Once Upon a Time...

I've published two articles in online literary publications and here is the beginning of an article that I was writing about the 2012 Presidential Elections. The article ended up taking a different direction and I found this opening to be irrelevant.... I am a member of the "Disney Princess Generation". I grew up enchanted with the idea of Prince Charming galloping in to my life on his white horse and swooping me off my feet, carrying me away to the land of "happily ever after". Like many young girls, I didn't know love, but I sure as hell knew that I wanted a spectacular affair to celebrate the imminent arrival of my fairytale existence---complete with Cinderella's gown. I held tight, onto that belief until I was 21. When I made peace with my sexuality, I also made peace with the idea that we (as a community) didn't have the right to get married. I was living in Orlando, FL at the time and the marriage of 2 women was so far off from reality that it just was what it was and I settled for giving up that dream. A few years later, I was still living in Orlando and I will never forget the night that President Obama was elected--people stopped traffic downtown and were dancing in the streets, music was blasting out of the bars along Orange Avenue and people cheering and crying because they knew that change was possible, the feeling of hope was palpable. Over the last four years, the country has made beautiful progress. I now live in New York City, where gay marriage is legal (and celebrated, as it should be)! We have an army where soldiers who are gay, no longer have to lie about who they are (also, as it should be). We've made progress and we're going in a direction that represents equality for all citizens. And that's what this campaign is all about for me: hope. Hope that the United States will continue to move in a direction where all of it's citizen's will not only feel like they are equal under the law, but that they actually will be protected under the freedoms and the laws that govern this land.