A Message of Love

After many years of seeing Lord of the Rings - the Fellowship of the Ring, I finally saw the last two movies in the series recently. I noticed how close the hobbits seemed to be with each other, and as a person who has watched a lot of Xena, Warrior Princess, my subtext detector was screaming. It didn't bother me one bit, but watching it with my father did. What I saw in the relationship between Frodo and Sam was true friendship and love - not the bump chests and discuss meaningless crap love, but the I can look into your eyes and see who you are love. I looked deeper at my uncomfortability with watching this movie in the presence of my father, and I know part of the reason is because I know he is somewhat homophobic. Another reason stems from the fear of being labeled gay regardless of your true orientation because you were told it was a bad thing.

I remember when I was in my early teens, my mother and I were walking down the street in my neighborhood. We happened to be holding hands when a guy from the neighborhood came over to speak to us. I don't remember the conversation, but I do know he pried our hands apart. I knew why he did it, and I remember becoming self-conscious of my behavior afterwards. I remember pulling my hand away in my later teens when my best friend tried to hold it. The fear of a label and everything that went with it stopped me from showing a simple gesture of affection to people I loved. I had been teased all of my life, and I was afraid of one more thing making me a target for more teasing.

Since then, I am happy to say I've grown. While I am often still conscious of what others think of me (generally speaking), I know it truly doesn't matter. Love is so important. It doesn't matter who people share their love with, it matters more that they have chosen to love. I feel that love is pure and it has no restrictions, but we tend to put our own restrictions on love. Love doesn't care if your partner is older, younger, of a different race/culture, Democrat, Republican, male or female. We all have different preferences, but none are wrong. I no longer care if a friend, regardless of gender, wants to hold my hand. If I feel love for someone, I express it. I don't beleive in living a repressed life; it's pointless.