On “Oprah’s Soul Sunday” series she asks each person she interviews “What has been the most difficult thing for you to learn?”

I would answer, “To live.”

“To thrive.”

Sheila and I have talked about when people have asked, “If I ever thought I would be married to a woman?”

No, I never thought I would be married to a woman. I never thought I would be married at all. I didn’t believe I would live long enough to be married. I didn’t ever believe any further then that day or maybe the next week.

I can recall once or twice an elder asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up, but it never came from my parents. People didn’t speak about my future, didn’t plan for my future, because I believe no one really thought I would have a future.

They never said, “I don’t believe in you,” but they said it by omission.

By not saying it – they said it.

You have to say it – say “I believe in you.” Because if you never say it, it died before you gave it a chance.

I believe to this day that our family lived in a state of fear while everyday activities went on around us. That fear and anger grew up and inside of me and when I became a young adult I just wasn’t trying to find my way, I was trying to trust life, trust time – that is the big one – and trust the day and the next.

Then, to go further, what am I going to do with my life? This life that no one believed I would be around to see.

As each year has passed, I feel with each accomplishment, I have proven to me what trusting in life can do, believing in one can do. Still I have to prove to others every time a new challenge presents itself. Not everyone, but many. Again, no one says it – but they say it by omission.

Say it.

Say it to yourself.

The only thing that is different today is now I have a track record. People see that but still doubt. It takes enough energy to believe in me, let alone make you believe in me. Honestly it just makes me want to smack them. And that is the anger, the drive, the fire inside of me.

Why can’t one stand from a place of belief and see what I can do?

What you can do?

What everyone can do?

Why can’t people come from a place – “I accept you. I believe in you.”

Just say it.

Damn it, I am going to continue to live my life, the life that inspires me. The life I know I have the ability to live, that I believe in, until I say, “Let’s pack this up, I am done.”