In 2008, same-sex marriage was on the ballot in California. I was a senior at a conservative Christian college who’d been raised in the evangelical church my whole life and had internalized countless negative messages about the LGBTQ community. But it was also 2008, and I had gay friends who I thought deserved to find love and get married. I remember sitting in the voting booth and having an absolute meltdown. “Do I vote with my heart or align with what I have been taught?” “I want my friends to be able to get married, but I don’t want God to be mad at me.” These are all real things that I thought, that I felt.
While the temptation for me is to sit on my high progressive horse and throw glitter stones at them, lately, I have been stopping myself to remember that girl in the booth in 2008, the meltdown she had over voting for basic human rights because she had been so indoctrinated.
As I find myself in the wake of the election, the ripples of that day still finding their way through all the crevices of my mind, the holiday season is rapidly approaching. Many of us are preparing to return home, and for those of us who find ourselves dispirited by the election results and upcoming four years, it’s a time of bracing ourselves for the political landmines waiting for us around the dinner table. I am perhaps even more committed than ever to figuring out how more than one thing can be true at the same time. How do I hold deep love and deep disappointment for people in my life? How can I disagree with them and still maintain my own integrity and our relationship as we pass mashed potatoes across the table? Is that even possible?
Sixteen years after my voting booth meltdown, I am living my happiest queer life, married to the woman of my dreams, advocating for queer rights and looking around watching people vote against things that feel like common sense — and vote for things that feel like hate. While the temptation for me is to sit on my high progressive horse and throw glitter stones at them, lately, I have been stopping myself to remember that girl in the booth in 2008, the meltdown she had over voting for basic human rights because she had been so indoctrinated. I think keeping her close is going to be helpful for the work that lies ahead.
It may just be the most important time for me to remember that I used to be wildly uniformed on issues that now shape the way I vote. I used to be oblivious to parts of my own identity that have now brought a wider spectrum of love and activism into my life. The trajectory of my life has offered me a path that has been full of changing my mind, evolution, and even liberation. As I prepare to sit with the people I love whose life has not offered the same kind of trajectory, what is my responsibility to them? Do I have any?
This is the paradox of growth: You become freer, but with that freedom comes the pain of navigating a world where people you love remain stuck in the same thing you found freedom from.
It may not be fair, but I think it’s true: When it comes to these moments, I will probably have to be the bigger person. And while that might sound like a noble decision or higher road to take, it’s not due to any sense of nobility or piety. It’s due to a deep knowing that only people who have experienced freedom are the ones who are available to offer it. And while I want to get up on my high horse and shame the people in my life for believing things I find to be deeply problematic, it’s often helpful for me to remember that I, too, held those beliefs, and people in my life offered me a road to evolution and growth. No one shamed me into changing my mind; I didn’t read a mean tweet that made me radically change my life. I was offered freedom from people who had experienced it. And now that I have found freedom, what is my response going to be?
I have had to ask myself what I really want. If what I want is for the people in my life to find the same kind of freedom I have, if I want to still be open to the kind of change and evolution I’ve had in the past, then I am going to have to get off the high horse and get back to the dinner table.
Now, that doesn’t mean we should tolerate bigotry or harmful behavior, but it may be a great time to remember the times before you knew what you know now. We have all changed our mind, and sometimes we quickly forget what that felt like. We all know the person who moves to New York and four months later complains about the tourists in “their city.”
What would these conversations look like if we hold close the reality that we were all once tourists to our beliefs? Finding a sense of radical love and empathy for the versions of yourself before this one just might open up a path for us to hold empathy for all the versions of people we love at the dinner table. If we can do that, I think we may just hand out more invitations than cancellations.
As I have come to understand the world around me, it would seem that only people who have experienced freedom are the ones capable of offering it — and now is a time where we need more invitations to that freedom than ever.
Even if it’s not fair.
Renowned motivational speaker, teacher, and storyteller Brit Barron offers a path to holding onto our deepest convictions without losing relationships with the people we love. In her recent book Do You Still Talk to Grandma? Brit invites readers to imagine the world beyond cancel culture and helps us all navigate the difficult relationships in our lives. To learn more about Brit, head to britbarron.com or follow along on social media @britbarron.
