Just a quick hello.

Our internet has finally been hooked up at our house but our IP has changed our login password so I'm still dropping in to Gloria Jeans now and then to check emails. It should be working tomorrow but I thought I should stop and say a quick hello.

We're getting more stat decs witnessed today for the visa application and then all we need is one more signed to turn it all in... and then we'll wait again. Hopefully not too long. This time, having learned from our mistakes, we will actually go to the office to hand them in rather than send them through the mail (which wastes a few weeks waiting for them to trickle down).

Thanks for all your suggestions about making your new home "home." I spent some time putting dishes and clothes away and doing laundry which helped a bit, but Jeremy and I were talking last night about the visa and we decided not to unpack everything just yet. Maybe it's pessimistic of me but it just took so long to pack everything up that I don't really want to do it a second time if I don't have to. I'll just feel better when I finally know. That's all I want right now--resolution. I just want to be able to make some plans and know I can stick with them.

I start training for the Santa Photography job on Monday which will be a nice change of scenery. I'm really looking forward to having someone to talk to rather than sitting at home all day watching old House episodes!

Hope all is well in Bloggerland!

Change of Scenery

Thanks to those of you who commented and encouraged me. It means a lot. I'm still super stressed and feeling anxious (which is always unpleasant) but I feel confident that no matter what happens, we will get through it. Whether the visa is denied or approved, we will have each other.

Aside from the immigration news, we moved. Saturday was the big day and with the help of two friends, we packed all our stuff into a rental truck and moved it 200m up the street. It's amazing that even at such a short distance it can still take hours to move.

The move was relatively un-notable except that Jeremy and our rental truck did not get along. He was so mad and a bit shaken up when he came home with it at 6 am after a near collision due to the shear size of this beast and the difficult gears. It was a constant struggle all day which culminated in an epic battle of berth: Jeremy hit a tree with the truck.

He was trying to back in to a parking spot in front of our apartment at the edge of a roundabout... in the middle of a construction zone. Obviously, the conditions weren't ideal. In order to back up, he had to block traffic which meant high stress and lots of horns. Ditching his plan and over reacting to the situation meant that he sped around the roundabout a little too quickly as he attempted to park on the other side of our street. Consequently, he wasn't able to judge the clearance under the tree very well. He did get the truck into it's spot but took off a 6 ft limb in the process.

It was particularly funny because he knew he hit the tree but didn't know he tore of a limb of it, even though it was hanging over the front of the truck. He just looked at me, shrugged with his hands in the air and mouthed “what?” from the truck cabin. Owen and I were doubled over laughing and the two traffic controllers were also laughing hysterically in disbelief. We had a good time laughing about it all day. :)

Thankfully the truck bore no marks from the collision and would therefore not cost us anything, but it did make Jeremy even MORE nervous about driving and he nearly flat out refused to make a second trip. Long after Owen and Jim were gone, we had to make one more trip because there were still a few pieces of light furniture left. Jeremy insisted that we should just return the truck and carry everything by hand which became a very drawn out argument which I ultimately won (luckily).

With one more trip to our new place, it still took us another 5 hours to load and unload everything. I hadn't been so tired in months.

With us and all our belongings are in the new apartment, we still had to clean our old place which took 9 hours on Sunday. It's crazy how time consuming cleaning can be—even if it's an already clean apartment. Most of our time cleaning was eaten up by scrubbing the glass blocks and scrubbing the tiles stained with grease where Jeremy kept his bike. But it's all clean now and looks awesome which stands only to piss me off more that our new apartment is so gross.

It's hard to clean at the moment not just because our place is so cluttered but also because also because it seems like all I've been doing is cleaning! I'm so tired of doing it which makes me feel guilty because there is still so much to do. It'll take us weeks to unpack and clean up here...

On a side note, it's strange going back to your old place when it's empty. It kinda makes you feel homeless and like your life is empty. It's a sad feeling. Particularly sad if the place you are moving to isn't clean and doesn't give you that warm heart-hug feeling that makes everything feel like home. I know in my head that it's only a matter of time before we make new memories in our new apartment—then it'll feel like home.

Maybe we need to just break in the new house? How should we celebrate? (Keep in mind that it's probably only big enough for five guests maximum.)

The Burning Ring of Fire

Yesterday I found out that I really do have a case officer (surprise!)--of course, I found out only after I called immigration to update my address and find out if there had been any progression with things. They wouldn't just notify people of these things, would they? It would be good news except that I also found out that the CO has decided there is not enough evidence of our relationship to grant me the visa.

At which point I fell apart.

Doing this whole visa thing has been one crazy up and down, annoyance after another with disappointment at the end of every single day. It's so frustrating that I've been doing this for nearly 7 months now with no full time work and very few options to find something else. I haven't been able to leave the country either--even when we came up with the money to go see my family. I haven't even made (many) friends which makes me feel like we're doing this alone with no support group. It's been hard. So, so hard.

She basically said that all the emails between us while traveling and the blogs I wrote during that time basically amount to "some correspondence and diary entries" which are insufficient to prove our relationship and time together. How does that make me feel? "GRRAAAAAWWWWHHH!"

The silver lining is that we have one more chance to submit evidence and get the visa but it's not going to be easy. They want documents--official documents like bank statements or utility bills--that list both of our names from the time we stayed with Jeremy's parents when we first arrived in Australia (which of course, there are none). They want statutory declarations from his parents. Letters, cards, packages with both our names on them. Evidence of his parents' residence such as a rental lease or a copy of their land title. The problem is that we found this out yesterday and tomorrow his parents leave for a 3 week trip to the US. We have four weeks to get these documents to the CO.

Jeremy talked to the case officer and thinks she seems to be pretty reasonable and likely to give us the visa if we turn in the stat decs. So we got up at 4am this morning and wrote one each for his parents who will have them signed and witnessed by a JP today before they leave. They should accept them and Jeremy seems pretty confident that they will but I'm not very optimistic. I feel like this whole ordeal has just been a hopeless foray into self torture. And I'm still so pissed. Not only are his parents leaving tomorrow, that it took them 7 freaking months to tell me this when I could have provided them with more earlier, but it also happens to be two days before we move and all our documents and photos are packed up in boxes. We're moving everything on Saturday which means we're stressed with other things on top of all this.

Yesterday was not only the day I found out about this visa stuff but also the day I picked up the keys to our new apartment. Finding out the visa stuff first made it a rough start to what should have been a great day of new-home excitement. However, in a increasingly predictable and craptacular fashion, our new apartment wasn't all we hoped it would be.

For starters, it turns out neither of us remembered it very well. After having been to so many 15 minute apartment inspections, all of them kind of run together in my mind. I didn't know I was doing that until I walked in yesterday and seriously thought the agent gave me the wrong keys. It was nothing at all like I remembered. It was smaller. MUCH smaller. It all makes sense to me now why I couldn't draw out a floor plan of our new place before we got the keys--it was because I had no idea what I had seen.

Could it get any worse?

Yes. Yes it can.

I also discovered that our fridge doesn't fit into the fridge hole in the kitchen, that the stove only has two working burners, that the shower head is held together with a sock and some electrical tape, that the walls looked like a three year old used to touch them with charcoal-y hands, that the shower was moldy and covered in hair--pubic hairs. I found dead cockroaches everywhere including smashed in the door jam, cobwebs encircling the entire ceiling of the bedroom, the laundry door is broken and hanging off it's one attached roller, grease stains on the cupboards and all over the wall above the stove. There were cockroach eggs in the medicine cabinet and yucky stuff left in the cupboards and drawers.

But you know what really confirmed to me that this place was N-A-S-T-Y? It was when I went to clean the medicine cabinet today. I was Windex-ing the glass shelves and found that not one but BOTH sides of each shelf was covered in yucky stuff. That means whoever lived there last didn't clean the shelves--he just flipped them over.

I seriously wonder if this man had a mother because even wolf cubs know how to keep themselves clean.

I just cried and cried and cried on the phone with Jeremy while he was at work yesterday. It was literally just the thing that could throw me over the edge. And poor Jeremy... Not only did we find out our new house is a pit and that the visa is closer to being denied than approved, he also went to blow up his bike tire before he took off for work yesterday morning and it popped. So he had to run three miles to work. In the rain. And then run three miles home from work. Again in the rain. He also had so much work to do because his division goes to print on Friday (a day he's taking off to move) and he had to get his sub-title finished before he left, that he had to stay back two extra hours rather than come home at 5pm.

He was so tired. I was so tired. But we still needed to look at out new place together. So we went, took inventory and tried to brain storm ways to make all of our stuff fit (which took two hours to figure out). We didn't even eat dinner. And then he had to get up at 4am to do this stat dec stuff before work.

I feel spent mentally, emotionally and physically. My body is getting sick and I've had terrible cramps for days because of gas. I feel like my situation here gets dimmer and dimmer every day. It feels so hopeless to keep trying that it's almost comical! Seriously, sometimes I fall into mad fits of laughter over the absurdity of everything that has gone wrong. It's the stuff of fiction. It's like playing hide and seek and hiding in the dryer, only to have someone turn it on while you're in there. I'm being tumble dried.

The burning ring of fire. Mr. Cash, how did you know it would come to this?

As we lay on the floor of our new apartment last night, we kinda half-joked about going to Vegas. And then someone suggested it on Facebook. It doesn't sound half bad right now. We need a vacation.

...in which I'm on TV.

Monday night, the day before my birthday, we went to St. Leonards for the SBS filming of Insight. Unfortunately and despite the topic information presented to us in emails, the show was not on euthanasia and was instead on end of life care. It was still interesting but a bit of surprise because no one knew about the change until 5 minutes before they started filming!

Interestingly, we learned at the filming that while everyone we waited with were people who sought out SBS to be on the show ("focus group" is what they called us), SBS had also sought and recruited people to be on the show ("panel members"). Of course, they knew what the topic would be! I don't think not telling us was on purpose but it meant that none of us from the focus group were prepared and none of us took part in the discussion.

The discussion tended to focus around choosing quantity or quality of life when faced with a terminal illness. There were two families there who discussed their decisions to fight or give up and be comfortable, and their stories were compelling. Even the man who chose to give up had fought it for a little while but he ultimately decided that he could possibly have a shorter life and a much less satisfying one because of the toll his body took under radiation treatment. He seemed to be at peace with things and it was really good to see that the palatial care he was receiving made him comfortable. He told us he had about six more months to live but that he felt normal and healthy which was the best thing he could ask for. 

There was also a single woman there who found out she had ovarian cancer while on vacation and was told she had two-three weeks to live and that chemo wouldn't work with her kind of cancer. But she refused to placate and give up and insisted on getting chemo. Turned out that she has a special gene that makes her body particularly responsive to chemo therapy and even though this kind of cancer rarely responds to treatment, her's did. In fact, she made a full recovery after four rounds of chemo and surgery! After that, she decided to do away with doctors and now does her own research and only goes in for testing every few months which her and her doctor keeps a copy of the results and she makes the decisions regarding her care. It was truly fascinating to hear someone talk about taking control of their illness and making decisions for themselves which is totally legal. Several of the doctors taking part in the discussion agreed that often times doctors don't give their patients the best of care and that sometimes making decisions for yourself is the best course of action.

I don't want to ruin it all for you and tell you everything else that happened but it was a very beautiful program where people shared some truly touching stories about how they reached their decision on how they wished to die. One couple in particular told the story about their son Archy who is still just an infant and waiting for death with birth defects. It made me well up in tears as did quite a few other people in the audience. 

As I said, we didn't really participate but it was a very good discussion and one I'm glad I didn't miss! Added bonus though: they paid everyone of us $50 for coming which meant we had extra cash to buy groceries last week! Score!

If you want to watch the episode, you can do so here. I don't know if it'll stream in the US because it's an Australian network but I suspect it will because they do so much international coverage. I, myself, haven't watched it yet so I don't know if they caught me on tape or not but since it was filmed live, I really hope they didn't catch me trying to hold in a yawn, fidgeting, compulsively scratching my face, shifting my weight, slumping or making a funny face! Because sitting still in a room for an hour while being filmed and not being able to contribute to the discussion is HARD! (If you couldn't figure it out, I'm in the grey and whit stripped shirt with Jeremy to my left.)

26!!

My birthday went well. It rained the whole weekend which ruined our plans to visit the zoo (my favorite birthday tradition) and the weather was equally nasty in Katoomba, so no hiking either. But staying home and reading all weekend was just as good. Reading. And eating. We had some good food that weekend! Jeremy took me out to a Vietnamese restaurant in Surry Hills called The Red Lantern which I've been dying to try for sooo long!

It all started about a year ago when I was casually flipping through channels on the TV and settled on a cooking show with Luke Nguyen. He's the founder of The Red Lantern and happened to be traveling through Vietnam--north to south--studying the street food, culture and history of the people while teaching viewers how to make some truly awesome dishes. Ever since, I've been dying to go because you know, I'm really Vietnamese under all this pasty skin!

To top it off, he bought me the cook book he wrote from that trip which is absolutely beautiful and full of stories about the food and the people who taught him to make it. It also has amazingly high quality paper and photos inside--two things I greatly appreciate in books. Especially the paper. There's nothing like thumbing through thick pages!

We also went to a Latin Dance Festival which conveniently happens on my birthday every year. We went last year too but only had enough money for the churros. Well! This year we were prepared and brought money for the churros and lunch! I got some delicious tamales authentically wrapped up and cooked in their corn husks! Mmmm!!! It's hard to find real Mexican food here. Sure, you can find the odd taco or burrito if you know where to look but churros, tamales and fajitas? Forget it!

As I said, it was a weekend for food and we also celebrated with one magnificent piece of white chocolate cheesecake. Jeremy claims to be a cheesecake hater but I think he's coming around because he ate at least half of it! The things I do for humanity... 

We didn't do anything "great" with out three days off (Australian Labour Day), but it was nice to just be together. 

So long 25 and hello 26!! And thanks to all of you who wished me happy birthday!

Vivid Sydney Festival 2010

Ahh! I can't believe I forgot to post these! I found it unfinished in my post list!

Jeremy and I went out with Owen and Rachel few months ago to see the pretty lights at the Vivid Sydney Festival. The festival was in it's second year this year and celebrates Sydney's history by projecting art and graphics onto it's many iconic buildings. We had a good time but it was cold! And after finding Max Brenner had a line 30 people deep for hot chocolate, we opted for Krispy Kreme. No one was disatisfied though. ;)

Enjoy the photos!

KGB: Still Watching You

For those of you who didn't know, I installed Google Analytics on this blog about a year ago and though it doesn't tell me your names, I pretty much know who most of you are--yes, even those of you who don't comment. That's right, I'm watching you! And I know when you visited, how long you stayed, what pages you looked at, what words you searched for and even what browser you used!

(If you've ever used analytics, you know that's nothing special really but it's pretty cool to look at all that stuff anyway.)

Babies

**Disclaimer: I am in no way saying I want kids right now. This is purely a musing on the wonders of life and love and their limitless boundaries.**

My sweet nephew Max about three years ago.

A lot of my friends (and my siblings!) have been having babies these past few years and watching them grow up has been so rewarding. I love seeing them learn new things, make new friends, laugh for the first time, smile big smiles, give big hugs, walk, talk and even snore! It's beautiful seeing life unfold like this.

Lately, quite a few of my friends have been having babies. Since June, six of my friends have had kids and hearing their stories warms my heart in a really beautiful way. Today I read the story of one friend's natural birth and it really made me tear up. One thing that I keep hearing over and over is how that first sight of your baby is the most incredible, instantaneous and overpowering love you will ever feel. You don't care that your body is in pain, that there's blood or that you're naked and people are looking at you. The world just fades away... And it's only you two.

My friend, in her blog, talked about cutting the umbilical cord but that for a few moments, she got to sit there, holding her little child, connected, breathing together, sharing the same body for one last time. It really hit me hard at that point how beautiful birth is. To share life with another human being. Is there any connection in the world stronger than the love of a mother for her child? To give life and literally share life. It is the most precious gift anyone can ever give. In this regard, women are most certainly the most blessed of our kind.

Several of my friends have planned natural births and a few have had to abandon ship; this particular friend had an uncomplicated natural birth in a birthing center without drugs. Just a warm bath, a stool and a few women who know the trade. I think that's beautiful. I think it's absolutely incredible that our bodies are naturally equipped and designed to give birth in such a dramatic fashion. I'm neither for nor against hospital births but when I hear accounts of women who've done it the old fashioned way, I sometimes wonder why we've complicated things. Is it for security? Is it to lessen the pain? Is it to prevent infection? A lot of women choose hospital births for different reasons but wow, I have tremendous respect for the ones who do it naturally.

Jeremy's sister is having a baby in Jan/Feb which has had me thinking a lot about our family. I have no doubt we'll have an amazing one. We've often talked about the size, the names, the home, the rules, the upbringing and the life we want to give them. Those are such special moments between us. 

Jeremy is going to be an amazing dad. He is so good with children and they love him--I mean, really, they love him. He chases them, he encourages them, he teaches them, he picks them up and tickles them. I guess it's something instinctive in women that we look for a good provider, protector and co-carer for our families because when I look at him and how he plays with kids, I get fluttery and I grow even more sure that I've met the most perfect man to share my life with. He tells me that he still feels a bit scared about being a parent and unsure how to do it, but I know it's just because he can't see what I can; I'm positive it'll come natural to him just like that initial, all-encompassing love comes to a mother.

I can definitely wait to have babies. I need more time to be me, travel, have a career, support Jeremy in his and figure stuff out, but I look forward to the great adventure ahead of us and I can't wait to share my own story one day. 

(001) Awesome Things

My mom recently sent me a book called The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha, author of the famous 1,000 Awesome Things blog. I'm not usually the one for novelty books and at first look, I was a bit skeptical, but a few chapters later? I was hooked.

The book is about simple, awesome little things that make you feel like a million bucks like the crazy goodness of bakery air in the morning, taking a shower at your friends house and sampling all the shampoos or pushing those little buttons on soft drink cup lids. Yeah, you know you love doing it. There is something awesome in this little gem of a book for everyday and every occasion but more importantly, if you just need a reason to smile, this book has one for you. Actually, it has many. And after you read it, you feel a bit more appreciation for the other little awesome things in life.

Last night, Jeremy and I shared an awesome moment:

(001) when you find the cup holder in a dark theater on the first try.
Because you know how it is when you stumble in through the dark, popcorn, ice cream cone, and purse in one hand, umbrella under your arm, hair falling in your face, and a big sweating cup of Coke in the other. It's like trying to empty a hole puncher--you just know you're going to drop your crap all over the place.

But then, your little echolocation antennae send out the signal and instinctively, you know. You scoot in, raising your hands up in the air so you don't hit anyone in the head and without thinking, plop yourself into the seat and just as easily as touching your nose, you put your cup down into the holder. "Station secured," a computerized voice announces.

But it's not always like that. Sometimes, your bat senses are off and you drop your umbrella, bend over to pick it up while simultaneously dumping popcorn down the back of someone's shirt, hit the same man in the head on the way back up with your purse, flop down into an upright seat which doesn't seem to fold down no matter how much you wiggle, and so you reach for the cup holder but you can't find it. You test and test and test like that silly Chuck E Cheese game where you have to bat the mole when he pokes his head up. You finally just give up and put your drink on the floor because you need to pull yourself together. However, you know you' risk kicking that drink and creating a popcorn-coke soup beneath you, so you restrict your arm and leg movement to 5cm from your body and it thus take ages to get settled.

Yeah, no good.

So when the antennas are up and the sensors are good, and you absentmindedly put your cup down in the holder without hassle, you know it's going to be a good night.

Awesome!

Euthanasia

Monday night, Jeremy and I will be partake in the SBS Insight audience on euthanasia and I'd like to know your opinion on it.

For those who don't know, Insight is a debate/discussion program on the SBS network where the audience debates with each other and the program's guest speakers, prompted with questions from the moderator. It's a really great program with a good deal of input from all sides. There are no "winners" as the aim of the show is to facilitate and engage dialog among people of differing views (just the sort of thing I love).

The show tackles lots of hot topic issues like the legalization of marijuana, immigration, the war in Afghanistan and school bullying. As I said, we'll be talking about euthanasia because it's coming up for vote in the Australian parliament this quarter.

I'm interested in hearing what you think: should it be legal? If yes, under what circumstances? If no, why? Please leave your opinion in the comments and if you feel uncomfortable using your name, leave an anonymous comment.

Thanks!

Facebook. Blerg.

Some days, I hate Facebook with a passion because there are so many frick'n people up in everyone's business. I'm so sick of it. There are so many people out there looking for a fight and equally just as many out there trying to prove their intelligence. What do they have in common? Both pick people at random until they have a favorite and do so in the guise of "conversation" but no one's having a conversation. The perpetrator usually just wants an audience--some one to talk at. The don't want to concede anything. They don't even want to hear your thoughts. They just want to be right. And of course, to prove their unequivocal intelligence, their final argument always drives home the message with name calling.

Facebook has done some great things for me while I've been friendless and often unemployed here in Sydney. It's provided me with some one to talk to, facilitated encouraging emails and comments, blessed me with a way to pass the empty hours... But it's also lost me friends, brought me to tears and made me scream in anger.

Because we all have power to give joy and take it away.

So, I'd like to propose the following Top 10 rules for Facebook users:

1. If you don't like someone, don't add them as a friend. Especially for people you don't know.
2. If you don't know first hand someone's culture, don't make comments about as if you need to educate them.
3. If someone posts something you don't like or agree with, don't attack them for it. Just ignore it.
4. If you feel attacked by someone's comment, don't respond. Either delete their comment or delete the post. The world doesn't need any more fighting (or to see you fight).
5. If someone sends you a message or writes on your wall, respond!
6. Don't get upset if not all of your friends wish you a happy birthday. Sometimes, we just forget or didn't get the reminder. Doesn't mean we don't love you.
7. If you don't feel like chatting, go offline!
8. If someone repeatedly attacks you, just delete them. You'll feel better and you will feel empowered because whoever it is that upset you can't do it anymore.
9. Don't send out repeated Mob Wars or Zombie Wars or Farmville invites to every one of your friends. Do it once--that's fine, you're just trying to share the fun. Do it twice? Now you're a spammer.
10. Don't add your children as your friend. Seriously--Mom, Dad? We don't want you knowing everything we think, say and do. You had us to spy on for 18 years. Now we want some privacy.

It Gets Better

Something has changed in the atmosphere and I feel like my luck has been renewed after an incredible week, but with that renewal and as I approach the conclusion of another year on earth, I also find myself contemplating some big issues.

I'm thinking about heaven and hell and why people--human people--believe they have the right to tell anyone else where they will end up. It really pisses me off when people do this because it's such a primitive power-play where the accuser invokes some divine right to determine the eternal outcome of another person. It's abusive. It's wrong. It's bigoted. And I can hardly manage even a shred of respect for people who do this. In fact, I've cut relations with several people over the last year who've made those sort of accusations (whether at me or anyone else) because I honestly believe that kind of person has too little decency to be considered my friend.

A lot of that stems from my experience over the past two + years. Yeah, I'm a Christian and I'm living with my Jewish boyfriend--so what? It shouldn't be an issue but it is for some people. Some people think so highly of themselves that they have told me I'm going to hell. Well! In a sense they were right because those sort of comments have made the couple years for me a living hell in which them and their fellow minions ruled. 

That same kind of thing happened to someone else this week when a boy named Tyler Clementi committed suicide.

Tyler was a quite but promising student at Rutger's University in NY who had a secret: he was gay. One night, he asked his roommate to leave him their room for the evening and while his roommate was out, he invited another boy in where they shared some intimacy. Unbeknownst to him, his roommate was in another room on the floor collaborating with a girl and together they accessed a webcam in Tyler's dorm room, broadcasting over the internet Tyler's sexual encounter. 

Three days later, Tyler left his belongings on the side of the road and jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson, and never returned.

The two who made the broadcast have since been charged with invasion of privacy which carries a penalty of up to 5 years in prison. I say that's not enough. They didn't just invade Tyler's privacy, they bullied him and then they buried him. They made his life such a living hell that he didn't think he could stand it anymore. I bet he was feeling completely isolated, made a fool, ashamed and violated. I bet what he felt was not much different that what I felt when those assholes told me I was going to hell. 

Invasion of privacy? How about criminally hateful because that's exactly what it was. It was a hate crime. 

I'm really tired of hearing stories like this--stories of people so beat down by religious or otherwise bullies who suppose some position of power over others. I'm tired of hearing stories of suicide because people felt isolated and stories of depression, stress or anxiety because someone told them they were going to hell. I feel downright pissed off. I feel so enraged because things like this happen and the only justice offered to people like Tyler is a piddly privacy invasion charge! It's not right! And maybe it's wrong or hypocritical of me to say this but if you feel the same way--100% infuriated that this has be allowed--then why aren't you doing something? Why aren't more people speaking up and fighting on the behalf of others? Why aren't more people going to the polls with their vote? Why aren't more people writing their senators and congressmen/women? Why aren't we banding together for freedom to choose who you love? Why are we letting this hell continue?

A few people stood up for me in the last year. Just a few. But you know what? Those few felt like a million because when you're in a corner and it's just you or just you and your partner against the world, an extra set of hands and an extra voice might be just enough help to withstand it all.

I don't know how I made it through it. I don't know how Jeremy made it through it. But I do know that we did. And it's better.

Today I was talking with a wise old friend and I realized that I'm not hurting any more. I'm not dying inside when those words haunt me. I don't crumble and cower when I face my accusers. In fact, it's the opposite--they give me power. I don't know if it'll happen everyday but today, at least, I am empowered by other people's hate and I'm going to do something good with it. 

I'm going to speak up for people like Tyler and say it it loud and proud, "Gay people deserve decency, privacy and human value too! And the sooner you find an appreciation for that kind of innocent love, the more lives you can save!". 

I'm going to say it right here and now for myself: "If you don't agree with my life choices, either shut the hell up (literally) or go home--I don't have time for your childish games."

And I'm going to promise you that if you're going through something hard--be it your sexuality, your religion, your family or your health--it get's better and you'll get through it! And when you do, you'll feel empowered too. 

For more hope and words of encouragement from people who survived, check out Dan Savage's video blog: It Gets Better on You Tube.