Post the Sixty-Eighth: In Which We’re Coming Out.
My mothers eyes, rimmed with tears, looked up at me, in the grassy verge beside the road. “Is it true? What Hannah said? Are you -”
I cut her off with a prepared statement. “Yes, Ma. I’m gayer than a Victorian lady on a picnic.”
She didn’t laugh.
Cue Diana Ross, Gentle Reader.
*********
I’d come out at school about six months after my dear personal friend Mr. C. W. L. Darling. I’d been very careful up to that point – I wore only beige, and whenever anyone asked me if I was gay (at least twice a week) I had carefully answered “no.” But the time had come: One brave grey morning, exactly like any other in the fog around the buses, I told my best friends my biggest secret: “Emily, Christopher, I’m gay.”
Of course, the whole school knew by noon.
This was a shame, because I’d hand-written coming-out letters to most of the class of 2003.
Well, time passed, and I hadn’t said a word to my folks. I carried extra clothes in my backpack so that I could queer it up on the bus, after I’d left the house. At one point, I had visiting cards made up.
And then, over the next few months, I grew complacent. I was terrified of telling my family, but I was completely out at school. Things grew comfortable.
Somehow, word had gotten to my mother’s friend’s 12-year-old daughter. We were visiting for some reason or another, and she came running in – she scooped up a seat at the table, listened intently to the talk, and when a break in conversation presented itself, said something that changed my life forever.
“Tyler, are you gay?”
I didn’t answer properly. I blushed, stammered, said “NO!” loudly, and then it was time to go. All sixteen years of me were shaken.
And now we’re back at the start of this post, Gentle Reader!
I begged my mother not to tell anyone. I was certain that my father would kick me out of the house – though a gentle, kind man, he had a darkness within him. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone at all.
But my MOTHER was!
Every second-cousin thrice-removed was soon getting a friendly phone call. Though I’d begged her to keep it to herself, Maman decided that she didn’t want anyone who couldn’t handle homosexuality in her life. I was mortified; all agency had been removed from my hands – a moment had been robbed from me.
Plus, my father vanished when he heard the news. He packed a suitcase and left.
That was that; there was no going back.
At school? Things were mostly okay. I’d get called faggot, occasionally, but I never got into a physical fight.
My grandparents pretended that nothing had happened.
My mother joined PFLAG, and, frankly, made my coming-out all about her.
My dad came back home after a week or so, and we never spoke of that again.
All in all? Things turned out for the best. Even so, I feel as if I was robbed of something, all those years ago.
Happy Pride, Gentle Reader!
Tagged: Coming Out, Coming Out Stories, Gay, Gay Youth, Gayer Than A Victorian Lady On A Picnic, Gossip, LGBT, LGBTQIA, Pride, Queer, Queer Youth, QUILTBAG, Victorian Ladies On Picnics, Wanton Sex Goddess
