Smiling isn’t the same as alright

Yesterday, I was driving to work when the radio began another report about Orlando. I tried to steel myself against it. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been overcome by small gasps of sadness every time I read a new update or see the latest think piece. They come and go like a flash, a small sputter of despair in an otherwise unremarkable day, but they were getting easier to manage. So I wasn’t expecting anything new as I listened; I thought I was prepared. Instead, I broke down into full, deep sobs.

It was the kind of crying that shakes your whole body, that makes it hard to hold on to things. It was the kind of crying you just can’t stop because you must have been holding it in for so long that you couldn’t hold it anymore. My vision was clouded with tears and I had to pull over on the side of the road; I had to stop everything I was doing to compose myself. And even when I finally felt okay to drive I was still crying as I got back on the highway.

The night before, one of my dearest friends, someone I’ve known for nearly a decade and regard as family, told me they wanted to kill themselves. They talked about how impossible it was to find someone to love, how lonely they’ve felt in all their years of hiding who they were, how much they just didn’t want to fight anymore. I’ve known about their problems for a long time, but the way it came up so suddenly again and so close to this new tragedy was brutal.

The last few weeks have been a toxic cocktail of emotion. I was thinking about what we as a community lost on that horrible Sunday: not only 49 of our own, but also the feeling of safety and security we’ve cultivated over the last decade. I was thinking about what it might mean to lose my friend in such a tragic, senseless way. I was thinking about how alone and heavy I felt with all these thoughts. It was too much for me all at once. I couldn’t hold it in anymore and pretend I was alright.

When I arrived to work, I dabbed my eyes and walked into the building with sunglasses on. No one knew at all that I’d been sobbing a handful of moments before. No one noticed (or at least acknowledged) how haunted I was for the rest of the day.

People in the queer community are very good at pretending. I’ve been doing it for years: I pretended to be straight until I come out, I pretend to be unbothered by the casual violence and prejudice that follows me around, I pretend that loneliness doesn’t gnaw at me while I’m surrounded by happily-coupled friends and family. I pretend to be so much stronger and more self-possessed than I could ever hope to be.

We all pretend, I know. It’s not something LGBTQ have exclusive rights to; but so many of us in the LGBTQ community spend so much of our lives pretending to be alright. We tell ourselves and each other that we are strong, that we persevere, that we will keep fighting for what we deserve. We pretend that we’re all of those things; we tell ourselves we’re just faking it until we make it.

That’s so incredibly hard to do constantly throughout a lifetime.

Someone I care about very deeply told me they didn’t want to fight anymore. They wanted to settle a few debts, check a few more boxes, and then find a quiet, unobtrusive way to just stop pretending to be alright.

I wonder if my friend would feel this way if they weren’t queer. I don’t think so.

I wonder if my friend would want to die if their life was more than fighting to be normal, if their life was “alright” (whatever that is) instead of just pretending to be. I don’t know.

I keep crying for Orlando. I thought I had cried all the tears I had to cry for that loss, but there is still so much anguish inside me for the people who died. People I didn’t know, had never met, and can now never meet. It still devastates me in small measures every time it’s mentioned. And in that, there’s a selfish anguish for myself as well. I have to continue to fight, to persevere, to be strong. I ache for what my community still has to endure. I wouldn’t wish that struggle on anyone.

I don’t know that there was a point to writing this, other than to feel like I’m not pretending anymore. If I have to find a teachable moment, I guess it would be to say that your LGBTQ friends who look so strong, who look like their holding it together, are not. They’re probably crying in their cars and hiding themselves behind sunglasses or fake smiles. They probably seem fine; they’re not. They’re just pretending, and they’re very good at it. They have you fooled.

We’re not alright; we’re hurting. But we’re smiling through it because that’s what we do.

I empathize with what my friend is feeling right now. I was in a similar place a few years back. I didn’t want to fight anymore, I was tired of pretending I was alright. I just wanted to stop everything. What happened to change things between then and now, I don’t know. I can’t tell you where I find strength to keep trying. I wish I could tell you that. I wish I could tell my friend that. What I do know is that as much as I cry, and as often as I feel there’s no more try in me, I have to keep going. I have to keep faith that one day, I won’t be pretending anymore. I have to have faith that one day we’ll be alright.

I just have to.