A change of opinion doesn't make you weak.

My principal, whom I adore, is currently reading An Illusion of Control. Earlier today, I received a message from her that said, "The way you weave messaging through the story is incredible," and while my first instinct was to blush because this compliment really meant a lot, my second instinct was to acknowledge the fact that in writing Illusion, I actually changed my own opinions about some things... and in doing so, I think I became a better person.

As an English teacher, I have always struggled with the concept of using "they" to represent a singular. This probably stems from the fact that, while growing up, my mother would always correct me if I used "they" instead of "he" or "she." I will be the first to admit that I really, really, really struggle to refer to a student as "they" if that's what they prefer. And I mess up sometimes. A lot of the time, in fact. I mess up a lot of the time, but I try to get it right.

There's a character in An Illusion of Control whose granddaughter prefers the pronoun "they." The grandfather's name is Thaddeus; the granddaughter's name is Emily. In writing Illusion, while I challenged Thaddeus to grow as a character, I decided to also challenge myself to grow as a human. Want to know how I did this? I wrote Chapter Twenty-Four, which is titled Crossfaded.

For those who don't know, the definition of crossfaded is as follows:

Each chapter in An Illusion of Control follows a different character, and the character followed in Crossfaded is Emily. Do you know what that means? That means I had to challenge myself to use the pronoun "they" every single time my instinct was to use the pronoun "she" or "her." And it was hard! It required a whole bunch of editing. I mean, I made mistakes left and right in Chapter Twenty-Four, and every single mistake was pronoun-related.

Do you know what writing Crossfaded taught me, though? It taught me that using "they" to reference a singular isn't the end of the world. And it taught me that if it makes someone comfortable, then what's the harm in using that person's preferred pronoun? And it taught me that my comfort absolutely isn't worth more than someone else's. And it taught me that if the use of the word "they" as a singular isn't causing harm to me, why should it even be an issue?

So now I use "they" more readily for singular pronoun usage, and though I still mess up quite frequently, I am continuing to try to do better.

I changed my opinion and do you know what? It didn't make me weak. If anything, I think it made me a stronger person.