There are moments in life when tears come without warning. Moments when something deep within us begins to move, and before we can understand what is happening, the emotions we have carried quietly for years rise to the surface.
This morning was one of those moments for me.
I woke up to election results that brought a wave of change across our nation. Here in Texas, a place I have called home all my life, the results carried particular significance.
And I cried.
Not the kind of tears that come from sadness or disappointment. These were tears of relief. Tears of hope. Tears that seemed to rise from somewhere so deep within me that I didn’t immediately understand why they were there.
I have cried over election results only once before.
That was when our current president won his second term.
I remember the sadness I felt that night. But beneath the sadness was something much more familiar.
Fear.
It was a fear I recognized, even though I hadn’t felt it quite so intensely in many years. It carried me backward through time, to a younger version of myself growing up gay in rural America.
A boy trying to understand who he was while living in a world that often made him question whether he could ever truly be accepted.
I remember that boy.
I remember the uncertainty. The quiet questions. The fear of what others might think, what they might say, and what might happen if they discovered something about me that I was still struggling to understand myself.
But I also remember something else.
When I was around sixteen, I experienced a moment that would change my life forever.
It was a moment of prayer, a deeply personal connection with The Universe.
And in that moment, as a frightened sixteen-year-old boy searching for understanding, I came to know something that changed everything.
I was exactly as I was made.
There was nothing wrong with me.
I wasn’t a mistake.
I didn’t need to become someone else to deserve love, belonging, or a place in this world.
I was already worthy of those things simply because I existed.
I cannot adequately describe the freedom that came with that realization.
It didn’t mean the world around me suddenly became more accepting. It didn’t mean the challenges ahead would disappear. But something inside me changed.
I began to understand that I did not need to fear who I was.
Over the decades that followed, I built a life on that understanding.
I learned to live authentically and to embrace the person I was becoming. I found my voice, my purpose, and the courage to create a life that reflected the truth of who I am.
Or at least, I thought I had released the fear that once lived inside me.
Until this morning.
As I watched the election results unfold, I began to cry. And somewhere in those tears, I realized something that surprised me.
I had been carrying fear all along.
Not the same fear I carried as a teenager. I no longer question whether I deserve to exist as I am. That question was answered long ago, in a quiet moment between a frightened boy and The Universe.
But I carried another kind of fear.
The fear that the world around me might move backward.
The fear that the acceptance and freedoms I had witnessed grow throughout my adult life might not always remain.
The fear that, despite everything I had learned about myself, I might once again have to defend my right to be.
I hadn’t realized how deeply that uncertainty had settled within me.
Perhaps it had become so familiar that I no longer recognized its presence. Perhaps I had learned to carry it while continuing to live my life.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t know how much it weighed upon me.
Not until this morning, when I felt some of that weight begin to lift.
And suddenly, I was sixteen again.
Not because I had returned to the fear of that younger boy, but because I recognized the feeling of release.
The same extraordinary sense of freedom I experienced when The Universe helped me understand that I was exactly as I was meant to be.
Nearly forty years separated those two moments.
At sixteen, I discovered I didn't have to be afraid of who I was.
This morning, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt as though I didn’t have to be quite so afraid of the world around me.
I know that an election cannot erase every uncertainty. I know that progress is neither guaranteed nor permanent. And I know there will always be work to do if we want to create a world where every person can live with dignity, authenticity, and belonging.
But this morning reminded me that hope is still possible.
That change is still possible.
And that sometimes, even after decades of living, growing, and learning, we can discover something about ourselves that we never knew we were carrying.
I think about that sixteen-year-old boy today.
I think about how frightened he was, how many questions he had, and how desperately he needed to know that there was a place for him in this world.
I wish I could reach back through the years and tell him about the life waiting ahead.
I would tell him that he would find his voice.
That he would discover love, purpose, and the extraordinary beauty of living authentically.
That he would create things he once could only imagine.
That he would grow into a man who no longer needed the world’s permission to be himself.
And I would tell him that there would still be difficult days. Days when old fears might return, even after he believed he had left them behind.
But I would also tell him that one morning, many years later, he would find himself crying again.
Crying not because he had forgotten who he was or because he had lost the courage to be himself. But, for a moment, the world would feel less frightening and more hopeful.
Today, I am grateful for that boy.
For his courage. For his questions. For his willingness to keep searching for truth, even when he feared what he might discover.
Today, I am grateful for the man that boy has become. A man still learning that strength does not mean living without fear. Sometimes, strength means carrying fear without realizing how deeply rooted it is.
And sometimes, healing begins when we finally allow ourselves to put some of that weight down.
This morning, I cried for the boy I used to be.
But perhaps, in some beautiful way, those tears belonged to both of us.
The boy who once discovered he was worthy of being himself.
And the man who woke up today feeling a little more hopeful that the world might make room for everyone to do the same.
