Loving Kindness...

Thanks for joining me on the Hop Against Homophobia! Leave a comment at the end of this post to be entered to win a copy of my contemporary short story “Feeling Neighborly” as well as a never before released vampire/werewolf short story called “Under the Full Moon.” Contest open to adult readers 18+ only.

I wrote and re-wrote this post several times. I wrote sad posts and angry posts, posts about religion and politics and personal opinions. I erased it all, because I truly believe that at the bottom line is that anger and fear are destructive and I didn’t want to write a destructive post.

I am many things. Mostly these days I’m an author and a mom. I don’t sleep very much, and I frequent the local Starbucks like they’re gonna put my name on a table. I get stressed. Through all of that my life revolves around love. Falling in love is what I write about. As an at-home parent, teaching, guiding, and loving my kids is what I DO. My job as a parent is to make it so that they can go out into the world someday and be good, kind, functional citizens who don’t need me any more.  My fondest wish is for them to grow up healthy and happy–and that they someday fall in love.

Period. If my boys are lucky enough to find someone who loves and respects them half as much as I, their extremely biased mother, thinks they deserve? I’ll be thrilled, regardless of who that person is, so long as they’re good to my kid.

When they look at me over their chocolate chip waffles in the morning and thank me for taking care of them, I can’t imagine wanting anything else.

I used to do a daily yoga and meditation practice. It’s a little more sporadic these days due to business, but I find when I make it back to the mat that the foundations are still with me. One of the things I learned, was a loving-kindness meditation: The gist is, you start out by offering loving-kindness to yourself, and then to someone you respect, someone you love, someone you feel neutral about…then someone you hate (for more info on this, you can go here). The idea, I think, is to help you keep an open heart. In the face of a thing like homophobia, I admit that can be difficult to do.

So that’s what I want to offer here today, on this International Day Against Homophobia. Loving kindness. To myself, to those of you who are friends, and those I don’t know. To those of you whose minds I hope with all my heart will soon be changed for the better. More than anything, to all the innocent babies, children, and young people out there who will someday need help and support in navigating your way through the confusion and questions you may have about your sexual orientation–I pray you will have the support that you need, and that you will always know you’re perfect just the way you are. That you deserve love and respect.

Love is love. It’s something everyone deserves.

(There are over 250 authors and bloggers participating today in the hop against homophobia, lots of really good thoughts on the subject and lots of prizes being given away. You can find the full list, here. Also, for a chance to win my latest vampire novella, Immortal Valentine, or another chance to win the free vampire/shifter short story, check out the HAH post over at Books Make Me Happy.)