Often I think back on my many lives over the years, being myriad people in various places. The rebellious West Houston adolescent. The bullied Issaquah geek. The exploratory San Luis Obispo lover of life. The adorable Midlothian child. The liberated Hechingen exchange student. The Tacoma slumlord. The San Pancho expat. The bright-eyed Seattleite, out on his own for the first time. And the list goes on ...
Take a moment and reflect back over your life. Think on all the people you've known, the places you've been and the experiences you've had. I'm turning 40 this year. Perhaps this comes with the territory, I've been extremely nostalgic as of late.
Do you have any regrets? A life with regret is a life not fully lived. I've lived a very full life, and yet I struggle with whether I have regret. If any, my regret would have a common theme; people. I love people. I love all kinds of people. Not everyone loves me. I don't love everyone, I'm working on it. Whether it's not connecting with people on a deeper level when given the opportunity or losing touch with people whose company I greatly enjoyed. I carry with me this faint sense of longing for people I've known, for missing them and our camaraderie. At the same time, I have an awareness my life is exactly the way I chose it to be.
When I first began writing this post, I was inspired by remembering those I once knew, loved and now deeply miss because our lives have grown apart. Don't get me wrong. I'm plenty content with my life, pretty comfortable in fact. At the root of this post is I'm beginning to question "what's next?" It's almost as if I'm graduating from college all over again and wondering what in the infinite realm of possibilities I want to do with my life next.
The practical part of me is married to the status quo. Practical me would have me continue building my real estate practice of 10 years such that it could possibly operate without me at the helm. What a luxury that would be. Then I would eventually retire comfortably with my husband in Mexico.
The passionate part of me has always felt a calling. Passionate me would have me engaged in the service of others on a grand scale. In eighth grade U.S. history, we learned about the activists. The one who most inspired me was Harriet Tubman. I would romanticize her missions to bring otherwise imprisoned people out from the murky shadows of oppression into the light of liberation. Incredible. Truly a person who lived life with great meaning.
I've had my stints with activism. In yet another one of my "past lives" as a collegiate newspaper reporter, I championed stories involving ethnic minority equality. Despite knowing better, I even covered a few stories championing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) equality. As a journalist, one never covers a beat one has a personal connection to (not to mention a passionate one). It would be another seven years before I would learn why there's a very good reason to not bend this rule.
Shortly after returning home to Seattle post college graduation, I joined a bit of a crusade for social justice campaigning for a sensible mass-transit solution in Seattle. While our grassroots organization thought we had triumphed by winning public votes on four occasions, ultimately the powers that be scrapped our idealistic vision for the city's future.
For nearly four years I re-engaged in the LGBT battle for equality crusade while directing communications for Seattle's LGBT nonprofit business chamber. Actually, ours was the largest chamber of its kind in the U.S. (if not the world), and the second largest chamber of commerce in Washington State. In addition to helping give the organization more clout and a stronger voice, I did quite a bit of advocacy work.
One of my greatest accomplishments was bringing Microsoft into our organization's fold. In 2005, under pressure from the late Ken Hutcherson, a local pastor who advocated ethnic equality while condemning LGBT equality, Microsoft changed its position to neutral just before a critical vote on an important anti-discrimination bill. The vote was close. The sudden lack of support from corporate giant Microsoft was cited as the primary reason the bill failed by one single vote in its 29th consecutive year before our state legislature.
I ghost wrote a letter from our organization to the corporate leadership at Microsoft. Not only did they answer our letter, they came back to us with a $10,000 check and joined our chamber as a corporate sponsor. Under real pressure from its own employees, including its LGBT employee advocacy group, as well as from countless other organizations, Microsoft changed its position to be in favor of protecting LGBT Washingtonians from discrimination.
The next year the anti-discrimination bill went before the state legislature for the 30th time. While Washington already had anti-discrimination laws, this particular bill proposed to broaden these laws to include LGBT people.
This was my second year participating in equality day in Olympia. Hundreds turned out for the rally in support of the anti-discrimination bill with strong, broad-based support from a very unlikely source; the faith community. The religious coalition for equality was an advocacy organization comprised of religious leaders representing different faiths.
Our rally filled the steps of the legislative building. Across the street on the lawn between our rally and the state supreme court were three anti-LGBT protesters holding the token signs like God hates fags, you're going to burn in hell and that type of hate speech. I'm not a Christian. Even so, I cannot imagine the Bible has any passage remotely implying God hates anything period. Sidebar here. From what I understand, God is the source of unconditional love. People hate. Something more perfect cannot come from something less perfect. I digress ...
What a festive day it was. A light dusting of snow blanketed the ground. A round of speeches from our out state legislators along with faith leaders uplifted the crowd's spirits. We were empowered to do our advocacy and lobby work. First thing was first; attending the final reading of the bill.
Before entering the senate gallery, we were warned what we may hear could be deeply emotional and disturbing. We were also told to keep silent, and anyone who broke silence would be removed. Nothing prepared me for what I witnessed coming from the senate floor. A number of our state senators stood on the floor inside our state capitol and denounced us as unworthy and far less than equal. I'm not entirely sure if I may have blocked out some of what I heard. I recall one Republican senator speaking pridefully about how their daughter is no longer welcome in their home so long as she remains with her girlfriend because her lifestyle goes against their religious beliefs. Families torn apart by a belief. I've stated this before, the word lie lies within the word belief. How loving?
While there were bright moments when educated senators spoke eloquently about the merits of treating people equally no matter who they are, there were others who had nothing but hateful and hurtful things to say. Many of us had grown up thinking something was wrong with us, that we were lesser beings and some of us are still to a degree self-loathing around who we are. The pen is mightier than the sword and the tongue can be just as damaging.
Our side of the gallery was overcome with emotion. A few people got up to leave because they had began to sob audibly. I felt my own eyes swell with tears, feeling the hurt from those around me, my colleagues, people I cared about. Every so often we would glance at one another as if to acknowledge we knew what the other was feeling. I was so present to the emotion connected to the anti-LGBT-equality speeches, I was unable to transcribe with any precision the hate messages being orated on the senate floor. Now far removed from this event, the practical side of me would have reveled in how interesting these hate speeches are on a historical level.
Another sidebar, and that is how badly I wanted my community's protection under the anti-discrimination laws. Yes, I have been discriminated against. Once by an employer. I had been working for a digital media staffing agency, and at the time accepted an underpaid promotion during a recession because the job market was so poor. We were setting up for a co-worker's wedding shower, when the company CFO said to me, "You know, Brad, you're lucky we're so cool to have someone like you working for us." Oh thank my lucky stars in heaven I get to engage in the same daily grind as my co-workers who are paid at least a third more than I am. Hoo-fucking-ray!
Who righteously professes that it's OK to exclude people and do them harm, let alone people who hold positions of influence? I understand free speech. I have a very cumbersome time trying to wrap my head around hate speech.
It seemed like the dramatic, final reading of the bill went on for an eternity. How relieved I was when it finally ended, and yet it haunted me for quite some time afterward.
Our group gathered in the marble-clad rotunda, and refocused ourselves on what we had come to do in Olympia. We divided into smaller groups and divvied up legislators who we were going to meet with. We took some Democrats to thank for their support. We also took several Republicans, including one from Redmond (home to Microsoft's headquarters) to enlist their support (if at all possible).
For me it was a bit like Christmas. We brought several of our 360+ page guides, my biggest annual project. This guide was the first with Microsoft's logo prominently displayed on the back cover.
We marched into the Republican legislative office building, greeted by a tacky portrait of 'Dubya' with his infamous, and usually inappropriately displayed, shit-eating grin. We knocked on the door of this key senator's office, and were greeted by their legislative aide. Unfortunately we missed them. Even so, I placed one of our guides face-down on their desk, placed a finger next to the logo and said, "The vote on this bill puts the senator in a big predicament. They can either vote with their constituents, and against their party. Or they can vote the party line, and misrepresent their constituents."
The aide actually seemed a bit flustered after my little speech, and they assured us they would let the senator know we stopped in. We thanked them, turned away and left the guide sitting on their desk.
The final senate vote on the bill was 25-23 in favor of passing the bill, which gave LGBT Washingtonians much needed protection from discrimination in employment, housing and transactions. Incidentally, the Republican senator from Redmond I gave my little pitch to abstained from the vote. I ran into the bill's sponsor (Seattle's current mayor) at one of our chamber events. He told me the Redmond senator called in sick the day of the vote. I asked if he thought our visit may have had something to do with it, and he said he thought it was more than possible. The governor signed the bill into law and the rest is history, as they say.
Numerous individuals and organizations fought valiantly for three decades to obtain basic anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people in Washington. I want to make that perfectly clear. This was a collective effort in which we played a very small, supporting role.
Ironically, I parted ways with Seattle's LGBT chamber for being marginalized by its executive director. After four years of service, I proposed to increase my rate for the very first time by four percent (the average national rate of inflation for one year). In discussing this with the executive director, she made a point of telling me the desktop publisher for our newsletter lives a very simple life and offers the organization very modest rates. Our mission was about expanding economic opportunities for those who support equality for all, and our organization's leader told me my skilled work held no more value than a pixel pusher. Before leaving on an extended holiday to Mexico, I left the executive director with a proposal I was confident she would reject. One can only bump up against a glass ceiling so many times before realizing one's own self worth. It's been six years and I haven't looked back.
Toward my latter days with the chamber as its communications director, I came to realize there are more important battles to triumph than social justice. What good is social justice if we don't have a sustainable place to call home; a healthy rock to live on? Don't get me wrong, I believe wholeheartedly in equality (gender, ethnic, sexual orientation, economic, etc.). More recently, since falling chronically ill, I've also become passionate about clean food and sustainable agriculture. I believe good, healthy food is a basic human right.
I will draw on my previous experience and ponder where to apply it next. I'll keep my day job and search for a volunteer opportunity I can apply my passion to. Well I guess only time will tell where the road leads me next, who I may encounter along the way and what other life iterations I'll embrace.
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