VaguePosting

I already have a few responses to my survey on LGBT experiences in Kosciusko County.  It's important that people have an anonymous option to tell their stories, because they wouldn't feel safe enough to share otherwise.  This means the people who choose to remain anonymous are probably going to share stories that are on the sadder side: people who have to hide a side of themselves or even a person that they love from others, people who are mistreated and can't even stand up for themselves.

I didn't expect it to get so personal, so quickly.  I mean, nothing so far is surprising, but it's still a lot to process.  A lot of excitement about what it means for the future.  A lot of heartbreak over what it means for the present.  I feel helpless, because I want to make things better, but doing anything at all (outside of the scope of this project) would make it worse.  But being trusted in this way means that I have the opportunity to be a person who is choosing not to cause harm, in a town where it can feel like anyone else with the same opportunity would cause harm.

There's a scene in the film Kinsey (2004) where Liam Neeson depicts Alfred Kinsey having a breakdown, trying to emotionally process the sheer weight of the experiences he's collecting and being crushed beneath them.  The filmmakers use imagery of scattered paperwork and physical nakedness and blood: internally he's falling apart, stripped bare, in pain.  "I couldn't help them."  And the stories he was collecting weren't even those of his people, his community, his loved ones.