Trying to Come Out

I've been toying with the idea of writing a blog for some time now.

For some reason, I feel I have something to say, to whom, I'm not sure. I think it might be liberating to pseudo-anonymously share my thoughts with the world. I don’t have the courage yet to put my name behind this, because I’m still coming to terms with both what I really want to say and how that may conflict with the public persona I’ve crafted over the years. Not that I'm well-known, or anything like that. It's just that I have tried to convince myself that I'm loyal to my party of record for the last five or more years, and I've been reasonably successful at convincing others that "I'm one of them" ---- until the Sunday of the DNC.

Thousands of times I have swallowed my real opinions and have nodded my head and murmured, "how interesting" rather than have the balls to tell a colleague, a casual acquaintance and even a friend what I'm really thinking, because I don't want them to reject me for my "radical" views. (I really don't think anyone will care, but I just want to be spared the inevitable "you're so well-educated, so smart, etc, how can you be a xxxx?????") Maybe I'm selling my peers short, but their vitriol about alternative political views suggests I proceed with caution.

For context, here's a brief bio: I'm a 33 year-old woman, living in Denver, just outside of Downtown off of the great and much maligned Colfax Avenue. I've been married for nine years. We have a cat. I am a consultant, and I serve on two non-profit boards in my community. In my neighborhood, 90% of the registered voters share my current party affiliation. The other Party doesn't even bother to run candidates in my district, because there's no point; they'd lose.

Despite this, the Conventions have forced me to admit that I've been leading a bit of a double life. I'd like to use this blog as an avenue to address this. You see, I'm trying to come out of a closet of my own creation.

I think I'm a Republican.