Sunday, November 18, 2012
IT IS NEVER OVER
We sometimes think that coming out is a matter of telling people you are gay or if not that then just being gay.
This is a short sighted view.
Coming out is a process that is life long.
First, simple knowledge is not enough. A living breathing gay life is illuminating and illuminated by being gay 24/7 and not pulling any punches.
The little things count. Every little thing.
It is not necessary to give punches although some are certainly deserved when some relatives or friends maintain their silence or outright ignore your life. But that is easily remedied. If you gay and they are not in your life they are out of your life. Easy.
Then there are our immediate relatives. Our closest family.
My Mother did not want anyone to know I was gay even though I had divorced my wife and lived for years with my husband John. She didn't want anyone to know that I was an alcoholic either. And, certainly there were a whole list of embarrassments that she did not want "them" to know.
When I was younger this led to my being a sneak and a liar. Later in life it just led me to ignore my mother, consider her forms of love to be irrelevant to my life and, at the end, pretty much not be terribly grief stricken at her exit.
Tough words but what else do you say about or to someone who doesn't want you to be who you are.
Here is a Mom who wants to do it all the way and has found that all the way means just that.
Labels: coming out, gay life, holidays
