Today is the 5-year anniversary of my coming out to my parents.
Like most people reflecting on an anniversary, I’m surprised it’s been five years.
Back in 1998, I was 17 and four days past my junior year of high school. It was a Thursday evening, about 6:30, and pouring rain. After hours of discussion and tears (the usual coming out stuff), I went to bed and somehow fell asleep immediately.
Five hours later, at 4:00 on Friday morning, my mother shook me awake to tell me that my paternal grandfather had had a heart attack in the night.
It was a very numb sort of weekend.
On one hand, I was somehow sickly grateful for a distraction from the coming out issue. It was like my parents had forgotten about our conversation. It made life in the present that much more comfortable—to just deal with sickness (and eventually death), not homosexuality.
On the other hand, it allowed my parents to ignore the issue and their feelings about it—to not deal with their gay only child.
And so they never did.
Which, I should have known, would make life that much more difficult in the future.
June 13, 2003 at 3:32 am
Hiya, I stumbled upon your blogger accidentally while searching for Nate Berkus (a friend demanded I search for a photo of him because I had no idea who he was).. so here I am. Just a quickie note to say that your blog’s rather interesting, and your flair for writing is evident. Keep it up! :impressed:
June 19, 2003 at 11:56 pm
hey happy coming out birthday…i guess!
August 7, 2003 at 1:54 pm
Hi,
I stumbled across your journal by accident (I too was looking for pictures of Nate Berkus :teeth: I just had to let you know that your journal is very interesting indeed…you are really a gifted writer. I recently came out this summer and reading about some of your experiences, that of your “gay life” is pretty cool.