Not too easy to stop wondering what others think

Getting visible is not so easy for me. I find myself analyzing choices and moving rather cautiously toward decisions to be a public advocate for equality. I wrote in late June about getting involved, in some way or another, with the local gay rights movement, and at one moment find myself inspired to volunteer and at another moment fearful.

Thoughts swirl endlessly in my head. If I volunteer with a group like Inland Northwest Equality, will my family, friends and co-workers interpret it as militancy? Will I become the girl whose life is consumed by being gay?

The layers of my trepidation are as numerous and confounding as those of a Walla Walla Sweet onion. I peel the outer, slightly dry layer off but cannot find where that one ends and the next layer starts. The outer worry about what people I care about will think of me folds into a very personal fear of being too political, too opinionated. I don’t enjoy taking hard and fast stands against or for something. My natural skills lend themselves to listening and considering other viewpoints.

But then, these thoughts peel away into internal mutterings that sound something like: Listening and considering? Do you really feel like listening to some guy’s argument about “Authentic Marriage”? Can you truly consider the cry for “one man, one woman” when statistically heterosexual marriages are riddled with infidelity, abuse and hypocrisy? As if. Who are they to talk about “authentic” marriage?

No. Frankly, no, I can’t listen to those Spokanites who have plastered their rear windshields with bigoted bumperstickers. However, arguments posed by other gay and lesbian writers advocating for the legalization of civil unions instead of marriage, now those are intriguing. My ears perk up and yet another layer gives way to the next.

This laborious, mind-bending kind of thinking infuses each day in ways no human should have to endure. I packed for my vacation to California and debated for a good 10 minutes whether to bring the baseball cap I bought at Spokane’s Pride Festival. The embroidered design of Riverfront Park is in rainbow colors. … Maybe my straight friends will be embarrassed to walk around with a Pride billboard. A few days later, readying to spend an afternoon at work with my dad, again I hemmed and hawed. The cheerful rainbow bracelet, modeled after the LiveStrong yellow bands, should be left at home, I decided. My dad is a cameraman for The Price is Right, and we were going to a taping of the show. I might find myself talking with Bob Barker, who knows I’m interested in writing about growing up so intimately connected to this cultural phenomenon that is The Price is Right. What if knowing I’m gay somehow compromises Barker’s opinion of me, or dampens his desire to be a part of my story?

I suspect some readers have tossed aside this piece with a harrumph and expletive-laced cry for me to stop, immediately stop, fretting about what other people think. If I can’t be myself, why be out of the closet at all? It’s a darn good question. Maybe some of you want to weigh in. Me, I’m just going to keep working at the layers. Someday I figure the pieces will start separating into perfectly formed circles. And that’s when I’ll make onion rings.