Memories flood my head as I watched my boyfriend's eyes light up like a firework as my dad shared his collection of license plates with him and he awkwardly smiles with flour on his face after a little accident in the kitchen with my mother, seeing the people who once denied my existence now embrace it with warm, inviting arms.
I sit on my porch, overlooking the lawn upon which my boyfriend shows my sister the art he made on the driveway using chalk, showcasing one of her dress designs off in a spectacular array of colors, watching her cold, stoic person slowly melt and smile for what seems the first time in years.
I think about seeing two men holding hands and public as a kid, and feeling repulsed, or at least thats what I was told that feeling was. A deep hole in my soul that was strangely drawn to what I was seeing, a part of me wanting that exact thing to happen to me to let me feel complete, and yet I believed them.
This sense of longing has me thinking about the two Turkish women whose smile was infectious when they talked about each other to me, feeling nothing but the warmth of their words like the sun across my skin. They exchange glances and look back at me, diving deeper into their love for each other.
To think all this joy is still opposed by some. The same ones who, to my younger self, told me that queer people were abominations. The ones who told me I was an abomination, and yet I believed every word and lapped it up like a dog.
But as I look back, seeing my sister crotque my boyfriend's art on the driveway, lecturing him about how the frill of the dress is underdone, I can't help but think... no, what I know now:
I would much rather die gay than to survive and be a lie.
