When I was a kid, I admired an older cousin because she was THE cool kid on the block. Trendsetting, funky eyeglass wearing total bad ass.
One day my sister and I stayed at her house for the weekend, probably to give my parents some “adult time.”
Anyway ... the first morning her mom made scrambled eggs - something totally mundane, right? But then it happened! Something glorious. With one swift, single-handed motion, my cousin gracefully placed a dollop of ketchup on her eggs and I. WASNT. READY! I mean, what is this exotic-ness happening before my eyes. Not to be out-cooled, I asked her to pass me the ketchup. I squeezed a dainty portion on my plate (because I’m a lady) and took my first bite. I mean - who knew? It was like experiencing Krispy Creme for the first time. #glorious
So I continued to eat eggs like that for the next twenty years. Such was the power of my cousins influence and im almost certain she didn’t even realize it.
What I’m trying to say is that you never know when you’re going to make an impact on someone’s life.
I think about this a lot because I’m such an outsized personality naturally that I really worry about taking up too much space both physically but also emotionally and psychologically.
And I hope to God that even in the moments when I wasn’t trying to make an impact ... that the impact I invariably made was a positive one.
I think I’m thinking so much about this kind of stuff because there are so many little people in my family and I really want to be the super cool, totally bad-ass, gay uncle for them. More than that, I want to show them that they can be happy and successful if they remain true to who they are. I want to have a positive impact on them and I want them to remember me living my truth when the world tells them that it’s not okay for them to do the same.
I had to recently unfriend someone on Facebook (a casual acquaintance from high school) who posted something about how “dem homosexuals should stop spreading they homosexuality to the kids!”
And here’s the heart of (one of) my anxieties - is that what people see when they see me?
When these little people see me ... I don’t know what they will think ... but I want them to know that they can be whomever God destined them to be because their gay uncle is true to himself and gives zero fucks.
I want that to be my legacy ... and ketchup.
