i have cried about so many things in the last day. i have been reading articles, fan sites, and blogs expressing many of the same feelings i am experiencing. i am reading them all… even the ones i don’t understand.

no matter the opinion, so many people feel great passion for legend of korra.

… if i may, i would like to share something very personal. the avatar universe won my heart through its honesty. we may not like the truth, but we cannot grow without it.

i am a mother to 3 boys. when i tell people, they often say, “oh you POOR thing!”, as if i have been saddled with parasites. sometimes they “kindly” offer me hope.

“Maybe one day you will have a girl!”

for years, those encounters angered me. it became worse when strong women in my life pitied me. it was as if they believed my feminism would be lost and wasted on my “boys”.

this is hardly the case. i never treated my sons as “boys”. they were first and foremost my “satellites”. i love the universe… i love my satellites. i would never dishonor their place in this universe by narrowing the roads ahead of them. i am here to help them discover who they are, not tell them who they are…

before i continue, i would like everyone to know that i was given permission to share the following story… it’s not entirely my story. i share it with my oldest son, kai…

by the age of two, he was obsessed with reading. i remember books in his lap that were half his size. i have a vivid memory of taking a warm book out of my sleeping son’s arms and holding it to my face to feel the energy they shared. he loved talking to me about the stories he read, and he began to write his own.

when kai was older, life became complicated (as it does for everyone), and i felt my son was “searching”. i could feel that something was missing. when my son told me that he is gay, i smiled. not because “i knew”, but because of his trust. of course i had questions, but i never felt that i had done anything wrong. until the one day i was arranging books on his shelf… a lump was in my throat. never had i read a single story to my son that represented who he is. in our lives, he was never taught he was wrong to be himself, but he knew that not everyone in society agreed with his feelings. but i still felt horrid… every “happily ever after” from fairy tale to disney film failed to represent him.

last night, watching korra’s finale, i suddenly remembered the books on my son’s shelf. after all this time, i could finally share a “happily ever after” that connected our family. we cheered, i reached out for my son’s shoulder… korra is about love… the avatar universe is about love. bolin and mako’s love for one another, kuvira’s love for her people…

often, i thank the avatar crew for treating their audience (and my satellites) with respect. did you ever think that a boy in an iceberg could pave the way to what the avatar universe has become?

i did… always

thank you for all the love, honor, and respect… thank you for the truth. thank you for taking risks for every girl AND boy. i wish i could somehow describe what it feels like to be affected by these stories… i wish i could share the energy you’ve given me… my satellites… my friends.