I received a forward today that hit me hard, in a bittersweet but good way. It’s Anne Hull’s Washington Post article from last month about 17-year-old Michael Shackelford’s coming out in rural Oklahoma. If nothing else, it’s a reminder to all of us living in our gay urban bubbles that middle America is still out there. Many of you may have read it already since it made the rounds on some prominent blogs when it was published last month. But I missed it then, somehow, and feel compelled to post about it now anyway.

I’m not going to kid you - it’s an especially long feature. But I’ve never read a more accurate piece on coming out in high school. Serious kudos to author Anne Hull for doing justice to a complicted and difficult subject. The fear and anxiety, the pathetically misguided attempts at fitting into “gay culture,” the frantic search for someone to love you - it’s all there, and it’s really well done. It kind of reminds me of a much better, true Edge of Seventeen - a flawed, but praise-worthy, movie that attempted the same thing.

Part I is here, Part II here. For you lazy queens who just want pictures (Michael’s kind of a cutie) there’s a related photo gallery here. It really is worth the read though, so make an effort, mmmkay?

The article brought back a lot for me. “Inconspicuously” cruising boys at the mall, somehow always ending up in the euphamatically-named Sociology section of Barnes & Noble, fighting off the pressure of Evergreen International, feeling hopeless, lost, and guilty about my tearful mother. Not uncommon, of course, but still way too familiar to be comfortable reading.

I’m surprised how many of my own personal issues with my sexuality remain somewhere in my head. I’ve not thought about my coming out process, or where I’m at with my own acceptance, in a very long time. There’s certainly nothing to worry about - my life is gay gay gay gay and I’m very happy - but it’s amazing the nagging voices that creep into the back of my brain when given the chance. They belong to ghosts I’ve long taken for granted as gone.

Though I was very fortunate in being followed out of the high school closet by several friends (and they continue to come out to this day, by the way), and Utah is - surprisingly - sounding slightly liberal compared to Oklahoma, much of the article describes the culture from which I came. Country music, rodeos, tractor pulls - your basic white trash redneck upbringing. Just replace the fundamentalist Christians with Mormons.

Of course, I always fought all that, even when I was little. Later it was clear why. Funny now that I, like the teenager in the article, embrace some elements of that upbringing even when they seem to collide with my life as a gay man. Those things are just “home” to me, and always will be.

Patrick asked me not too long ago, “When am I going to actually know you?” It’s a fair question. I’m not open, and I don’t often talk about what’s going on in my head (note that this is vastly different than talking about yourself; anyone who knows me will testify that I have no problem with that). Blogging seems to be one slight exception, and it’s not fair that my boyfriend learns new stuff about me online as often as he does. All I can say at this point is that it’s all so much deeper than you’d think. Deeper than I can get to right now, but I think that’s okay. I’m doing well, after all. But if you do want to start digging, I’d have to start at the beginning, and this article is as good a place as any. I promise I’m working on it, slowly.

It’s true what they say - you never really leave home for good. Sometimes you just take the long road back there.