Lessons Learned

I have learned a lot over the years. A lot about me, a lot about what I should and shouldn't do. A lot about what I can do, what I should do, what I should aim for – what I can aim for. I have learned about who I am, what that means and how I should interact with society. I have learned how I should expect to be treated, what I owe the world, how I should behave and what I should expect.

I've learned an enormous amount.

And it has been a long, ongoing work to unlearn it all. Because it's bullshit. No, it's great steaming elephant turds.

I had to unlearn that being gay was an affliction, that I need to apologise for it, that I need to protect other people from it and that if they were uncomfortable or angered by me, it was my fault.

I had to unlearn that I could actually live. That it's not written in stone that I would die young. I had to relearn hope.

I had to unlearn hatred. I had to learn not to hate myself, not to go to bed cursing what I was, raging at being cursed. I had to learn to be angry with the right people.

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