Paths We Take

Coming out to my family and friends was so much easier than I could have intellectually expected, and vastly less traumatizing than my emotional fears had prepared me for. When my Mother said, “Well, Honey, you know I don’t give a damn,” I cried. Just because I was prepared to cry, because I was expecting something awful. I cried even though she was right – I did know she didn’t give a damn.

I was 21. I am now 33.

This year, Coming Out Day came and went. I read a little blurb on a website and read a friend’s blog entry, but I did not come out. I can’t think of anyone I could have come out to. And I wanted to add to the day, to somehow contribute in these important times, but I couldn’t think of anything relevant.

Then this morning I found myself thinking of someone I know who is contributing. He wrote me months ago, asking for help. He was 32, local, and in desperate need of happiness he’d been unable to find in his church, on Christian dates, and living with shame. He was gay, he said, but didn’t know how to come out. He signed his letters anonymously, and said that he’d give me his name if we ever met in person.

We exchanged a lot of emails, and I tried to be as honest as I could. Coming out is terrifying for most people. While some may not experience difficulty at all, many experience a lot of rejection from their families or friends. And then there are the problems associated with being newly out amongst other gay men. Predators, heartbreak, rejection based on your inexperience. And for him as a Christian, drinking and drug use would make a lot of the social scenes I was familiar with uncomfortable.

We finally met for lunch, and naturally, he was frightened. Hell, I was meeting a strange man at a difficult time in his life and I was nervous. I could only imagine how he must have felt, having lunch with another gay man in open daylight. What if someone saw us? What if he bumped into someone he knew? What would he say? Surely, they’d know!

But the meeting went well. We talked about fears, plans, hopes, and we decided that everything was going to be OK.

I’ve talked to him since, and he is as I promised he would be: alternately elated, heartbroken, ecstatic, and crestfallen. He is going to a local gay church and meeting real, live men. Some, he says, are very handsome. He is having crushes and suffering disappointments. Such is the path of one learning to love, and it is difficult and exhilerating beyond description.

But oh, is love ever worth it. Everyone should know how that feels, shouldn’t they?