Free...and yet

Feelings of freedom would only allow me to go as far as the streets surrounding campus...I was still afraid to venture too far out of the "norm". There was a strong sense of allowing myself to stay true to the values in which I had been raised-yet feeling so overwhelmingly drawn to understand why I felt the way I did inside. I'd grown up around a father who would make constant jokes about buying me lace panties and pretty high heels if I didn't do the "manly things" he thought I should. I would use our trips out on the boat to lay on the back of the boat and dangle my legs in the water while he was trying to reel in the big one. Fishing is so dumb-and such a waste of time. I wondered why life wouldn't allow me to just express. Why couldn't I just be. I'd grown tired of the "put upon" feeling my faith had bestowed upon me. I didn't want to feel any less of of a person-because I chose to love someone who was a male. Wasn't love enough? Isn't that what I had been taught? Joel soon left the University at the end of the spring semester. He moved overseas and began teaching ESL. We lost contact-until an email appeared in my inbox some 12 years later thanking me for allowing him to be who he was for that short time. Attached was a beautiful picture of his family...yes two dads, and two kids all still living abroad and working with a relief and development organization. There's a certain peace that comes when you realize people make a difference in your world by just being who they are. Even more of a peace pervades when you realize in your finite way-you've spurned along the hopes and dreams of someones destiny. I too left the University of Kentucky that semester. I transferred to a small private liberal arts college at that time known as Cumberland College. There was something, of which I couldn't let go...I finally realized, what I had inside of me was okay, real and full of desire.