It Gets Better

This is an open letter to all gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gender youth, young adults and anyone else struggling with sexual orientation or gender identity. For more help and/or support go here: http://www.noh8campaign.com/.

When I was a kid and young adult living in West Tennessee, I knew I was gay, but tried my best not to be. I wanted to be “normal”, but I knew I wasn’t. I felt like a freak.

And what’s worse, I lied to everyone for years and hurt many people along the way. But I lived my life into my twenties, well a decade after I knew the truth, with the lie. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t gay, but having never been sexually attracted to a female but being very interested in males in as little clothing as possible should have been a wake up call.

I missed the call.

Instead, I contemplated suicide. I had brushes with mental illness because of the stress and anxiety of hating who I was. I did the kind of rash, stupid things that young people are prone to do.

All I knew was that my life would be horrible if I was honest. I saw it all around me. Gay people were “fags”, beneath contempt, but certainly targets for people with baseball bats. I lived in fear for my own safety.

I got the wake up call around 2 a.m. one morning when I jumped out of my girlfriend’s bed, threw on my clothes in less than a minute and hid out all night at a McDonald’s to avoid her. I realized that I couldn’t have sex with her because I didn’t want to. I didn’t know or care what to do with her in that way.

That’s when I finally did it: I admitted to myself that I was gay in the middle of the night at a McDonald’s in Waco, TX.

When I finally answered my door several days later, my girlfried was confused, then hurt because I had been lieing to her all along. My only explanation was that I had been lieing to myself, so how could I be honest with her?

I was resolved to go forward and live the miserable life I deserved for being such a deviant person.

But it didn’t turn out that way. I found out that, in the grown-up world, employers tend to reward performance. And in progressive cities like Austin, where I put down roots, most people don’t care.

That isn’t to say that life as a gay man isn’t painful. I’ve out-lived 2 husbands. But the pain is no different from that of a man my age who’s out-lived 2 wives. It hurts the same way, whether you’re straight or gay.

I wanted normal, and that’s what I got. Between the two, I had over 15 years of domestic bliss. Like any relationship that’s real, both were sometimes stormy, but they were real. Just like the ones “normal” people have.

When I was 13 or 18 or even in my early 20’s, I didn’t know that was possible. So I lived a life of quiet, closeted misery, instead. But as I grew older, I realized that it was other people who were wrong, and that there was nothing wrong with me. That I had a God-given right to be happy and that the only person who could take that happiness away from me was me.

It hasn’t always been easy, but when I moved in with my first partner and we made a home together, I realized a childhood dream: to have a handsome, charming, educated and caring husband. Our life together was wonderful. I finally had a place where I belonged. A place where someone loved me just for me.

I was always meant to be married.

He unexpectedly died 5 years later from a bizarre lung infection. I was crushed. Totally devestated. I went a little crazy for a while, but 5 years later, I met my next partner.

He was a little bit on the crazy side himself, but so kind, sweet, loving and persistant that he won me over. Our life together was never normal, except in the ways it was. Most people don’t have to put a partner in the hospital because he’s catatonic and having psychotic hallucinations.

Most people don’t have to plan their life around trips to the hospital to visit. Until they do.

The rest of our time together revolved around my going to work and coming home and him taking care of the details of our lives, like keeping up with bills and shopping for groceries. We dealt with his increasing mobility impairments the ways any couple would: a cane, then grab bars in the shower, then a walker and, finally, a wheel chair.

All not very pleasant, but all very normal. As the medical appointments increased, I made sure that every person who treated him knew that I was the medical power of attorney and that I would be involved on one level or another. I demanded their respect, and I got it. No one questioned me or my right to be there or to make decisions.

He’s been gone for about 2 months now. I had him cremated, and we had a small memorial that he would have liked. Small and simple, though it was, many people told me it was the most beautiful one they’d ever been to.

That may not sound like much of a message of hope, but getting to honor him in the way I wanted and knew he would like and approve of didn’t seem possible to me even 15 years ago.

I turned 45 in June, and I have two dead husbands. But I’m happier than I ever thought I would be. I have losses to deal with, but to lose something, you have to have it first.

I’ve had the same job for almost 11 years. I’ve grown my job into being integral to company operations. I have the love and respect of my coworkers, and I have friends that are real.

I’m still mourning the losss of my last husband, but I’m happier than I was 25 years ago. I’m a mess some days, but I’m a mess for all the right reasons.

I never saw it coming. But it happened. Even so, my life has been better on all fronts since I decided to be honest with myself.

It gets better. It gets much better.

We all have to give ourselves time to grow into the people we’re going to become, whether we’re gay, straight or other. None of us get there overnight.

I won’t deny that the process is painful, but it’s amplified in the GLBT world. You’re not only growing up, you’re growing up different.

In time, you will see that different can be one of your strongest assets. You won’t see the world as most people do. And you’ll have a pool of strength to draw from than many people never have to develop.

You will go far if you give yourself the chance and the freedom to be who you are. The only choice involved in sexual orientation or gender identity is how you repsond to that knowledge. You will find that it becomes one of the least important things about you. It will be a footnote. Nothing more.

I wish I’d known all that when I was 12 or 13. If I’d known it was possible, my life would have been easier.

It is possible. In fact, it’s probable, once you get past the shame and guilt and self-loathing. There’s nothing to feel guilty about or ashamed of or hate about yourself.

You’re different. We’re all different in different ways. Use your difference as a source of strength. Be proud of who you are, not because of your orientation or identity, but because of who you are.

Go bravely into the world and become the person that God wants you to become: a whole, happy one at peace.