About seven years ago my mom was visiting from Florida. We were playing cards one night when, out of the blue, she said:
"You say your dad's biggest influence on you was that he was gay, but you never really talk or write about the fact that he wasn't really around to raise you."
Mic drop.
She was right.
So much of my world view and my career has centered around the political, social, cultural, and historical ramifications of my father's homosexuality that I had never explored the fact that as a kid I longed to have a real connection with him.
It's not an either/or thing. It's a both/and thing.
I do equity, inclusion, and belonging work because I know the world is full of inequity, exclusion, and alienation.
I also do this work because I need to be connected with other people. We all need to be connected with other people.
Individual circumstances and collective systems of polarization often make those connections seem impossibly challenging.
We all just want to belong. But before we can create belonging for others, we have to belong to ourselves.
This work, really, at its core, is self development work. It's self awareness work. Compassion and empathy work. Relationship building work.
I didn't always know that. But now I do.
Thanks, Mom.