There’s talk from a lot of people about an LGBT march on Washington, with the supposed purpose of fast-tracking President Obama’s action on his promised changes to LGBT rights, mainly repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act.  A lot of people, myself included, have shouted them selves hoarse and become exhausted begging the president to move.  Or say anything.  Or show acknowledgement.

Every day there’s news of moves forward and moves backward (well, let’s not say backwards—let’s say “road blocks”).  There are terrible stories of intolerance, hate speech, unfairness, loss of jobs, and in some instances, even recently, loss of life.  New Hampshire is making its move to marriage equality difficult, an 18-year Lt. Col. With two years left until his retirement and total pension is being fired, and there are good stories, too.  These stories have always been happening.  The only difference is we are now being given a voice and a platform.

Judy Shepherd, Matthew Shepherd’s mother, met with President Obama about the Hate Crimes Act named for her son.  She spoke to The Advocate about the experience.  She had ten minutes for her meeting, the president’s previous meeting ran long, so she only got two minutes of his time.  But that’s all she needed.  The mother of this murdered boy, she who has been fighting for us long before we had much good news at all, believes this president will do good.

She says we must be patient, on all matters.  “We are victims of our own hope,” she said.  We work where we can, pick away while we can, baby steps forward, but always forward (and twirling!).

I took a run in Runyon Canyon after reading this, unable to continue with the errands I was doing.  I ran harder than I ever remember.  And then I had to stop.  My legs just seized up, and I couldn’t run anymore.  And then all of my anger, all of my frustration, all of my work, flooded me, and I cried halfway up the mountain.

I didn’t cry because I was anguished. I cried because I realized that I can’t hold on to my anger anymore. I’m relatively new to politics, and like all virgins, I’ve become swept up and self-righteous, and I ran myself into the ground trying to grasp it all. I am not indefatigueable (to borrow a fabulous word from my friend Becky). We are not indefatigueable.

We will have what’s ours, but not yet. And yes, in the meantime, good people will suffer. Young children will face unbearable torment, good soldiers, decorated heroes, will lose their liveliehood and suffer dishonorable discharges, we won’t marry, we will be blocked sometimes. Bad things will happen. The thought of all that is overwhelming.

But this is how it must go.

I also cried because I really do believe that our president is making plans, good plans, as we speak. We haven’t been forgotten. And we’ll press on in the meantime, and hopefully, he’ll leave the window open for us.

What is a mistake, however, is silence.  If I could ask our president one thing it would be simple. Let us hear your voice. It’s a comforting, strong voice. Reassure us, ask us to be patient, and we will. We all have a lot of anger that has compounded over decades, passed down from centuries, that we’ve all inherited as part of the bargain of being gay. The same with other minorities. A black person today has never been a slave, a young Jew never suffered the camps, just as a young gay person today (with some exceptions) hasn’t had to fear for their lives. But we inherit that. We feel it in our blood. The pain so great that it lies there, a distant storm across a vast ocean. We all share in what you might call the Magic of Pain.

And when Barack Obama was elected President on the same night Prop. 8 passed, something happened, almost like a spell had been cast. The good and the bad linked forever in history. I’ve heard a change in my friends’ voices. There is a swell of irrational anger that I share. The spell that was cast was the sensation of years and years of a chained beast not being let go, but given slack on the chain for the first time. November 4th oppressed us further, yes, but it also gave us a fighting chance.  A fighting chance that all of the anger we have collected in our lives now has this rarest of opportunities to be given retribution. Of course, to the majority of uninformed straight people, we appear to be overstepping our bounds with President Obama. Because we are. But I don’t blame us.

This is how change happens.  You can’t move the bounds if you don’t step over them.

So there I was, halfway up the mountain, and I gathered myself up. I thought about Judy Shepherd, smiling so earnestly in her photo. Then I thought that she has a son who isn’t here anymore. He’s gone. He’ll never know the good that has been done.

Judy Shepherd asked us to control our hope and focus on the work. She spoke to us in her interview like a mother to a son. And then as if she asked me herself, I let the anger go.

I’m lost without it. But I guess that’s what’s supposed to happen.