Utah's Perfect Little Ally

So, Thanksgiving was pretty great. You don't hear this enough in the LGBT community, but I love my family so much. Yes, like all families, there was a bit of discomfort around the time of my coming out, but we've moved passed that. Whenever I'm home, I know I am around people who love and accept me for who I am. It is a rare occasion that people see pure, unadulterated Dan. But he rears his head quite often when I'm around my family. This is meant to be a short, uplifting post to help Us get through finals, and it goes out to my sister, Maddie.

Just a bit of background. When I came out to my Mom, I was an emotional wreck, and wasn't exactly quiet about it. Maddie overheard me telling my Mom some pretty earth shattering news. About 30 minutes later, I see a note slipped under my door:

"Dan. I heard what you told Mom. I'm totally ok with it. I still love you no matter what."

-Maddie

How adorable is that? She's pretty much the Greatest.

Do ya'll remember taking those required "comp-tech" classes in middle school? You know, the ones where they sit 30 kids down in a computer lab and try to teach kids about the Interwebz, when really all they are doing is trying to hack your site blocker and get onto addictinggames or facebook? Yeah, well Maddie is in one right now. One of their assignments was to make personal blogs. They were required to list some of the blogs with which they kept up and about 8 of her friends listed the BDU blog as their favorite. Yeah, thats right. Not only does Maddie (and my entire family for that matter, thanks Mom) read the blog, but her friends have started to read it too.

I brought her home a Love=Love shirt for a Thanksgiving present. Her eyes were beaming when I showed it to her. I could tell she couldn't wait to wear it around, not only repping Duke but repping LGBT equality. I also found out over break that Maddie has become a confidant to one of her LGBT identified friends, and I could not be prouder. My sister is pretty great.

I hope that the Duke loss and finals aren't keeping ya'll down. Put your heads down, #occupy Perkins, and power through. We're almost there.