I never opened a door. I never had a "coming out" party. I never needed to. I just WAS. I knew when I was five. I didn't know what it was called at that age, but I knew I was different. I am glad I am different. It wasn't easy. There was a lot of desertion, isolation, and a lot of bullying. It hurt. It hurt like hell. The cruelest humans on earth can be kids, because along with their innocence comes the inability to understand complex human feelings the way adults can. So, they say things. They throw things. They hit you. Trip you on the bus. Make you find new, inventive ways to avoid going to class, and then to school altogether. The Librarian became my friend, and provided me safe harbor. I think she understood. Maybe she had been like me at that age. But I learned a lot about culture, art, music, the beauty in the world, in that library. All of those things happened. And it's okay, because it taught me very valuable life lessons. Most of my teenage years were spent quietly keeping my head down, trying to get through each day as unobtrusively as possible. School was a constant source of stress for me. When I was home, I spent a lot of time by myself, in my room. I needed that quiet time to rest, think, recharge. I developed a deep fear of school. My grades suffered because I had little interest in focusing on something that represented so much anxiety and pain for me. The real reason I never went to college was because I simply couldn't bear the thought of another four years in a classroom setting of any kind. I had heard college was different, but I was too frightened to take the chance of finding out for myself. The last few years of high school were not as bad; by that time, I had made a few solid friendships and gained just enough confidence to crawl out of my shell a bit; I slowly began to find my voice and speak my mind a bit. I knew I was still a misfit, but I think at some point I just stopped giving a damn what people said or thought.
As I slipped out of my teens and into my twenties, I just lived…my self-growth had been severely stunted during my later school years, so I began trying to better figure out who I was…it’s an awkward age, isn’t it? Technically you’re no longer a teenager, but you’re not really a “complete” adult either, because you are still learning about the world and how to live in it as an adult. It was during this period of my life that I met Andy. We met at work. I was warned by the manager that he was a little eccentric and some thought him difficult to get along with. My response was, “Don’t worry about that…I can handle him.” I think he liked my bold way of dealing with him. I didn’t put up with any of his trying to boss me around. Instead, I made him laugh. He was gay, but no one knew it, not even me. I mean, he hid it really well. We became best friends and soon were inseparable. He was just as lonely as I was, and we filled that void in one another perfectly. The night he confessed his feelings for me came as a shock. I hadn’t realized I loved him; it had happened gradually, and I had never been in love before, so I didn’t know what it was I was feeling. I just knew that when I was at work on days he had off, I found myself missing him. First he confessed to me that he was gay…”I guess that you would say that I am gay.” It took him ten minutes of literally pacing back and forth in front of me to finally say that. When I asked him why he was telling me this, he…I will never forget this…he knelt down on the floor so he was at eye level with me sitting on the sofa, and he told me he wanted to be with me. Later, as we lay in bed together for the first time…honest to God, nothing happened that first night, or the next few weekends, either…we were both too green and too nervous to do anything but lay in bed together and cuddle…but as we lay there that first night, we were joking about something and he laughed and said, “Shut up…I just came out of the bloody closet for you,” and I asked him why he did, and what made him finally do it and he said to me, “Because I wanted you and I knew I would lose you if I didn’t.” It was the most amazingly wonderful, surreal time, those first few weeks. It was the first time I felt truly and completely loved. People may wonder why even after all of these years, my reverence and love for Andy have never wavered. Well, that is why. I have only felt that way one other time in my life since. I pray to heaven I will experience it just one more time before I die. Sometimes, when I am feeling sad or lonely and depressed, which happens much more often than anyone knows…I think back to these times and I realize I shouldn’t be sad. I was lucky…luckier than most, because I had the real, true thing the very first time, and most people can’t say their first love was that pure and special. He was tall and lanky and was losing the hair on the top of his head and had terrible posture that I gently tried to help him correct and he was scatterbrained as hell and had this wonderful crooked little smile and the most beautiful grey-blue-green eyes…I had never seen eyes that color before or since…I think he was the only person who ever lived to have eyes that color…and God, he was my hero. He may have put me on a pedestal, and for sure he did…but to me, for all his quirks and faults, he was not of this earth.
In our own, unobtrusive way, we let others around know about us. Andy and I moved into our new home Thanksgiving weekend, and when I brought him home to my mother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, I said to her, “Andy is part of the family now, and I expect him to be treated as such.” I wasn’t confrontational or defensive when I said it, and it wasn’t a demand; it was a request, but I wanted to make it very clear right from the beginning who and what he was to me. I knew I didn’t have to worry anyway; no matter what anyone says, parents know their children. My mother knew I was gay. I’m sure it came as no surprise. So, we sat down to dinner and Andy was immediately one of us; he was estranged from most of his own family, and I wanted to give him my own. Even if there had been some hesitation from my family, I suspect they dared not challenge me. My stubborn, determined nature had been firmly established when I was still in the crib.
Being open about being gay was easy with my friends. Just as with my family, my friends had pretty much figured things out on their own long ago, and as one of my friends put it, “You guys just built a house together…so yeah, that was a dead giveaway.” We did have a few friends who not only did not accept us, but openly talked about us in a not so pleasant light. These were friends I had known since elementary school. I cut them all off immediately, and made sure they knew exactly why, and they were never to speak to me again. Coworkers were worrisome for us at first; most people get friendly with people they work with every day, so naturally you want to feel included and at ease around them. I learned very early on that people only fear what they have trouble understanding or relating to, and so I made sure people could see I was just like they were, and lived the same way, and I believe it somehow gave people a level of comfort that allowed them to just focus on me as a person. Luckily, I had the strength, or perhaps just the lack of caring what others thought, to allow me to be who I was, always. The years I spent in school had stifled me, as a method of survival, but once I stepped into adulthood, the voice I had started to find a few years before became louder and more confident.
I have always danced to the beat of my own drummer, even when it came to being gay. I don't care for gay bars or clubs, because I'm shy and strangers frighten me, and I know I won't meet, nor would I want to say I found my future husband there. Chances are the kind of man I am looking for wouldn't be there anyway. You most likely won't find me at a Pride parade, because the majority...not ALL...but the majority of people who participate in the parades don't really represent who I am. I don't need to strip to my underwear and snap and wave a flag in a crowd...I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, because we are all individual, which is what Pride is about...but it just isn't ME, and it's not MY way of showing pride. I was brought up to appreciate and practice the art of quiet dignity...that is my way, and it suits me. Here is what I AM proud of, and why...I am proud that I have had the good fortune of being in two marriages...one good (eight years), one not so good (five years)...sometimes you get the plum, sometimes you just get the pit...but both still outlasted many straight marriages or relationships, especially in this day in age. I am proud of the homes I have built with my husbands and for making them beautiful, nurturing, sanctuaries for me, my husbands, our pets, and for several years, a child. I am proud of having the opportunity, for a time, of being a parent and having the chance to help raise and guide a little one, while helping teach them tolerance and respect for others different than they were. I am immensely proud of the family and friends in my life who have always accepted, cheered for, and loved me for the person I am, never asking me to change or conform to anyone's ideas or standards but my own.
In writing this, I have been on my own, a single digit, for ten years now. Although I never expected, intended, or wanted my tenure at singledom to be this long, in that time, I have become proud of myself for continuing to define and solidify my own individual identity, and for nudging myself, forcibly, out of my own protective shell and to take a few chances, try a few new things, or do things with my life that I have always wanted to do.
So…those valuable life lessons I mentioned before…what are they, and what have they taught me? Well, the feelings I had as a child of not being accepted or understood, of being singled out and excluded…that taught me to be more accepting of others, even if I didn't understand them. I’m still learning that lesson even today. I think most of us can say that we are always learning that lesson throughout our lives. I have learned to be more cautious about ME, and who I let in, and who I don't. I have learned an awful lot about friendship, and love, and loss. I have learned that, because I live my life differently than others, there are some things I will most likely never have, or experience, that others do. You make concessions when you are different. I have learned that everything has a price. The price for never compromising who I am as a person, or how I choose to live my life, for always being true to myself, has more often than not, been loneliness. But I have always known that, even back in the school library when I was supposed to be in gym class. It's funny how so many memories from years ago are more vivid and clear than what happened yesterday. And I would do it all again, because although at times I may not be happy with certain aspects of my life, I have become happy with who I am on the inside. I am the scrawny, short kid with the glasses and mousy hair that everyone called “shrimp,” standing alone up against the brick wall of the school during recess. I am the slightly older, ugly, awkward ‘tween with the same glasses and mousy hair who hid in the back of the library so I didn’t have to face the torture of the boy’s locker room, being pinned in the corner and called “faggot” until you wanted to cry but you knew you couldn’t so you waited until you got home instead. I am the shy twenty-two year old who found acceptance and love in a soul mate that for some inexplicable reason was in awe of me for things I still cannot understand. I am the adult who has learned to be completely independent…who learned that, in the absence of someone in his life to be his superhero, could actually be his own superhero instead. I am all of these things. For better or worse, they are all still part of me, and because of it…Goddamn, do I sure as hell know who I am. I have always found a way to hold my head high; dignity, poise, and grace...my maxim. It solidifies who I am, what I am.
I am me. I am myself.
- JPD
