My Little Golden Book of Phobias

Home from a candlelight vigil for those who have died and those injured in Orlando.

When I came out, the gay bar was the one place where we could go and feel safe, free, loved, ourselves, our true selves.

This morning I heard the news on the radio and what I saw was a Florida bar filled with beautiful men and women, dancing and flirting. Beautiful men with their shirts off. Women with tattoos and cowboy boots. Dancing with their sweethearts. Dancing because it's what you do on Saturday night/Sunday morning during Pride month. The sheer animal joy of moving to the music.

And then a man with an assault rifle took it all away. Killed and maimed over a 100 people. All that beauty gone.  My gay brothers and sisters. Men and women who came out to their families ( or haven't come out to their families) with fear and worry. And some families embrace their gay children. Some don't. Maybe they were out at their jobs, maybe they hid who they were.

But the bar, the dance floor where they could move and express and feel such joy to be alive as they really are. To have that violated.

I spent the day with my loved ones, my queer friends, my girlfriend. I needed to be with my people. We are hated. We are feared. And sometimes we are killed in horrific ways. Like today.