i'll be pulling heavily from a gig i did at loyola this week, but also from a blog post by a gay man that really irked me.
...so part 1.
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on monday, i was the guest for a graduate class at loyola.
the class was part of the curriculum in higher education administration, and for almost 2.5 hours, i talked about what it was like to be gay on a college campus.
the very first question i was to address: when did you first know you were gay and what was your pattern of realization?
i told them while this was delivered almost as a single question, that for me, it really was two separate questions - when did i know and when did i realize it or accept it as truth.
i knew i was gay in the summer of 1988. honestly, i probably knew before then, but my earliest memory of being gay is at the tender age of 6. my eldest cousin would often babysit me that summer when i would refuse to accompany my family to an out-of-town softball tournament or arena soccer round-robin. she'd bring popcorn and videos, and we would stay up late into the night with all of our favorite teen stars.
the night we watched "lucas" i knew i was gay.
charlie sheen was the most gorgeous, beautiful, perfect thing i had ever seen in my entire life.
...and kerri green was an evil bitch monster from hell because jealousy is a heinous creature like that.
that's when i knew, and i'd go on knowing for years and years.
i'd know while i was the first chair saxophonist and dodgeball captain in grade school. i'd know while i was a track star and state-recognized artist in junior high. i'd know while i was co-captain of the junior varsity tennis team and the lead in the high school musical.
regardless, i'd date girls. i'd have feelings for them. i'd ignore that part of me that said something about these relationships wasn't complete. i'd go through the motions, and i'd never forget the choreography.
it wasn't until college that i made the realization. it wasn't until my 20th year that i truly knew what i had known since birth. my sophomore year of college, the pieces finally came together, and i realized i was gay. i've mentioned before that this was an incredibly dark period of my life. i was horribly depressed - not because i was gay, as i had known that for years, but because i now realized the lie i had lived and the lie i could no longer live - and i was drinking myself into a place where i couldn't feel the pain... or anything else for that matter.
slowly, my wounds healed. i picked myself up. friends got me to my feet. i took back my life and gave my liver a much needed breather. and as is my nature, i started doing my research.
i read everything and anything about being gay, living gay, eating gay, and breathing gay. i gathered a gaggle of gay friends, and we shared experiences, stories, beers, and boyfriends. i started being active in gay groups and events on campus... and the gayer i got. the more out my life became. the more i realized that "gay" things are really just people things.
those parts of my life that i thought didn't make sense, the parts that made me question who i was and whether i could really be this gay person, they didn't disconnect anymore. i could be a strong musician and track star and tennis captain and artist. i could be a million other things, too. they weren't mutually exclusive anymore. living was the oxymoron, and my life wasn't dichotomous - gay and straight - but rather fluid... moving from one human experience to the next. it didn't matter if bits of me seemed juxtaposed. that was life.
and i was alive.
being the person i was, the person i am, and the person i will be.
posted by brett @ 10:53 AM
1 Comments:
this is a great post. I feel like I should reflect more on my life and when/how I came out... but lately I feel like I just don't. Perhaps this will inspire me! Perhaps...
Great post though.
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