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Can you tell me ANYTHING POSITIVE about being a HOMOSEXUAL? For me, the best thing about being gay is the sense of freedom and honesty. For the longest time before I came out, I was constantly lying to other people about where I was going and what I was doing. At that time, I was still living with @ home and I was lying about everything I did when I wasn’t around my family. Once the closet door opened, the lies stopped and I began LIVING my truth. My life changed and I lost my family forever. Looking back, it seems funny that while I was in the closet and lying to these people, they were content with my life, but the moment I stopped lying to them, they couldn't accept it and our FAMILY ended! OH WELL, THAT’S LIFE...
To me, losing in this way is no big deal or was it? I had to dig deep and become comfortable and happy with myself; finding the ME that the world didn’t want to see (ESPECIALLY MY FAMILY). I like to think of my time in the closet and being repressed has helped form me into the WONDERFUL MAN that I am! I used to pray that I didn’t turn into or end up like the gay people I would hear my family often talk about. But because of that, I'm fearless about it now. My sense of freedom comes from no longer having to lie. And even though my FAMILY had a difficult time accepting me as being gay, they still had to admit that I was their SON, BROTHER, NEPHEW, COUSIN & GRANDSON. BUT TO HECK WITH THEM!
I am in touch with my sexuality. I am in touch with the part of myself that WE value more than anything. Hence the greatest thing about being gay is simply the STRENGTH TO BE GAY. The toil and confusion that often goes on, the threat of being abandoned by your family and friends...this creates the inner strength to come-out, standing up tall. Being HOMOSEXUAL taught me how to handle my insecure feelings about being daring, unique, an individual. I had to be fully self aware (or at least as much as one can be at 20) and tough as nails to come out to my family. Any show of "WEAKNESS" would ruin my opportunity to show them that being a gay man was not something to be ashamed of, sorry for, but rather something to be proud of...not because it makes me special but because it doesn’t make me any different/less of a man.
Through living my live as a HOMOSEXUAL; I can say that I have gained some of the most beautiful friendships through the gay community. The one thing I love is that I get an intense joy being in the company of other MEN independent of anything explicitly sexual, and this is to me the most enjoyable aspect...Funny how MEN are so much more fun and satisfying to be around and WOMEN tend to be jealous by that fact. But overall I think the one perk of being gay simply boils down to ACCEPTING who you are…NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN BEAT THAT...
You lost your family, but you gained your authenticity. It's a tragic, but a very worthwhile trade-off.
ReplyDeleteIf someone loves you, he/she will love you no matter what. If they only love you because of their image of you, and reject you once you do not conform to that image, then they never really loved you in the first place.
In my opinion, the two greatest values one can have are the capacity to love, and courage. And from what you write, you possess both of these values!
This is a post so many people can relate to, even if they have not "come-out" - they know the risk and the potential to lose family.
ReplyDeleteI applaud you for your courage to do the right thing - there is no wrong in what you have done.
Like the reader above commented - you have two great values.
Whatever the consequences and sacrifices, everyone deserves the satisfaction of being themselves. In the end, that's basically what matters most!
ReplyDeleteI love that pic. Is it one of Belasco's? In terms of what you wrote, I think that without an analysis of oppression, power, subjugation, privilege and domination it can be difficult to find peace let alone pleasure in the self for any of us. I think that this is part of how domination functions? Why would we want to be who we are when we've been told that someone else is more legitimate, more moral, more lovable, more beautiful, more worthy of a creator's protection, more proper, more appropriate? It makes sense that folks would be struggling with feeling as if they have to search to find positives about identities and ways of being that are constructed as unacceptable. But when ask ourselves and each other questions about who is deciding the criteria for worth, why they are deciding in favour of some and not others, who stands ultimately to benefit and what the end game looks like the arbitrary nature of the criteria for worth and the privilege conferred on those who fit these trumped up standards ends up being exposed. We start self validating and what church or family or straight friends or the society says ends up being put in context in ways that offer us...at least space to love ourselves. I don't think it's that easy to vanquish systemic queer oppression but not oppressing ourselves or allowing others the space to intimately oppress us might have to be enough.
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