Nostalgia and Pride · 9:24pm Jun 26th, 2021
I still remember why I spent so much time in the park.
My wife and I were dating at the time. We couldn’t see each other often; she lived a half hour away, and the struct rules at the Christian university I was attending at the time prohibited unmarried members of the opposite sex from staying over, or even being in our apartment after curfew.
The park became our refuge. Our friends, my roommates, had cornered me with some concerns. They were bothered by the way we cuddled. Cuddling while lying down, you see, was flying a little too close to the blazing sun that was premarital sex. It made them uncomfortable. They wanted us to stop doing it. So we said yes, and moved our illicit snuggling to the park a few blocks down, to where the eyes of judgement couldn’t reach.
It's such a strange little town, a bizarre mix of friendliness and intense conservative thought, almost a literal Pleasantville in real life. Where everybody showers you with love, as long as you don't break the rules and fit into their perfect white, conservative, and cishet boxes. Dare to break the mold, however, and you might as well have pinned a big red 'A' to your chest.
I don’t go back to the town where my wife and I met very often. Even though it has so many good memories, there’s lots of pain, too. Mourning for what I lost when I lost my faith. Fury for what they tried to shape me into there. Disgust that so many people could cling so easily to philosophies of exclusion, bigotry, and hate. But every so often something takes me back there.
Today, we went back for fun. The old community is rather close to a great water park. We took the kids to go have some summer fun in the outdoors, now that things are opening up again. We enjoyed ourselves, then took a nostalgic drive through our old neighborhood.
It was jarringly different. New buildings were everywhere, restaurants and businesses that had popped up in the last five years. Maybe even less. Things look fresh and happy and bright. The university is still there, and it hasn’t changed in the slightest, as if the community is leaving it behind. And we passed the park. It was still the same. Or so I thought.
That’s when I saw the signs. A Pride event, in our park. In this community, one of the most conservative communities in the entire USA, built around one of the most conservative religious universities in my state. There were Pride flags everywhere. They were still setting up, but I could see people starting to congregate. I saw a middle-aged lesbian couple holding hands. HOLDING HANDS. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. They were carrying their own rainbow flag to the event, and my heart soared to see it.
I was flush with emotion, nearly washed away by how happy it all made me. Change and progress, in the last place I ever expected.
Love conquers all. Love drowns hate. Love wins. And when love wins, even in the harshest of environments, we all win.
Happy Pride month, my friends.
Some of the most unchristlike people I've encountered are Christians. Glad your story had a somewhat happy ending. As the song says, even a changeling can change.
A beautiful sight indeed.
That's a good thing to hear. Strict conservatism tends to die out as the adherents age and eventually die(a bit grim, but it's true). I'm not saying that everything new and shiny is automatically better.