11 years and one month ago, I had a revelation...
March 26, 1998
…the time has come for me to face the truth. I am gay. Those three words have been in the back of my mind since I was 14 years old, but until today, I could never say them, even to myself. This can't simply be a stage I'm going through, because stages don't last for 13 years. This realization does not bring me any particular sense of peace or well being, but a sense of loneliness because it throws into chaos all the plans I have for my life.
I don't like going to gay clubs and standing around listening to house music all night long. I think most drag queens have deep-seated emotional issues and I would never be caught dead making a fool of myself at a gay pride parade. Gay pride is a misnomer for my life. I am neither proud nor ashamed of it. It is just who I am.
I have never felt so lonely as when I am in a room full of gay men. I feel no kinship with them. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that we have in common is our sexual desire for men (real men, not effeminate male women). Other than that I am a completely average Black male.
How did I get here? When I am honest with myself, I spent the last 13 years in a fantasy world called Soon. Soon was that completely tangible, yet totally unknown day in the not-to-distant future when this stage of my existence would end. I kept thinking it would come next week, or in a month, or next year, but definitely by the time I was 18 or 21 or 25 or 30. Until today, I was always certain that it would come. Soon.
But Soon never came and now it's time I stopped bullshitting myself. Soon hasn't shown up yet and it probably never will. What the fuck am I going to do now? Soon provided the sufficient fiction on which I based everything in my life.
I know that eventually I will come to terms with my life, my mission and my place in the world. But right now, I feel completely and utterly lost…
I don't like going to gay clubs and standing around listening to house music all night long. I think most drag queens have deep-seated emotional issues and I would never be caught dead making a fool of myself at a gay pride parade. Gay pride is a misnomer for my life. I am neither proud nor ashamed of it. It is just who I am.
I have never felt so lonely as when I am in a room full of gay men. I feel no kinship with them. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that we have in common is our sexual desire for men (real men, not effeminate male women). Other than that I am a completely average Black male.
How did I get here? When I am honest with myself, I spent the last 13 years in a fantasy world called Soon. Soon was that completely tangible, yet totally unknown day in the not-to-distant future when this stage of my existence would end. I kept thinking it would come next week, or in a month, or next year, but definitely by the time I was 18 or 21 or 25 or 30. Until today, I was always certain that it would come. Soon.
But Soon never came and now it's time I stopped bullshitting myself. Soon hasn't shown up yet and it probably never will. What the fuck am I going to do now? Soon provided the sufficient fiction on which I based everything in my life.
I know that eventually I will come to terms with my life, my mission and my place in the world. But right now, I feel completely and utterly lost…
2 comments:
So I am curious, Brian, 11 years after your initial confession, what has changed for you? If you were writing your coming out again now, what would you write differently?
So true... I felt the same way when I realized the truth, at the age of 25.
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