Somewhere Under the Rainbow

I still remember my first Pride Festival.  I don't know that I will ever forget it.

I was living in Atlanta, 26 years old.  Barely out of the closet.  So young and fresh.  The world was my oyster.  

And I was gay.

I was dating someone, a guy from Mississippi named Mike who was quite a bit older than me.  He had been out for a while and was comfortable with himself in ways I couldn't yet grasp.  He was 39 years old, and I was sure he had seen and done things I couldn't even imagine.  We met the previous year in a bar along a somewhat seedy strip of establishments, a road called Cheshire Bridge that I had driven down so many times, each time wondering what it would be like to actually go into one of those forbidden places.  The thought of doing that made me nervous as hell, made my hands sweat, but eventually I worked up the nerve to walk into one of them on my own.

It was there that I met Mike one crowded Saturday night.  We eyed each other across the dance floor for a bit before eventually dancing the night away together in the sweaty darkness of the Heretic, a place I'm sure I would never have felt comfortable only months prior.  On this night, however, it felt more like a refuge and safe haven than the shadowy, sorta-scary nightclub it actually might have looked to anyone else's naked eye.  I could be whoever I wanted to be there.  No more hiding.  Mike knew all about that already.  He had been through it.  That night on the dance floor would be the start of our relationship, my first with another man.

Several months passed, spring was turning into summer and Pride season was coming around again.  Mike brought it up to me one day in a throwaway conversation.  He acted sort of sly, but I knew what he was up to.

"Oh hey, Paul, do you think you'd want to go to Pride this year? It is really fun!  I think you would get a lot out of it."

My knee-jerk reaction was to run away. 

"No, I don't think so, Mike.  I mean, why do I need to do that?  I'm not an activist.  Fuck that. I think I will skip it this year."  The thought of attending such an event, out in public, made me nervous beyond measure. Why did I need to go?  And worse, what if someone from my work saw me holding hands with another guy?  I wasn't ready for all that mess.  Or was I?  I had butterflies at the thought of going, and I don't mean the pretty, happy, free-floating ones.  These were the scary butterflies.  The kind that come around only when you know there is something you need to face, a courage that must be summoned.  

The festival itself was still at least a month or two away.  Having been my boyfriend for several months by this point, having studied the way my mind worked, Mike knew how to handle me.  And so he begrudgingly accepted that initial rebuke.  But he kept asking, bringing it up here and there, gently pushing me to reconsider without really asking full-on.  Enough reminders to get the whole Pride thing swirling around endlessly in my brain.  The more I contemplated it, the more I thought I might actually go.  Could I go?  Ultimately, I gave in.  I was still scared to death. But Mike promised he would be there with me.  He swore that if I didn't feel comfortable, if it was too much for me, that we could just leave.  I had an out.  I guess that must have been all I needed.  The escape hatch was there. You know, just in case.

And so with Pride a few short days away, I came to a new decision.  One that would change my life.

"OK, Mike", I said.  "You win. Let's go. I will go. I don't want to go the parade, but maybe the festival is okay."  He was happily shocked, agreeing to the terms immediately.  

It was a typically steamy late June afternoon in Georgia.  Piedmont Park was full of tents, rainbows, and revelers.  There was Pride as far as the eyes could see.  Loud disco music was blaring in the background, the same kind that Mike and I danced to at the Heretic the first night we met.  It was a familiar scene to me by now, certainly, but this was different.  It was all happening here, in a park.  A public space.  Outside, in full view, in broad daylight.  There were people driving by.  Everyone could see. There were no dark corners to hide in. 

I felt like throwing up.  I knew that if I crossed that threshold, there was no going back for me.  It was like a moment of truth.  Mike held my hand as we slowly approached the entrance.  A few steps away there was this giant rainbow archway made up of every color balloon, beyond which another world lay ready for me to explore.  Mike stopped abruptly, turning to face me for one final check-in.

"Are you ready for this, Paul?  Remember, we don't have to stay.  It's all up to you. You will be fine. Just hold my hand." 

Nobody had ever given me such a leeway before.  I trusted him.  I took a deep breath, squeezing his hand tight as we walked in together under that massive rainbow.

It didn't take me long to realize how right he was.

There were throngs of people there.  People exactly like us.  Men were with men, women with women, some holding hands, laughing, dancing, chatting, loving.  It was a giant party, one that I had never been invited to, or maybe one I was always afraid to actually attend.  Until now.  

I don't think I let go of Mike's hand the entire time. 

People were celebrating, and glowing smiles were the rule.  I spent so many years thinking this was somehow wrong, that it was wrong to be who I was.  When Mike first asked me to go, I balked.  That initial negative reaction of mine faded quickly.  With every step I took around that bright and convival park, I could feel myself relaxing into some new version of me, the very version that had previously terrified the shit out of me.  All of the old stuff was falling away.  It wasn't wrong to be this person. How could it be?  All I saw around me in every direction was support, kindness, and joy.  And love. Friendship. Allies.  People who were just like me.  I wasn't alone anymore.  It was astounding.  What a fucking relief, I thought to myself.  Maybe I wasn't an activist, but I didn't need to be.  I only needed to be who I was.  It was all overwhelming and intoxicating, the best kind of sensory overload. 

At one point I started to cry.  Mike noticed my dampening eyes and asked if I was okay.  Yes, I said, I was fine.  Hell, I was more than fine.  I couldn't put into words what was happening inside.  Those tears were kind of involuntary, a form of communication, of expressing what I was unable to articulate right then and there.  So many years of shame and doubt and fear and denial and self-loathing, all of that was melting away in the heat of an afternoon at Atlanta Gay Pride.  A place that I ( originally) didn’t want to be.

"I...I just can't believe this", I answered, wiping the tears away. "I am so happy I am here!"

We hugged it out right there in the middle of the park, in a safe spot where two men could do such a thing, surrounded by peace and understanding.  Pride was a place where nobody thought anything of such displays.  It was right out in the open. It was all so normal.  I felt normal.  For maybe the first time ever, being this person felt normal.  And our emotional, tender scene did not make either of us special or different from anyone else assembled there.  We didn’t stand out.  We were simply two gay men, sharing something wonderful.  It was allowed, encouraged even. I didn't need permission anymore.  I think the ho-humness of it all was jarring, and  precisely why it was so special.

Mike knew going to Pride would be a good experience for me.  He believed in me, and let me come to my own conclusions, and in my own time.  For the record, he was absolutely right:  I got a lot out of it, so much more than I ever could have imagined. That was so many years ago.  Half a lifetime ago, at this point.  I have no idea where Mike is now.  But I will always be grateful to him for holding my hand at Atlanta Pride.

We all need to have our hand held by someone who cares.  Every human deserves this simple courtesy.  Straight or gay.

This is why the Pride Festival exists.  Why it is still so incredibly important.  Somebody will go to Pride this year and find the courage to be who they are, and know they aren't alone out there.  It will change them.  Maybe even save them, who knows.  Anything is possible.  It changed me.  

Pride isn't just a giant off-the-wall bash full of hot men dancing half-naked, not that there is anything wrong with that, either.  It's not just an endless parade of floats drenched in rainbows and nudity and thump-thump-thumping bass.  It’s more than that. It has meaning.  It carries weight.  And if it happens to be a big ole gay party at the same time, even better.

Still--in all honesty, I wish there was no need for such a thing to exist in 2024.  

Nobody ever has to come out straight.  There is no straight Pride for a reason.  Why have a festival to commemorate when you can just celebrate that aspect of who you are every single day already, completely without risk to life and limb, or worse yet, rejection by those who purport to love you?  To anyone unsure why we need to do it in the gay community, what the necessity is to proclaim who we are to the world, or what gives us the audacity to own our Pride whether gay, transgender or at any other place on the sexuality/gender spectrum, then I would suggest looking first and foremost at the people and situations that create such a need in the first place.  The haters. The zealots. The judgement. The shaming.  If a space of tolerance and acceptance were already in place everywhere, the same way it is for heterosexual people, why would anyone have to be out and proud?  If love is love, truly, what would be the need?  Right? Exactly. There wouldn't be one.  

God, how I long for that day.  I wish we were there already.  I really do.  I have hope, even as things don't seem to be headed in the right direction all the time.  Maybe it will happen someday.  From the bottom of my rainbow-colored heart, I want it to happen.  

Until then, this is what we’ve got.  There is good reason to be loud and proud. Or maybe just proud, if the loud part doesn’t quite fit yet. It’s all welcomed under that rainbow.

To each their own. 

Happy Pride, y'all.