Pulse Nightclub, Pride, and my Personal Story
My reflections 5 years since Pulse nightclub in Orlando was destroyed during Pride month.
I would get off state road 528 and turn on to Orange Ave. I knew where it was. We used to play a game where the car full of joyous folk would try to guess what color the sign would be that night. I could drive us to this place from anywhere. I would say I have “pulsedar”. I loved pulling closer to it and seeing the bright giant P for Pulse lit up in a color that I had guessed correctly.
There was always a short line to get in. They would check your id and mark your hands with black x’s if you were under 21. We would walk in and pay the 5 dollars and look through the beads covering the entry way to see how many people were there. I wanted to see if I knew anyone there. I would walk in to the hallway that connected the three rooms with eagerness, hope, nervousness, and comfort.
The rooms were called heaven, hell and purgatory by the regulars due to their themes and decor. As soon as you go through the strings of beads that guarded the worlds it transformed you. The sounds of them clacking together were like a sound that I thought a portal would make when you walked through it. A portal that would transport you into a different world. A world where you belonged. A world that felt like your home. That was a moment of pulse to me. That portal took me from a world where every moment was underlined with discomfort. A world where I felt I did not belong. In that world each breath I took was filled with belonging and comfort.
I would always walk to the white room or “heaven” first. The room was elegant, clean, and white. It was striking and had mirrors on all the walls. I would look for Bobby at the bar. His smile would remind you that you were part of the pulse chosen family. We would get our drinks and enjoy the music in the white room. Then it was time to take a tour of the rest of the moments of pulse. See the familiar faces and find new ones.
It is hard not to romanticize a place that gave you that comfort; It did have moments where I felt sad, depressed, rejected, and ugly. A lot of gay men are extremely superficial. I don’t blame them. I do think it is a result of societal upbringing and evolution. I was not alone in that feeling I’m sure. Lots of us had that moment of pulse, after all we were all shaped by the same world.
It has been over 50 years since the first Stonewall riot that was our first pride. These moments of pulse were all because of that moment in time when brave transgendered people of color who had no choice but to live as sex workers stood up for all of us. They sacrificed themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally so that we could have these moments of comfort. They fought, and countless others fought the norms, the virus, the rejection, and themselves so I can sit here in my townhouse in complete comfort.
Pulse was more than just a gay nightclub for us. It was a place where you had fun, met people, escaped the world, and danced. I spent amazing moments with my best friends, I spent my 21st birthday getting really drunk there (not that happy about that moment). I got the courage to finally kiss the man that I was in love with for years and would eventually marry for the first time. It was the place where I imagined I would propose to that man. Pulse was my chosen world, like it was to a lot of people.
It has been 5 years since that home was destroyed. It has been 5 years now where no place outside the home feels safe. Each moment is underlined with fear and discomfort. I don’t think I will ever feel that moment of complete comfort I felt at Pulse again.
I am happy, as happy as a gay, immigrant, cis-man who hated looking in the mirror can be. But in all of that, I am happy because I am proud of who I am now. I am happy because of my chosen family. I am happy because of all those people who remained sad and suffered their entire lives so one day I could be happy. It is pride month, and there can be nothing better than being proud of your happiness, cause I believe that is what those amazing brave people at Stonewall wanted for us.
I hope that 50 years from now there is a person sitting happily in their townhome feeling moments of comfort and safety. I hope they don’t have to worry about escaping into a world like Pulse. To help them feel that way, we need courageous people to stand up. Share their stories, not sit on the sidelines and suffer but suffer for a cause. I choose to share my story powering through the voices telling me that this is a bad idea.
