Kara, a woman on my swim team, told me how she and her partner, Simone, were trying to keep secret the fact that they were lesbians and that they were dating. The conversation came up because Kara had been telling me about this guy and speaking as though she was interested in him. I said, “I thought you were a lesbian.”  She asked, “How did you know? How can you tell?”  Kara wanted to check her behavior because she felt there were problems at work and didn’t want to encounter the same on the team.  She said that she was looking for another job, one with a better environment for gays and lesbians.

I told her that I was surprised that she was keeping her sexual identity a secret.  I listed all of the people on the swim team who I knew for sure were gay or lesbian.  Since there were quite a few, I thought the team was open to gays and lesbians.  Kara didn’t think so and said that Simone was worried that their relationship would hinder her plan to be a coach. I was incredulous.  I always thought being lesbian would insure that one would be selected to coach.

I told Kara about my experiences with the swim team, how I felt that I had received negative treatment as the only African American swimmer.  I told her that there wasn’t going to be a better environment.  Everywhere she went, there were going to be people who felt negatively towards gays and lesbians.  The best thing that she could do was to work on herself and be the person that she wanted to be.

She can only control herself.  Going from place to place trying to find a supportive environment was not going to be fruitful.  She should just learn to be confident in who and what she was and let other people deal with it.  Stop trying to not be or to hide what she was.  When she was comfortable with herself, she would project an aura of confidence. This didn’t necessarily mean that she needed to flaunt her lesbianism – “take it or leave it, I’m here to stay.”  She would simply have a presence about her that people would sense and feel.  They would respond to that presence and her environment would change.

When I got home, I thought about that conversation.  It was as though I was also speaking to myself, as though my words came through me from somewhere and not from me.  I felt as though my interaction with Kara was meant to remind me how I should be thinking and acting.  It’s funny how I can speak or write down thoughts and then go about my business as though these ideas never came out of me or weren’t directed to me from me.

I wrote in my theology school thesis the things I said to Kara, but I was not putting them into my daily life.  I wasn’t even swimming that often with the swim team because I didn’t want to continue being treated poorly.  Like Kara, I was searching for a more comfortable environment.  I was still looking for a solution outside of myself.

So, after talking to Kara, I made a commitment to stay and grow with the swim team.  I figured they’d eventually get used to me and their attitudes would change or I’d become a faster swimmer and they would no longer have the excuse of my being slow for not wanting me to swim with them or I’d stop giving a great f**k and people would begin to respond to that.  I continue to remember what my pastor preached: your thoughts go out as skeletons and return to you as fully embodied people.

As I looked at Kara and Simone being fearful and reacting to something that I felt did not exist, I had to look at myself.  Am I doing the same?  Am I so conditioned because of past treatment that, whatever tension I feel, I immediately say it’s because I’m Black.  I need to change my attitude and stop modifying my behavior based on the real or perceived actions of others.

I need to be aware of who and what I am and to conduct myself accordingly regardless of any adversity or chaos that may surround me.  I need to be centered and whole and complete at all times.  Feeling tension is a sign for me to check myself, not by changing environments hoping that the external will change to something more compatible with the joy that I want.  I need to find the never-changing harmony within me and bring that forth to light the darkness.

I thought about how I’m always bringing up racism – how people’s behavior hurts me.  I say that White people are unaware or in denial of their racism.  I want them to know my pain.  But, they do know my pain.  They see it every day in the mirror.  They experience it every minute.  They just don’t identify it as my pain.  They perceive their own pain and insecurities and, like most of us, aren’t even aware that they are projecting that harm onto others.  Few see personal pain as the pain of others, as one and the same pain.

People will choose to resolve their own pain when they get tired of being in pain.  Or they won’t.  And that is their choice and their life.  I need to be about developing my light, not forever reflecting the darkness around me.  If my light enables others to see their own pain and want to resolve it, then that is good.  Everybody needs love, not judgment and exposure to their faults.  When they want to and are ready to see themselves, they will.  If they are not ready, it is unlikely that they will accept what is revealed to them.

I think most people like routine, habit, sameness, and being around people like themselves.  They don’t want to go beyond boundaries that they have set up and accepted for themselves.  For some reason, they expect others to not only see these imaginary boundaries, but to respect them.  “Don’t cross this imaginary line that I believe exists.”  If you cross it, they get mad at you.  Pretty soon, you begin to believe in the imaginary boundary and to learn its location and limits.  You become a limited being.  Un-free. Constricted.  Sick.  Then you continue the projection of sickness and pain.  It’s a vicious cycle.

However it manifests, being unhappy is a learned attribute.  We have to try to recover our happy baby selves.  We know how.  We just have to put this knowledge into practice.