find. Your. People.

We aren’t here to fulfill people’s expectations. We are here to be ourselves. Exquisitely ourselves.

We need who you are. We need you to be fully, unapologetically YOU. And none of us can manage that alone.

If being who you are results in losing people, I’m sorry. You deserve loving acceptance. You deserve to belong. And I pray you find your people soon.