I am sad.
I am hurt.
I am confused.
Imagine being in the darkness for your whole life and finally seeing light.
Imagine finally having the strength to face the broken person you’ve become, thinking you may have to live in darkness forever.
Imagine walking out into the sunshine and truly feeling alive for the first time, like you were holding your breathe for years but can now finally breathe.
Imagine having finally seen the light. Basking in it. Exploring it. When suddenly, someone who says they love you, and wants what’s best for you, tells you to go back into the darkness.
They tell you that it will be better for you.
That you can live an entire life without the light that everyone else was born with. That the darkness will fulfill you in the same ways the light fulfills everyone else.
Imagine you are finally 100% comfortable as you are, but then someone you love tells you they are sad you are comfortable being you.
Imagine not finding acceptance in the place you need it most, in family.
Imagine all you want is love and you find the opposite.
Imagine you tell a family member about the light you found and, instead of welcoming you to the light, they send you back into darkness.
How would you react?
What would you feel?
Now you can imagine where I am at as I write this.
At this moment I am hurting.
I am broken.
I am vulnerable and fragile and confused.
But mostly I am sad.
I am sad that there are people choosing to be the breathe allowing archaic views to live on in future generations.
I am sad for the small mindsets these individuals carry around the world.
I am sad that my memories with them, that used to be some of my favorites, are now tainted forever.
I am sad that me being me and me being happy isn’t something they can support.
I am sad for them.
They will never be able to understand what it’s like to be different. To carry a burden so consuming that they consider taking their own life because they truly think there may only be darkness. A burden so heavy its weight is crushing any light that tries to creep in.
They were lucky.
They were born with the sun.
Some of us weren’t.
Some of us had to fight with everything we had to even make it into a place where we saw a single ray of light, while they saw the whole thing effortlessly.
Well, I refuse to go back to the darkness.
I refuse to live a life where I continue relationships with people who justify bigotry with phrases like “we love you” and “we only want what’s best for me.”
I refuse to continue having relationship with people who are sad by the person I choose to be.
Because I am not saddened by the person I am.
I am proud.
I am empowered.
I am a badass, confident, amazing human being and I deserve to live my life in the light like everyone else.
I deserve happiness.
I deserve love, romantically and platonically.
I deserve to have relationships where the people around me want me to be me.
I am done apologizing for who I am.
This is me.
I am not a buffet of parts you can pick and choose as you like. I am 100% authentically Amanda Jane Sharp.
Love me or leave me. All or none.
They say you never truly treasure something until you are forced to live life without it.
They were right.
I plan to spend the rest of my life basking in the sun.
A. Sharp Story 