There are
certain moments in your life you go, “Crap, this is so not how this is supposed to go.” For me, it started around 4th
grade. I distinctly remember sitting in
the upstairs of the barn at one of my friend’s houses and thinking, “That felt
nice when we were wrestling around.”
“Shit. No. Ewe. That’s gross!” Well 4th grade wasn’t the
end. Fast forward to eighth grade when
one my friends came out as gay and I thought, “Wow, I’ve never known someone
who’s gay, maybe I’m…” “Shit. No. Ewe.
That’s gross!” Take it one more
year and suddenly I’m on a swim team, surrounded by guys in Speedos. “Holy crap, why is his suit bulging like
that? I wonder what his looks
like.” “Shit. No.
Ewe. That’s gross!” Jump up to senior year of high school, I’ve
had two girlfriends and I’m thinking, “I just don’t think I feel the same way
about them as I do about him.”
“Shit. No. Ewe.
That’s gross!”
You see, I
was raised in a Lutheran bubble. A man
had four duties.
1.
Marry a woman
2.
Impregnate said woman.
3.
Provide for said woman (and resulting offspring of duty #2).
4.
Make sure woman (and resulting offspring) are also Lutheran.
It was
pretty basic. It was hard to imagine
really messing it up. We went to church
every Sunday and listened to the pastor speak of the Commandments, becoming
“fishers of men,” and listening to the Good Word that has been specifically
created and inspired by God.
Confirmation class taught me the nitty-gritties of the Bible I wasn’t
quite aware of until 7th grade.
1.
If you have “feelings” in your pants, you should:
a.
Masturbate with a reckless abandonment.
b.
Find the nearest human and hump it.
c.
Take a cold shower.
“Ooooh…
that’s what all those cold shower jokes on TV are about…”
2.
When you have sex you should:
a.
Wear condoms, they’re fun!
b.
Insert in unexpected places.
c.
Be married and produce a baby.
“Wait,
what’s a condom…?”
3.
If you have feelings for another boy you should:
a.
Lick his toes.
b.
Show him your wiener.
c.
Ask the pastor to do an exorcism on you.
“Shit. No.
Ewe. That’s gross!”
Yes, I had
the distinct honor of learning in 8th grade that I was indeed,
“gross.” And if having the pastor
tell me how wrong it was wasn’t enough, I was lucky enough to be surrounded
by people who could remind me. “Faggot,”
quickly become a most common phrase in my everyday conversations. “That’s so gay,” was an easy out to explain
the disdain one held for anything distinctly stupid. “Queerbag,” become a simple term to toss at
someone who was being weird and annoying.
Yes, it was a daily reminder of the, “Shit. No.
Ewe. That’s gross!” that was
often ringing in my ears the second a guy with a nice butt would be walking in
front of me in the halls.
Then
something started to change in my life.
I dated someone- A GIRL. One
Taylor Keenan was the first to look at me and say, “Eric, don’t say that’s so
gay. I hate it when you do that.” It got me thinking. It got me thinking that maybe it wasn’t right
to say that. Maybe it wasn’t right to
make fun of people for being gay. Maybe
it wasn’t right because there might not be anything wrong with someone who’s
gay. Wait, no, that’s not right, because
gays are going to hell and anyone going to hell is wrong and they should be
judged.
And I held
pretty strong to this for quite some time.
But Taylor did something, she lit a spark in me; a spark that with a
little bit of kindling quickly grew into a fire. I saw friends coming out as gay and being
happy and successful. I got behind them slowly
and quietly. I began to drop the term,
“gay,” as a derogatory term out of my vocabulary. I began to make my own decisions rather than
the decision I was told I should make my entire life. And then I went to college.
There’s
something that happens to you when you go to college. You’re free.
You start looking into politics and deciding what candidate you should
vote for without asking your parents first.
You miss a Sunday or two of church because you were a bit too hung over
to wake up on time (and maybe because you didn’t really care to attend that much in
the first place). And most importantly,
you start to step outside of your “safe zone.”
I remember
the first time I kissed a boy, the electricity that I felt shoot across my skin
as every hair on my body stood on end, the way my heart started thumping like
it was pumping molasses through my body, the way my eyes closed with such ease
and my stomach finally settled to a place I’d never felt it settle before. I remember the feeling of my tongue, as it
finally understood what it was supposed to do when you kiss. I remember my knees wanting to give out and
my body wanting to throw itself against the wall and be stripped of every piece
of clothing on my body. I remember
feeling happy.
And then I
remember feeling guilty. I remember
feeling like I’d betrayed my mother, my father, my siblings, my friends,
myself. I remember feeling like I was
going to go to hell. I remember feeling
like ants were crawling all over my body tearing me apart one tiny piece at a
time. I remember crying. I remember hiding under my covers and
shaking. I remember drinking. I remember getting myself sick. I remember shutting down.
It took me
twenty years and some very special people to show me there was nothing wrong with
me. They helped me pull the demons out
of my closets, spit in their faces, and say, “no more.” They showed me that it isn’t something you
decide over night. It’s something that
takes time; I had to come out to myself before I could come out to others. They showed me the solace that was in me the
entire time and the fight I had deep down in my gut to brawl for my
happiness. And I did. I fought and I brawled and I wept and I
celebrated, but never did I take a step back.
Every step forward was a step closer to a new life, a happier life.
There were
heartbreaks. It wasn’t always easy. The people who began the journey with me are
not the people I stand with today. I
lost relationships, I burnt bridges, I experienced betrayal. But never, even for all the money in the
world, would I take back one moment in my journey to who I am today.
Today I can
stand with my arm around my partner and say, “I am gay, and I am
proud of my identity.” I am in shock,
every day, at the path I have traveled, but I am awe at the path that
the world around me has traveled- and the horizon that shows our paths will soon meet. I turn on my television and see
gay men raising a child together- on more than one channel. I watch YouTube videos telling youth, “It
gets better.” I go on my Facebook and
see friends, colleagues, and celebrities littering my feed with posts about
LBGT equality. I watch the results of
state elections and see three more states get added to the growing list of
states recognizing gay marriage. I watch
a president and vice president who openly support LBGT equality get reelected,
and with wild support.
I know that
there are so many youth today who are saying, “Shit. No.
Ewe. That’s gross.” But I also know the world they are walking
into is opening its arms for them. It
took a lot of open arms for me to find the confidence to be myself, so I’m
eagerly excited for the open arms these youth will find.
Thank you
to all my friends who have held their arms open for me, I owe my life to you.
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