the fall before the pride

it was always the same growing up. maybe never overt, but there. a sort of boot-strap your way through life, never brag, never boast. no joy in who you are. it fit, in a way. you were without church but your parents were raised in very religious households, perhaps if they couldn't impart the gospel onto you at least they could impart other values. pride is a sin. in school your friends would brag during basketball games, you won thunder and lightning against the entire 6th grade once and in a game went off for over 20 points. one day at soccer practice josh told you were the best player on the team far and away.  you shrugged and thanked him sheepishly. it was just what it was. it was to be expected. you had to be good, perfect, beyond perfect, so why brag about what is expected? bragging was rude, callous, made others aware of what they were not or did not have. you remember the money that flowed into your hands for graduating high school, and your friend asked you what you thought, and you said you didn't deserve it for doing what was supposed to be done, and he agreed, he felt the same. you knew that carrots worked better than sticks, this was well backed by decades of research, but neither felt appropriate. you just were, and you shouldn't need a reward to be so. years later you'd try to square this with your politics. you still can't.

there is no pride to be had in who you are. certainly not in where you are born, nationalism a constantly absurd concept, you did not choose your home country from a video game drop down menu before you were spit out. you chose no traits, no characteristics besides what you chose over the course of your life, and choosing the right ones was just that - choosing the right ones, doing the right thing, and isn't that reward enough?

but maybe you went too far. you yearned internally for the clothes you wanted, the classes you wanted, a sense of desire, of acceptance, of someone, anyone to like you and the choices you made, to recognize it. you wanted a publication credit, a slip that said you graduated, something you could hang your hat on, and even if nobody saw it, perhaps that was for the best.

but it all fit. the lack of pride fit your parents, fit your privileged class, fit everything, and so it was the only path. you were whatever someone else needed you to be. when your friends carpooled throughout college and you always drove, you never asked for gas money. you mapped out the destinations and didn't even tell them you had, you put liquor bottles away while they slept, it was the right thing to do, and in their comfort, you found comfort as well, and that was fine. nothing you do should be broadcast, should be told to others, it should just exist, like you, quiet and studious, doing the right thing. pride is a sin.

in the years since, you have wriggled and compromised, or maybe grown, it's all postmodern anyways. the clothes you wear are your own now, the music you listen to your own, the books you read your own. you still want no credit for what is necessary, because everything is necessary at all times.

and so you found yourself in line under rainbow balloons on a warm, sunny summer day, wearing a rainbow tanktop and jeggings and looking all the world like you and your group belonged. and you guess that was always the hard part. belonging. you never belonged at the lunch table you sat at in high school, it was a necessity but you didn't relate to those who trade insults. you didn't belong at the job, at the house with your parents, you felt constantly subverted and shrunk yourself to fit. but there, in the park, it all was. people wearing anything, celebrating themselves, protesting against a system designed for thousands of years to kill them, and still to this day doing so. american flags decorated against rainbow flags, as if the contradiction wasn't obvious. you felt excited about who you were, pins and stickers and clothing that you struggled to wear up until the last year. you walked amongst a crowd that felt like in any other occasion could drown you and never felt unsafe. maybe it was the company. maybe it was the atmosphere. maybe you are still wriggling and growing a bit. maybe you just want to be liked.

but the internal dialogue remains. here are people that deserve their pride, their protest, their life. what do you deserve? you haven't received a raise in years, you haven't changed the world, you haven't graduated, you haven't been perfect. you can't will yourself to be proud, you can't will yourself a feeling that has repulsed you for so long, so you enjoy the moment and try to accept who you are, at the very least, because you have finally found those who have. with your wife, with your friends, in that crowd, who you were was good enough. the next morning, you tried not to look in the mirror and hate your body again, like always, tried not to look at your lack of accomplishments.

after your shower you noticed your pan sticker still on your shirt in a crumpled up pile of dirty laundry. the wristband hugs your wrist throughout the day as a reminder that maybe in an alternate timeline, some version of you who likes being you and wears it like a badge of honor exists, but you can't get over the feeling that it is undeserved. you admonish yourself for not cleaning as you sit on the couch reading something you could never write. this is who you are, and that is ok, and it doesn't need to exist for the world to see. nobody ever told you explicitly, but everybody always did; pride is a sin.