Happy Pride, everyone!
Over the past few days, I’ve stood by my keyboard in the hopes of crafting a meaningful and relevant message about Pride, and it just didn’t come. Very weird, I thought. As a gay person, Pride is nothing new to me. It’s something I’ve reflected on and experienced for years.
And aside from that, writing about Pride is like second nature. Before starting bubuleh, I was the Director of Marketing for one of the largest LGBTQ media companies in the country, and crafted hundreds of Pride Month messages and campaigns campaigns for companies all over the globe. So, why is it so hard to come up with the words now?
In the infamous (and revised…) words of Elle Woods, “Why now? Why this Pride?”
I came to a lot of conclusions today about struggling to find the right words - amidst an internal dialogue riddled with frustration - and one reason in particular came to me that I think speaks to so much more.
Just because we’ve experienced something a thousand times before does not mean that we will experience it the same way again. It does not mean that we will feel the same way, again.
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” - T.S. Eliot
At any time, a story in our lives can change. We can change it. Each time we experience something, we bring something new to it. We can keep the parts that serve us or resonate with us, drop parts that don’t, or start completely fresh.
And that thought made me not so hard on myself. This year, Pride feels different. I’ve written about my thoughts about Pride a thousand times in the past, but I haven’t written about the thoughts I have right now a thousand times in the past. And I’m embracing that. I’m embracing new even when it comes to something that is completely not new.
And to me, that same principle applies so much to what we’re trying to do with bubuleh. Are we trying to create something completely new? Not necessarily. We’re sharing stories and perspectives around what we have already experienced which, in turn, allow us to revisit our experiences in new ways. We're continually looking at the stories in our lives and our cultures, in order to keep the parts that work for us, and reevaluate the parts that don’t. Just because we know something doesn’t mean we’ll always know it, or experience it, in the same way.
And well..there you have it. Those are some of my initial thoughts about why finding the words for Pride has been difficult. Many more thoughts to come later, I'm sure. My hope is that these musings resonated with you in some way, too.
With love and just a little anxiety,
Jordan
