A Letter to Doubt

Dear Doubt ~

It has been remarkable, your absence from this process ~ from my process of creation and re-creation. I am both comforted and scared to note that you have arrived, finally, with all the subtlety of a jackhammer on tissue paper. With your glorious flourishes intact. And yet, with all the power you command, you seem to revel in your ability to wreak havoc with simple, rolled eyes, condescending lips, nostrils flared from luxuriously slow, disapproving inhales. As if I'm not even worth the full force of your arsenal. You let me know that I am still very much Me and that a single round with you can render me immobile, sometimes for prolonged stretches. The true wonder of this moment lies not in your presence, but merely in your tardiness. Where have you been? And how did I get waist deep into this before the lecturing began?

You swoop in and demand attention and create a scene. You whisper in my ear, gleefully confirming my fears. You tell me the truth. And that, Doubt, is your single greatest power ~ the source from which all your strength flows ~ creating in me the feeling that yours is the only voice speaking truth! You cast yourself as the singular voice of reason and with a dismissive wave of your hand render everything positive silly. Immature. Infantile. Ridiculous. You, Doubt, are indeed the Devil.

So here you are. And here I am. And you have supplanted my instincts ~ taken them over and demanded that Instinct become Doubt. How am I to know when you have been dispatched on behalf of my own self-preservation and when your purpose is merely to suffocate?

I don't. I guess I don't.

But here, Doubt, is the thing you may not know. I've seen my fair share of fears becoming reality. And I survived. I survived disappointment. I survived failure. I survived having my very definition of myself taken from me. It sucked. There was not even one remotely pleasant moment about it. It was profoundly embarrassing and painful. But I survived. And so the truth is that while you still scare the shit out of me, I do not feel quite as compelled to bow to your whims as I used to. What are you going to do to me exactly? Anything that hasn't already been done? I survived.

Perhaps one of the perks of age is the weathering of disappointments and lost dreams. It's not so much that my fears have disappeared, they've just dissipated a little. I find them less paralyzing than I used to. Who knew failure carried with it a certain freedom? Who knew heartbreak came with a Free Gift With Purchase?

So Doubt, the questions aren't: What is your purpose here? or Do you scare me? The questions are, simply: How much of your advice will I heed? Will I allow you to define yourself as Common Sense? Will I allow you to paralyze me in order to avoid a possible hurt and that ever-present playground fear of being made fun of?

To that I take a deep breath, puff out my feathers and say:

I'm 40. Fuck you.

Sincerely, Ian

Do You Support Marriage Equality? The Full Vesuvius.

Since marriage equality roared suddenly out of the past and into the present a few months ago in New Jersey I, along with many other dedicated activists, have been diligently phone banking ~ asking our community to reach out to our representatives with the message that the time for marriage equality is now. (Due to the swift vetoing hand of Governor Christie, the time clearly isn't now, but we will get there.) The experience of making these calls has been humbling, enlightening, maddening, hilarious. It has been frustrating, depressing, wonderful, joyous. It has been full. And I made some new friends, for which I am thankful.

The beginning of each conversation involves finding out where the recipient stands on the issue. We ask if they support marriage equality for same-sex couples. Sometimes the answer is, "No."

No.

No.

Phone banking is not about changing minds. It's about sparking action. We could spend 1/2 hour trying to convince one person that the opinion they've diligently cultivated for the past 60 years is wrong or we can move on to 20 more people who believe in what we're doing and spur them to action. So we don't debate. It's not the forum and it's not the point. In this situation, it's a waste of time.

The older I get, the more I truly, truly understand and grasp the whole truth ~ that gay is boring as shit ~ imagine spending your whole life talking about and defending being straight? ~ because the only difference is all the bullshit that we're taught, absolutely not one syllable of which is true. And the older I get, the more I find I have less tolerance for "No." "No" forces me to step on my tongue, chew on the inside of my cheek and take a deep, cleansing breath. "No" creates a volcano in me and these conversations are not the place for the full Vesuvius.

My blog, however, is.

See below for the full Vesuvius:

Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell do you care if I get married? I've been with the same man for 14 years. How the fuck does it affect your life if I marry him? You know what ~ I don't think ugly people should be able to get married ~ and yes, I want to be the arbiter of ugly. I don't think stupid people should be able to get married. All that's going to happen is they're going to create more stupid people. Spousal abusers? No. Bad credit? No. I don't think people should be able to marry someone that their children don't like. Outstanding parking tickets? Houses foreclosed? Adulterers? No. No. No. I don't think people who wish to marry too young should be able to marry. I'll decide what's too young. Already pregnant? No. Never slept with anyone else? Absolutely not. So that one of them can stay in the country or because they just wanted to put each other on their health insurance or because they really just want a fucking party or because or because or because? No. No. No. No. No. No. Why isn't anyone calling me to ask me my opinion about these marriages? Why can't I call my legislators and ask them to vote "NO!" on a Pamela Anderson marriage? Or Britney? Or Kim Kardashian. I WANT MY SAY. I do not support another JLo marriage. I think she's probably impossible to live with. I don't know her. I don't know her any more than Chris Christie knows me, but I don't want her married. I think as a country we should have a referendum before anyone gets married. That person in your office so excited to go to Italy on their honeymoon? Yeah, everyone knows they're going to be divorced in five years. Why is no one weighing in on the legality of that marriage? Anna Nicole's marriage to a billionaire fifty years her senior? I don't think that was for love. I could be wrong. I don't ~ didn't ~ know either one of them. I don't care. It just made me feel creepy inside and I think I should be able to create a law based on my own personal feeling of ickiness towards them. And what will their marriage teach the children? How about any 70 year old man whose late-life crisis dictates that he marry an overly processed, pulled, tucked, plucked, tweezed, augmented and overly tanned 30 year old woman who's younger than his children? Where is my phone call? Because I would say, "No." And apparently my "No" could become law if enough people out there agree with me. I want the right to veto each and every marriage that I don't like.

How about this: I don't think that loving, happy, healthy, wonderful, committed straight couples who will be productive and go to work and pay their taxes and maybe raise children who will grow up to be wonderful citizens who help old people across the street or give that person in front of them in line a nickel so that they have exact change should be able to get married. Why? I just don't. And I don't have to explain my reasons to you. It's just a difference of opinion. And I want the law to reflect it.

But no one is asking me.

Our job seems clear: to make the question ridiculous. And offensive. We have come so far. We have so very far to go. Keep calling your legislators. Keep flash mobbing in JC Penny. Keep waving those flags and coming out of the closet. Keep living your lives, openly. Keep the momentum going. The war is over. We just have a lot of battles to fight.

A Thank You Note to the Plaintiffs of Prop 8

I thank you. I thank you on behalf of my younger self, who looked forward at his life and saw that things he wanted were not possible for him because of who he was. I thank you. I thank you for dedicating your lives to making sure that our LGBT youth no longer face the same future I faced. I thank you. I thank you for teaching our LGBT children that they will have the exact same options open to them as their straight counterparts as they go through their lives. I thank you. I thank you for teaching straight children that LGBT citizens are no different and should not be bound by a different set of laws. I thank you. I thank you for the tears I'm crying as I type this. Tears of joy and anger and inspiration and resolve to continue to fight until this ridiculous battle is laid to rest and visited only in history books. I thank you. I thank you for your courage. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Sincerely, Ian Rosen