From a young
age, perhaps five or six years old, I was suspicious of my own self in the
sense that I knew I was different. At
Christmas, I had longed for dollhouses when my two younger brothers wanted
trucks. I liked to sit quietly and read or
write while my brothers tossed a football outside. I enjoyed watching my mother cook while my
brothers were content with eating what she prepared. Though odd, these things did not define
me. I was much more than a boy who
played with dollhouses, much more than a quiet artist, and my interest in
cuisine was seemingly benign. Yet these
traits were the seeds of my otherness,
the characteristics that would set me apart from the majority of society for
the rest of my life.
Had I known
that when I grew older I would come to despise the flowers that had bloomed
from those seeds, I may have dug them out as a child and disposed of those
precarious little capsules. When the
time of puberty came and those flowers began to open, I would spend most of my
days picking away their petals, hiding them from everyone. I couldn’t let them know of my otherness. I couldn’t let anyone see that I was
different. The flowers that grew on the
outside were the easy ones to prune. Outwardly,
I may have appeared as a normal teenage boy, but on the inside there was an
entire garden of blossoms opening in my lungs, my ribcage, and in my heart,
too. These blooms weren’t so easy to
weed away, for removing them came with sacrifice. Taking away the blossoms of my lungs would
risk losing the artistry to which breath was so vital, the steady rhythm of
inhalation and exhalation, of inspiration and creation. To dispose of the roses in my heart would
mean to extract and eliminate love. So
it became that I could not bear to remove these internal flowers, and I surrendered
to the spring inside me.
I was afraid to
name this feeling, this otherness,
but in the winter of my senior year, I would find the person in whom I could finally
confide. We met in February on one of
the coldest days that winter, and I can remember my parents telling me not to
go out because I might get frostbite.
The chance was obscure, and I dismissed it in my mind because I had
already become set on meeting this boy.
We had chatted on Facebook and arranged to meet up to go sledding. He was two years older than me. As I walked toward the intersection at which
we had agreed to meet, the snow fell lightly and I could hear the sound of my
long, blue sled dragging in the gray slush on the streets. My heart pounded with a nervous thunder that
I had never known. As I got closer and
closer, I wondered if I had made a bad decision, but my heart clamored on and
on, expressing its desire with a reverberating go, go, go.
When
I came face-to-face with this boy, we greeted each other and then decided to go
onward with our sledding adventure. We walked for a few
minutes to a cemetery where there was a big hill, perfect for sledding. After going up and down a few times, we were
both worn out, so he decided to lie down in the snow. I stayed standing, gazing at his frame
against the white canvas beneath him. I
silently admired his beauty. This kind
of attraction was something that I had never experienced before. When he finally opened up his pretty blue
eyes, we had a brief conversation about the wonder of winter, how gorgeous
snowfall was, and then we decided to leave.
After we parted,
I went home with a tingly feeling in my heart and a smile on my face. A few hours later, I received a text from him
asking me the question I had avoided up until now. It was the one question I was so afraid to
answer. Are you gay? Deep down, I
knew the answer, but I didn’t know if I was ready to tell someone. I carried this secret all my life, and I
finally found someone who I knew was like me, someone that would
understand. I was resistant to admit the
truth. My stomach was in knots, but I
thought about how much I enjoyed spending time with him earlier that day. My heart knew the answer. He was the first person I told.
We continued to talk, and after
a few months’ time, we came to a mutual decision to be in a relationship. I saw him in secret, keeping this detail of
my life from my closest friends and family.
I really wanted to tell them all about the wonderful things I was
experiencing. One of our first official
dates took place watching a 3-D documentary about deep space called Hubble.
We sat in front of a giant Omnimax screen, exploring the mysteries of
the cosmos, when he reached out for my hand in the dark. This small act, a simple holding of hands,
felt absolutely magical to me. Here I
was, learning about the vastness of the universe, how humanity was smaller than
a speck of dust in the celestial sense, and I could feel that isolation
mirrored in my own existence. And here
he was, reaching out in the nothingness, taking hold of my hand to affirm that
we don’t exist in a vacuum; we do not—I did not—exist alone. I had never gotten the chance to have someone
to call my own, to feel young love, like all my peers in high school had. I had lived in romantic isolation for so long
because I was afraid of what being gay meant for me. As time went on and we got closer, living a
double-life became too hard to handle, and I knew I could no longer keep up
with the façade. One day in May marked the
most important decision of my life. It
was the day I chose to let the outside flowers grow.
That day I
walked to my favorite spot in the neighborhood.
My house was at the bottom of a hill and at the top was an open field of
grass. In this field was a row of
crabapple trees, and at one end of the grass, closest to the street on which I
lived, there was a crabapple tree that grew all by itself. This tree in particular was perfect for
climbing, and I was rather arboreal in nature, so I spent much of my teenage
years sitting inside of this tree reading, writing, or just thinking about
life. The crabapple tree was in full
blossom, a beautiful display of pink flowers that ranged in hues from pastel to
neon. The blossoms’ aroma was
captivating and alluring, a scent that I can recall vividly on any day. I felt peaceful vibrations from this tree,
like I could sense its tranquil spirit. I
climbed into the tree, feeling anxious, alone, and afraid. I meditated among the flowers, asking for
strength and courage to be myself. As I
waited for some kind of response, I felt an overwhelming calmness and sense of
loving kindness, what Buddhists would call metta. It felt like the crabapple tree was embracing
me, wrapping me in its sympathetic branches and entwining its healing tendrils
around my fearful soul. It was as if the
tree whispered to me, “Hush, child. Don’t be so afraid to let your colors show.” The wind blew through the leaves and flowers
delicately, releasing the perfume of the tiny works of art. I could have sat in this sanctuary forever,
but I knew I had to leave. I had
something to share with my family and friends.
As I descended
from the sweet-smelling branches, I walked home with flowers in my hair and
began to write a coming out letter. I
had decided to write my parents a letter because I worried about the outcome if
I were to talk to them in person. The confession was long and explanatory, and
I left out no details regarding my otherness,
the fact that I was gay. Writing the
truth was painfully difficult for me. I
was so afraid of what everyone would think.
I wrote the letter with pain and tears, and it took all the courage I
could muster to finish and sign that piece of paper. When I handed it to my mother and went to
work for the day, it felt like handing over a loaded gun. I felt my heart flutter and I knew there was
no backing out. The truth was
there. I could no longer hide in my
solitude or stay in the darkness. The
lies that had become a part of me were being torn away, and there was nothing
left but light.
While my
friends were extremely supportive after finding out, my parents’ reaction
created a gash in our relationship. My father
stopped talking to me and my mother wept quietly. I had no choice but to accept the openness of
the wound, and while I knew it would heal, it would leave a scar, and things
would never look the same. Ultimately, what
really mattered to me was the feeling of liberation. I no longer had to suppress a part of my
identity, and I didn’t have to love in secret.
I embraced this otherness. I allowed all the parts of me to bloom. Accepting myself at that point in time
sparked the start of a lifetime journey of self-discovery. I could no longer see my otherness as a curse. It was
a blessing and has always been a blessing.
I was given a queer set of eyes with which to see the world. Through those beautiful, kaleidoscopic
lenses, I see sameness in all the difference.
I see love in all the hate. And I
have been gifted with a loving heart, one that blooms with the most precious of
roses, that loves freely, even when I’m reminded of the thorns.
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