Acceptance Makes the World Go 'Round

This post is not exactly from a prompt; I mixed a couple of them together. I have a few things I need to say, all of which surround a single topic... acceptance.

Acceptance is the reason I love anime. The sad truth of the world today is that being accepted as who you are is often a rare thing in a person's life. Everyone wears a mask (sometimes several). When I enter an anime convention, I feel my mask fade away. Anime geeks are such accepting people. I can walk up to 95% of the people and ask for a hug, and they will just open their arms for me. It's a wonderful feeling.

Acceptance is what I want most. Back in fourth grade while skipping out onto the playground and holding hands with my best friend of five years (over half my life at that point), a fifth grade boy walked up and started laughing and pointing at us. He called us gay. Being nine, I had no idea what that meant. My friend was not so sheltered. She threw my hand away as if it had burned her, ran off, and did not speak to me for years.

Then in freshman year at high school, I befriended this girl named Brittney. She was even slower than me at running the mile in gym class. We would jog together and talk about everything. A couple months into school, I mentioned that I had never been baptized. Brittney froze like a statue and stared at me as if I had just blown up into confetti bits. "You... were never baptized?" "No..." "I can't talk to you anymore..." That was that; she turned and spirited in the opposite direction, leaving me in complete shock.

Acceptance is why I am the way I am. It does not matter your past, your looks, your beliefs, your sexuality, your race, your anything. I don't care about any of that. I have seen and felt rejection, and I will accept anyone.

This is my promise to myself.