It gets better

In response to the recent rash of gay-teen suicides, writer Dan Savage started the "It Gets Better" video project. It's such a simple, yet beautiful idea: gay men and women who made it through years of bullying and and pain and rejection and came out on the other side, tell their stories to encourage gay teens to stay strong and to stay alive, because it does get better. So many people, from musicians and actors to "regular" people and even President Obama have participated in this project, including this new video by some of the employees of Pixar:



Also, there is another blog you might want to check out. One of my best friends from high school, Mitch and I reconnected on Facebook after having lost touch for many (like 20) years. I was not at all surprised to learn, when we reconnected, that he is now living as an openly gay man; I'd suspected during our high school years in southern Idaho that he was gay, but understandably he was in denial to himself and the world at that time. What I was surprised about is that he is Mormon!! It seriously took me weeks to wrap my head around that fact. How could my gay, progressive, liberal friend be Mormon??? But according to him, he could no sooner choose to not be Mormon than he could choose not to be gay. Ok. I have to respect that. And even more so, I respect the fact that he refuses to hide who he is. He was won over the leaders of his stake (in San Fransisco, so of course they must be a bit more tolerant) and even teaches Sunday school.

The really wonderful part is that Mitch is very active in getting the Mormon leadership to change their stance on gay people so that others, like him, can live their authentic lives while pursuing their religious/spiritual beliefs. He has stood up and outed himself and demanded respect for who he is so that others can do the same. He has spoken out in front of many LDS congregations, from SF to Seattle, sharing this which he wrote. It is beautiful and powerful and thought-provoking. I am so, so proud of him!

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Well, clearly I don't have much to write about lately. BUT! For those of you who know that I've been battling this...fatigue thing for the past 5-6 months, there is good news! I FEEL BETTER!! I FEEL NORMAL!! This is a huge relief because I was beginning to think that "exhausted" was my new normal.

I'm not sure what caused this shift in energy for me. Two things I've done differently in the past week or two: I've been running again and I can't tell you how much I needed that. It's a catch-22 when you don't have energy, because the last thing you want to do is exercise, but I know I feel better and more energetic when I do. So that's helping.

And I tried acupuncture. When we were in Boston recently a few of us were chatting and the topic of acupuncture came up. David's brother Jim has an awesome new girlfriend, and she mentioned that she had suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome years ago, and the thing that finally cured her was acupuncture. Well I have made many, many visits to my conventional doctor, my naturopath, and a pulmnologist over the past several months, with NO improvement, so I figured trying acupuncture was worth a shot. The guy I went to is also a practitioner of Chinese Medicine (which I guess goes without saying for an acupuncturist) and in addition to the poking, he gave me some Chinese herbs.

So I don't know if it's the running, or the acupuncture or the herbs or a combination of the three, but I AM SO BACK, BABY!! It feels GREAT to feel great again.

Look out world, I'm ready to kick some ass.