12/02/2004: "it's never that easy..."

I’m the happy owner of new glasses and contacts! I decided to take the plunge back into the glassless world of contacts and see how it goes. All through college I wore contacts – but I slowly had stopped wearing them as time went on when I was living in Maine. I figured I’d start again – since for someone who’s worn glasses practically their entire life – it’s kind of cool to not be wearing them at times.

You can guess between the visit, the contact fitting and sizing and the new glasses, that some of the Christmas shopping is going to be a little further off into the future.

I figure though, considering that I haven’t gone gambling – the money I’m spending on all this stuff is no different than a night (a good night at that) at Mohegan.

I also got to thinking about coming out and such because a few people I know have been going through some really rough times in their own processes. My worst mistakes? I told my Mom I was gay while she was driving (I know, I know, I broke coming out commandment #1, don’t tell someone while they’re driving). Of course, she thought I said I was going somewhere and so by the third time I had to yell, “Mom, I’m gay.” It was a fairly quiet ride after that. The other? Well, when my father confronted me about having rainbow sticker on my jeep, he said only gay people put that on their cars and I was like “bingo, you figured it out.” And then he said “it’s because you have an overprotective mother,” and I was like, “nope, I think I’m gay because I had such a distant father.”

I was never a gung-ho coming out type of guy, even in high school after I came out to my parents or before I went to college. However, once I got to college, that activist spirit kind of grabbed me (well, probably it was more foisted on me then anything) and I restarted the gay club that was at LSC. All through college, and especially my senior year, we really did (and I don’t want to take sole credit), some amazing stuff that made a difference at the school and in my own personal life.

I think it made me not really give a damn about what other people thought – which for me, was the hardest part of being gay. I was always worried about what someone else might think. Nowadays if someone has a problem with it, I don’t really care.

However, some things still hurt. I was home recently and I was talking to my Mom about how Moe and I were considering getting married (block out weekends in October 2006) and how we would like to raise a family. To the gay marriage stuff she was all like “don’t tell me about this,” and then when I said we wanted children, she was like “I don’t know if you father could handle that.” I wanted to cry honestly when I heard it, but I didn’t because it hurt coming from someone who has unconditionally stood by me through my life. I looked at her and I told her that it was my life and I was going to live my life the way that I wanted to and if either of them had a problem with it, that I didn’t care because it wasn’t their decision to make.

I think we’re in a sort of ‘gay marriage ceasefire’ where none of us mention it to one another. That bothers me a lot because I know how much my family loves me and how much they love Moe. He has literally become part of the family, so much that my Mother is getting upset that he might not be able to come down for Christmas.

It just made me think that it’s never easy and it’s always a struggle, no matter if you’re just coming to grips with your sexuality or if you’ve been out for ages.

Of course it doesn’t help that we are living under the American Taliban, but that’s a whole other story – and I’m fairly secure living in the very blue state of Massachusetts.

Replies: 2 Comments

that's priceless...

jeff said @ 12/02/2004 12:35 PM EST

Though you might think you didn't break the news the best way, I was far tackier... I came out to my mom while watching an episode of the Real World, and then as she started asking questions I shushed her because the commercial break was over.

Ryan said @ 12/02/2004 12:13 PM EST

home
archives
email
about

JeffandMoe.Net

Frequent Reads

TheRhetoric
Shoemakerjones
rottenryan
bill and kent's place
E Tu Vivrai Nel Terrore
gregunderwater
Fridays Fishwrap
HomoKiddoSFO
thecorky.com
by the bayou
Cyberkenny
KungFu Kittens
Pablo-Honey-Monster

Fellow Bostonians

DesignerBlog
Look into the Abys
Jon
Matt's Bit of Space
Adventures in Gastronomy
chaosfactor

Blogroll Me!

More Reads

Margaret Cho
Liberal Oasis
Blogging to the Far Left
Dipdewdog
ryanstask
BentKid
leather egg
Journal of a Fallen Angel
DogPoet
Intertextual
This Time
Room Sixteen
sexisbad
Bradford

Help support this site (and me) by doing your Amazon shopping through this link. Every purchase helps out!