MoveAlong
May 25th, 2011, 10:42 PM
Just a few moments ago, I came out through Facebook. Now, I know the views about that. Let me just say it was the best way I thought I could do it. Let me tell you why.
Coming out, for most of us, is a huge event that resembles the acceptance of our identity. Even if we know and "accept" ourselves in silence, the world really is about people. It's about friends. And finding the right ones who accept us for who we are, when so much of the world is mad at us for bad reasons.
Ever since I was 12 years old, I knew I was gay. I was part of a sort of private school and I came out at that school - I was actually very open about it, because I've always been daring. The hate I experienced at that school was crushing for my age. People who I was okay with and even enjoyed seemed to morph into monsters who cast words and fingers at me. I just had to escape.
My mom, who I came out to before I did so at the bad school, was gracious enough to move me to a public school that year - a school that I always passed by in the car but never entered. There, I created a new person - a person who was straight.
Now before this my life had been so unstable because of my behavioral issues that I was pretty much a blank slate - I never watched movies. I never listened to popular music. I never had friends. I never slept over. So besides wiping out such a negatively associated label - gay - I began building who I was all around from 8th grade.
Through Jr. High, I declared that there is no way I could come out - I had no plan, no area of time that I imagined that I would be true to people.
Through Jr. High and High School, up until this year, I had formed this cocoon around me. This alias, this false identity, of being a straight person, never being called a name, never that label being something that people put at the entrance of our friendship. This shell was so soft, so safe, so who I became. I didn't want to break from it.
In High School, life became more real. I was able to discover my passion - all things singing - and meet people who are the most incredible people I've ever met - way more incredible than any celebrity or person I've heard about over the news. These people were real. These people cared about me. These people helped me become who I am today.
And there were times where my secret barrier began to creak and buckle under the pressure. The pressure of lying to people who care about me. The pressure of accepting myself as a gay man, and assuming my dreams - a house, a life, with a man that I love. Because I wasn't free to my friends I never had the chance to be free to myself.
I felt these people should know. Because I care about them. Sure, it may be a little dramatic. But I needed to every one of them, and I couldn't do it one-by-one. Facebook wasn't too over the top and it was a way to broadcast it and get it over with.
I know I won't retain every one of my friends in the same way, but I think by being truthful to the people who care about me, I can become closer to them.
The person who I've build it astounding. And with graduation tomorrow, my future is right in front of me, a open door of pouring white light that I'm ready to step into.
It's truly amazing you've read this much. You're in the percentile. Thanks for reading, and I hope that you can take something from this. This helped me summarize and that's definitely what I need after all of these feelings over the years :)
Coming out, for most of us, is a huge event that resembles the acceptance of our identity. Even if we know and "accept" ourselves in silence, the world really is about people. It's about friends. And finding the right ones who accept us for who we are, when so much of the world is mad at us for bad reasons.
Ever since I was 12 years old, I knew I was gay. I was part of a sort of private school and I came out at that school - I was actually very open about it, because I've always been daring. The hate I experienced at that school was crushing for my age. People who I was okay with and even enjoyed seemed to morph into monsters who cast words and fingers at me. I just had to escape.
My mom, who I came out to before I did so at the bad school, was gracious enough to move me to a public school that year - a school that I always passed by in the car but never entered. There, I created a new person - a person who was straight.
Now before this my life had been so unstable because of my behavioral issues that I was pretty much a blank slate - I never watched movies. I never listened to popular music. I never had friends. I never slept over. So besides wiping out such a negatively associated label - gay - I began building who I was all around from 8th grade.
Through Jr. High, I declared that there is no way I could come out - I had no plan, no area of time that I imagined that I would be true to people.
Through Jr. High and High School, up until this year, I had formed this cocoon around me. This alias, this false identity, of being a straight person, never being called a name, never that label being something that people put at the entrance of our friendship. This shell was so soft, so safe, so who I became. I didn't want to break from it.
In High School, life became more real. I was able to discover my passion - all things singing - and meet people who are the most incredible people I've ever met - way more incredible than any celebrity or person I've heard about over the news. These people were real. These people cared about me. These people helped me become who I am today.
And there were times where my secret barrier began to creak and buckle under the pressure. The pressure of lying to people who care about me. The pressure of accepting myself as a gay man, and assuming my dreams - a house, a life, with a man that I love. Because I wasn't free to my friends I never had the chance to be free to myself.
I felt these people should know. Because I care about them. Sure, it may be a little dramatic. But I needed to every one of them, and I couldn't do it one-by-one. Facebook wasn't too over the top and it was a way to broadcast it and get it over with.
I know I won't retain every one of my friends in the same way, but I think by being truthful to the people who care about me, I can become closer to them.
The person who I've build it astounding. And with graduation tomorrow, my future is right in front of me, a open door of pouring white light that I'm ready to step into.
It's truly amazing you've read this much. You're in the percentile. Thanks for reading, and I hope that you can take something from this. This helped me summarize and that's definitely what I need after all of these feelings over the years :)