For lunch yesterday, I paid with cash, and my change was SUPPOSED TO BE $21.06. However, the waitress only brought back $21.00. No six cents. This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine, but still, I let it go. Or rather, I didn’t say anything at the restaurant then stewed about it for thirty minutes after. (Those pennies belong to me, damn it.) Anyway, last night I watched a movie with a friend of mine and picked up pizza on the way to his house. Well, get this shit. The pizza was $18.64, and I gave the girl $19.00. So I watched her go to the cash register, and the computer screen attached to it–in big, bold letters ANYONE could have read from the other side of a football field–said, “Change due: $0.36.” But the girl just shut the drawer and turned around, as if she were done. Seeing me still standing at the counter, she raised her eyebrows.

“May I have my change?” I said.

“Oh,” she said, and turned back to the cash register.

What the hell, people?!

The movie I watched last night was called Love, Simon and is the story of a high school senior (Simon) who is in the process of 1) coming to terms with his (homo)sexuality and 2) coming out. I honestly didn’t have high expectations. Maybe it’s because I’m thirty-seven, single AF (as fuck, Mom), and took forever to really come out, but I simply wasn’t jazzed about the idea of watching a tween with flawless skin discover his true self AND fall in love in the space of a calendar year. (Well that’s just great–FOR YOU!) That being said, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was the movie adorable, it was also (mostly) “real” or true-to-life.

I laughed. I cried. It was better than Cats.

Toward the end of the movie, after Simon comes out to his family, he has a conversation with his mom and asks her if she knew. “I knew you had a secret,” she says. “You used to be so free–but these last few years I could almost hear you holding your breath.”

Wow. I know what that feels like, to not be able to fully relax, to always wonder what other people–your friends, your family–will think of you, to constantly feel as if you have to hide. (They don’t call it being in the closet for nothing.) With my journey, I first came out to my dad, then some friends, then my sister. Everyone said, “We know. It’s about time. Pass the ketchup.” It just wasn’t a big deal to them. But it was a big deal to me. It’s always a big deal to exhale, to realize that the world isn’t as scary as you made it out to be, to know that you are loved and accepted for who you are.

Personally, I think we’re all in the process of coming out and learning to exhale. Not necessarily with regard to sexuality, but with regard to something. Because we all have secrets, parts of ourselves and our lives that we’re ashamed of, things we’re deathly afraid to share with others. After all, what WILL people think? Plus, it’s difficult to live life without apology, to be willing to stand out in whatever way. In the movie, there’s a character who’s not only out, but also obvious, so he’s an easy target for high school bullies. To his credit, he always has a comeback, a witty retort. But surely it would take a lot of energy to live like that, always on the defense.

In my experience, my strength comes and goes. Plenty of days I feel like putting in my earrings, doing whatever the fuck I want to do with my hair, and strutting around in the shortest shorts I own. Yes, I’m gay. And this is how I dance, and this is how much I weigh, and this is how I live my life. And if you don’t like it, you can go get high. But plenty of days I feel like blending in and not being noticed. (Sometimes I feel like making a fuss about six cents; sometimes I don’t.) I just finished reading a book about the moon, and apparently the moon and I have this in common. Some days we shine brightly, some days we disappear completely. The book’s author, Carolyn McVickar Edwards, says it like this–“I bless my capacity to hold both the light and the dark.”

So.

In all things.

I’m trying to not hold my breath so much.

To breathe in AND out.

Just as the moon waxes AND wanes.

This is the change I’m really wanting.

To hold on to the light, then let go of it.

To gracefully move from one phase to the next.

To relax.

To move freely through the heavens.