Today we woke up to a changed country. Today we woke up terrified by the unknown of what the future may hold. I personally grieved all day and went through the routine motions, attending meetings, feeding the puppies, checking Facebook way too often. Too many emotions to describe.  Tonight I walked into our house alone, met by the dogs but not Carli since she is out helping one of our sons with a truck. So the house is quiet and familiar. It smells right and feels right. We love the home we have built together. 

I made a decision somewhere between the back door and the closet Carli and I share.  I decided there is no room in our house for fear. We will not allow it take over our lives no matter what.  End of discussion. 
I do not know the same fear as Carli and our LGBTQ friends and friends of color know.  I can’t know because I am a cis-gender heterosexual white woman.  It’s not possible for me to be in their shoes. I can get a sense of it, though, and it takes my breath away. 

The fear I allowed to invade my mind today was literally fear for the lives of the people I love. This feels familiar, like I have experienced this before. I remember the feeling from the time our youngest son had pneumonia as an infant and we stayed awake day and night making sure he was still breathing. I remember the feeling when we learned our oldest son was in a car accident on his birthday. I remember it from when Carli’s Air Force duties took her to a place I was not allowed to know about. I remember the feeling when I heard my father had cancer. 

Each of these times when fear gripped my soul there was a choice to be made, whether I was aware of it or not. I had to choose to allow the fear to consume my every waking moment and paralyze me or to feel the fear and move through it to search for resolution, solution, closure. 

I choose to move. Move through this fear and continue to support the transgender community I have become completely smitten with, embracing them the best way I know how. I choose to continue fighting for their rights because it’s the right thing to do for them and all humanity. I choose to share the love story Carli and I have written over the course of 29 years, hoping that others may see it is possible to be together.

I do not know how to be lesbian, transgender, black, Latino, or anything else that was not written into my DNA.  But I know how to love so I will just keep doing that. All day, every day.