Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What is important is family, friends, giving back to your community and finding meaning in life.
While unions did not play a part in my family life when I was being brought up, my early years were most certainly spent in a working-class community.
I've always tried to not let movie, television or theatre be all that my life is about. I've always tried to get involved in the community or my family now I have kids.
Within a life that seems uncomfortably scripted by family and community pressures, hyper-religiosity can provide a way to break with parental expectations and flee from parental control.
I grew up with gay family members, and I went to a performing arts high school. So I grew up in children's theater, musical theater, and all of my life has been around the LGBT community.
We played out on the street every single day as a family, with neighbours, at the community centres, and I developed the desire to win very early. That environment instilled a competitive edge in me, which has paid dividends in my life.
It's a blessing that I have my family in my life and they were supportive, but there were times when I needed to find an outlet for me to understand my people and my own journey, and I found that through my chosen family, which was the ballroom community.
During the summer months of my high-school years, I befriended Dr. Robert Kough, a physician who cared for members of my family. Although he was practicing general medicine in a rural community when I met him, he was well equipped to arouse in me an interest not only in the life of a physician but in the fundaments of human biology.