Nothing to Prove

It occurred to me this morning that I had finally become a man.  I say this without the least bit of shame. Some of the oldest, most masculine "men" I know are still boys trapped in a man's body. Becoming a man doesn't involve who can lift the heaviest log. It's really about who can sit with their biggest burden and know when it's time to release it. It's not about who can hold back tears, but who can let them flow and be proud of each one as they go down their face because they materialize feelings into something tangible, tastable.

I stayed home yesterday all day.  This morning I went out into the world briefly and it was amazing how differently I saw things.  When we left camp, the director said, "Don't be surprised if someone says to you this week, 'Did you get a haircut? Did you lose weight?  You look different but I can't figure it out.'"  This morning, my class was canceled and I found out about it after I got there.  The person to tell me in the parking lot was an 18 or 19 year old man I was in CS 1 with in the evenings last semester.  He's always seemed scared of me.  He wouldn't make eye contact with me, etc.  This morning he walked right up to me and smiled.  He said class was canceled and we had a really nice talk on the way back to the cars - we had parked right next to each other and didn't know it.

I know the difference and the difference is me.  I stand taller.  I smile more.  I now have nothing to prove to the world because everything I had to prove, I proved to myself last weekend.  The battle is over and the questions are all answered.  I know who I am and I love who I am - even the shadows of my personality that will be with me forever are a part of who I am and I accept them - welcome them even, because they bring me the opportunity to grow that wouldn't exist otherwise.

On the way to camp on Friday afternoon, one of my brothers, Pierre, said he liked the "2nd Class Citizen" bumper sticker on my car.  The words on the sticker are written in gay pride colors and I put that sticker on the car when Prop 8 passed in California because I felt like a second class citizen here.  It is fitting then, that as we packed the car to leave camp on Sunday afternoon, Pierre and I stood there soaked in the rain outside the car alone and he said, "Sean, you need to take that sticker off now.  You'll never be a second class citizen in this world again."

I'm going to go scrape it off right now.