I wrote my first blog almost 10 years ago. Brent had been trying to convince me that it would be something I would be good at and I would like to do. But I really didn't think I had anything to say that anyone would be interested in reading. But he kept trying to convince me to try my hand at it and he set one up. We shared a blog at the beginning. And at first it was just him writing here and there and encouraging me to do the same. I kept pushing him off. I read a few different blogs and they were all interesting. People who were smarter than I was sharing ideas and perspective. I just didn't see it for myself.
And then came Oregon Ballot Measure 36 which amended our state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. When it passed I was devastated. That's not an overstatement to how I felt. I was just stunned. I remember crying when the results came in. Fifty seven percent of the people in the state I called home, the state I was SO glad to return to after our exile in conservative land, voted to legislate discrimination. I cried.
Then I wrote my first blog. I wish I had it. Not because it was anything special. Just me writing about how shocked I was that it passed. How hurtful I found it to be. But it was still the first thing I put out there. It took me a long time to really get more in the swing of writing more. After that I wrote maybe a few more things on the joint blog, but life was busy. I was working full time and then working full time and going to school. I got back to writing more in 2009. Little bloggy bits on MySpace. How is that for how long ago it was? And then I set up this page and moved those MySpace posts here and started writing more. This will be the 460th blog I've published on this site.
And it all started because I had no where to put my feelings about that amendment.
Today, almost 10 years later, I had tears about it again. This time as a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional and struck it down. I knew it was coming. The judge's ruling was to come at noon. And I sat in front of the TV waiting. I knew it would be the one I wanted to hear. I knew it. But I still worried a little bit because I knew ten years ago that there was no way it would be passed. No way that people would legalize discrimination. No possible way. But this time I was right. And the tears came again.
And so I'm writing again. Nothing big. You all know where I stand on this issue. It was my first blog and it's probably the one political issue I have written about the most because it's the most personal to me. My family. My friends. My loved ones. I feel deeply about this issue. And today I am so happy that a ten year old travesty has been set to right. And happy that the momentum is still swinging toward equality. And now I'll stop before I start crying again.
Oh wait one more thing just as an extra little tidbit. My first reader is still reading my blog today. I will never forget the day after I posted that blog seeing that I had a comment on it. That moment of, "wow, someone actually read what I wrote!" So thank you, Raquel, for sticking with me for the past decade and still reading what I put up here. It means a lot to me.
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