GAY!, GAY GAy Gay…w

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.” -Tennessee Williams

This post has been a long time in the making. Perhaps I was avoiding it or perhaps I thought it didn’t actually matter. Now, it does, either because I feel the need to discuss it or I feel the need to make this blog the truest representation of myself as possible. In July of 2010(four long years ago) as I was being prepped for my last surgery—the one in my eyes that was the most important—I gave my parents both mom and dad three page letters. They weren’t letters of defense or letters of ill intent; rather they were letters of truth and love. I knew that from that moment things were going to change. I knew that from then on I would be looked at differently in their eyes. I knew that these were the kinds of things that change everything.

           I explained to them that I loved them. I explained that their son was still the same. I explained I like boys. I explained what had been on my mind for the last eight years; from my ill-fated attempts of self-denial, and repression to my attempts to change the way my mind and body worked. I even jokingly discussed how suicide seemed like 'such a messy option.' The undertones of depression and self-loathing my high school and college years had brought with them were rather unnecessary looking back on it all. This stupid inner struggle that caused me an extraordinary amount of anxiety all because I felt I couldn’t let it out. Finally, when faced with my own mortality, it came pouring out—flooding really.

            Without going into too much detail, those letters did change it all. My proud, conservative parents were truly tormented by the revelations of who there son really was. It was so drastic in fact that I stayed at different friends houses for weeks after getting out of the hospital, until I finally was able to return to Savannah to school. They demanded that I change, that I seek counseling, that I pray this ‘perversion’ away from my life. It was horrible particularly because I was fully reliant upon them financially and physically. I happily went to a small army of clergy and religious counselors, and no, these were not happy times. I write ‘happily’ because in contrast to keeping it in for so long I felt free. I felt lighter than I ever had in my life.

            I went into this weird phase of abandonment. Family and friends, it was pretty rough especially on the heels of trying to apply to graduate schools and finish undergrad less than well physically. My roommate was without a doubt the one that pulled me through. She kept me moving forward and focused on the future—the only light that the tunnel had to offer. 

            
     Time is a valuable vessel. Slowly my parents began to speak plainly to me again and replace this issue with other concerns (health, jobs, money, etc.) Today,  it isn’t discussed, which I’m fine with, however I sometimes need to discuss my dating life with family, which is yet to, nor will probably ever be an option. The most surprising outcome of the matter has been in the reactions of those around me. Those who I were the most afraid to tell were the ones who received it the best and vice versa.[It is a fascinating gesture that in the blink of an eye a friend can stop knowing you or a family member stop caring for you.Or you can instantly become the talk of a town(Let's face it: I was born to be the talk of the town)] 
  My home pastor was not as supportive on the matter as I hoped he would be, however living away from home has given me the opportunity to join churches of loving and accepting Christians that make my life fulfilling. The feeling to be accepted completely in a church family is something that is indescribable.

 I needed to write about it because I’m tired of skirting the issue on my blog, and where else if any should I be able to be fully open about my life in totality.