Time to breathe

So throughout the evening, I've been debating on what to post about. Should it be about Rhode Island recognizing same-sex marriages that were performed out of state as legit marriages entitling the spouses to the same rights as hetero married couples? Or about Oklahoma Republican Congressman James Lankford's view that homosexuality is a choice and something a person should be fired from their job for? Perhaps about Time Magazine's upcoming cover featuring President Obama with a rainbow halo over this head and the caption reading "The First Gay President"? In the end, I decided to mention all, but truly focus on none. Simply because seeing all these topics in the last 14 hours has made me realize something else. It is VERY easy to feel overwhelmed by the about all the news that hits you daily, or hourly, about a cause you are passionate about, and how easily that news can really effect your mood.

Sure it'd be easy for me to fake it and simply write about how Rhode Island is doing the right thing, and I support it 100%, or about how the Congressman is being a frickin' ignorant a-hole, or even about how, while it is a good concept, Time Magazine's cover is a bit over the top, much like their breast feeding cover (Google if you haven't seen it...). In the end, I decided instead to give a tiny bit of advice. I know all too well how easy it is to allow things to overwhelm you. It is easy to feel flustered, stretched too thin, and anxious, especially when you are very passionate about the topic of the articles and such. Sometimes, after reading several disheartening or frustrating articles, like the one about the Oklahoma Congressman, I get an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. But then I realized something. We all have down times or lose battles in life. What's important is that we never lose HOPE. Hope is what guides through dark and troubled times. It can calm us when we are lost in fury and make us smile after drowning in tears of sadness.

The war for LGBT Equality is long from over, and there WILL be hard times ahead, but as long as we keep the hope of one day having everyone, no matter their orientation, seen as equal by our nation then we are still have all we need to keep winning battles, one by one.