love and hate in the ATL

I’ve been living in inman park for 2 months now, and I’m just beginning to comprehend how amazing it is to live intown. I’ve discovered that I like biking, and have amazing greenspace and bike trails less than a mile from my house; I’m running through 100+ year old neighborhoods every other day; I walk the dogs through freedom and inman parks daily and see all kinds of interesting things and people along the way. Not only that, but on the non-healthy side, I walk to restaurants and can get tipsy and walk back home, and I can walk to all the shops in L5P and hilands. I fully understand now why people (including me) pay exorbitant prices to live here – it’s a lifestyle. My scope has gotten so small that even Decatur seems like Loganville now.

When I was just another snellvillian, downtown Atlanta was non-existant…certainly not somewhere you’d want to live. VaHi and Buckhead were already peaking, and Midtown was coming of age, but that’s it, and none of these places resemble what they did just a short 15 years ago. Now, I see people walking their dogs through the business districts, families walking and playing in the parks after work, and healthy development cropping up everywhere. For the first time, I’m kind of proud to be in Atlanta.

HOWEVER. While I’m falling in love with my birth city for the first time, the fact that I’m living in a state that refuses to acknowledge my status (gay and partnered) irks me more and more. I feel like a hypocrite, like I can’t complain about it because, well, I choose to live here. Of course, I have lobbied our representatives and governor, but nothing is going to change in pray-for-rain’s term as governor. The divide between the ITP and OTP folks just keeps growing, and even though the taxes generated ITP fund the state, the policies are made OTP with no regard for the city at all (no transportation $$, no MARTA funding, no social equality, etc.). I’ve having a big conflict, because I deride gays who go spend their weekends (and $$) in Pensacola because FL law HATES gays (worse than GA) but then I live in GA. i don’t know, I have a feeling, but I don’t know what it is. Like a changing feeling…like I’m changing. these social issues are becoming more and more important as i age, and i don't know what to do with them, other than to give more money to the ACLU. however, i don't think that will satiate the need to help change things for long, though i'm sure the ACLU won't complain.