I blinked, looked around and said in some surprise "Of course? Why wouldn't Lesbians be allowed?" as if the thought was (and is) crazy to me.
She said "Well I just wasn't sure if you were leaving because someone was giving you problems?"
I just don't know about a world were people have to live worried that we are somehow less than other people because we are different. I wanted to give her a hug and tell her everything was going to be fine, but I couldn't honestly say that because I have no idea what she'd run into in her life. But it still left me sad she'd even have to think that way. For her to live with any kind of fear is something I can unfortunately can relate to on a deep level. Not so much because I may or may not be a Lesbian, but because I lived so long in fear.
Come to think of it, I have no idea why she asked me. It's not like either one of us look particularly like a Lesbian whatever that might be. Maybe I just looked trustworthy and honest. Oh, right, that's why I loved in fear so long. Ah well, anyway this wasn't really about me. It was about a world where anyone has to live in any kind of fear. Regrettably, it's this one.
2 comments:
Each time I think one source of fears like those has been put away it seems like a dozen more raise their ugly heads...it feels a bit like that old "Whack a Mole" game in the arcade...
I read a Shaw quote this morning that makes me think perhaps I've lived my whole life backwards in that regard; instead of living in fear, perhaps I should have taught myself to live without until confronted with a reason to fear...
That said, like you pointed out not long ago, you can't undo the path you've already travelled; rationality doesn't make the shadows go away!
alan
It's kinda funny in way, to follow the train of your though here. Once longh ago I found out the world was not safe, and folks could not be trusted, my heart could not be trusted. I shut everything down, locked it away, and for a time I was a creature of mythic proportions. Not because I say so, but because that's what everyone saw. I was indestructible, unstaoppable, and had unlimited power to do virtually anything. Including according to some, I could and did easily fold time and space to my bidding. Wish I was kidding, but if it took everyone else in the known 'verse two hours to get somewhere in a car breaking the law and speed limit, I could drive there a couple under the limit and get there in just under an hour. Walked away from car and bicycle wrecks that would have killed a normal person, worst of them I got five stitches. If we went in multiple cars, I could take the back way and get there well before folks in the other car could going the most direct route. I was incapable of getting sick, like ever, and I'd even tried. Never got tired, never slept, ate only because it was the social thing to do.
I felt NOTHING. I even have the scars to prove it.
Then Earl came into my life, cracked open my heart, and promised I'd be safe with him. I went so far above and beyond the call to make him happy and keep him safe it cost me my life. It cost me that indestructible, unstoppable, legendary strength and power.
It also cost me my innocence, and that I miss the most. I can live with being human, and as bad as it can be at times, I wouldn't give up feelings again for all the power and safety in the 'verse. I'm no more or less safe now than I was before Earl, but I'm terrified of everything, and more or less everyone.
But what is, is, and what was, is, at least for a time, locked away. In my head I know all the pieces of me are still in there somewhere, locked away. And for the nonce at least, there is no place in the world for me. Never again will I allow myself to be used and abused as he and his psychotic parents did. Then again never will I show the world the side of me that has no limits and unlimited power. Because you see, being mythic and unbreakable unless or until my heart gets involved.
My heart is my kryptonite, my Achilles heel, my most vulnerable and precious possession, and the one least valued by others it would seem. And am Lal, Data's daughter. Machine become real, with feelings of my own. And the fear, at least for the nonce, is that I will get hurt again.
The problem off course is when the one person in existence who went out of his way to assure you he'd always protect you, and your feelings were real and important and precious shows and says he never loved you. It should kill you dead. But it doesn't. So you cannot trust yourself, because well YOU allowed him to do that, and you cannot trust anyone else really, because well you're not nearly as important to them as you were to him, and it all goes down hill from there. Yeah, I know from fear, and from that point when I was utterly fearless.
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