Unearthing the Gay Within Me

Pour me another glass of zinfandel, will you, Tom?

My grandmother repeated these words to my grandfather for the fourth or fifth time since I had arrived at their home in Naperville, Illinois on the fateful day that I knew would change everything.

For 8 long, arduous years, I had been hiding something from my entire family. I had never trusted any of them enough to keep it from the rest of them so I kept all of them completely in the dark. How could I break my mother and grandmothers hearts? For 8 years I thought that the simple, quiet utterance of two words could shatter their rose-tinted glasses that they both have been seeing me through forever in a millisecond. More than once, the words burned in my throat and I came so close to spilling it all to my mother but each time, I stopped myself and counted to ten to keep myself from going over the edge and ruining everything.

My upbringing was next to normal. Cookie-cutter suburb, cookie-cutter house, cookie-cutter family (my one sister completes our nuclear family of four). Our normal, suburban bliss seemed to be unbreakable. However, it didnt last forever. The night my sister moved out at the age of 16 will live in my head forever as the night that everything changed. As she held the recently sharpened knife to her olive-tone wrist and screamed at the top of her lungs that she was about to end it all, I knew. I knew that there was no going back. Everything before this point was the past and everything after was reality. In this moment, though, no blood was shed. She is alive and well today. But it wasnt her wrist that was sliced through; it was my disillusioned, childish reality that was cut down the middle and the first half thrown out like scrap from a piece of meat. I knew that everything was different and that I could never return to the fantasy land of my childhood. At the ripe old age of 10 years, I became aware of two critical pieces of information. The first was that my sister is my anchor. She keeps everything in perspective and, even though she will always be severely bipolar and manic depressive, that night that she was committed to a mental health facility for 24 hours and then released to the care of my grandparents made me realize that she is why I will always be fighting for people who are considered mentally unsound or mentally unstable. The second piece of information I realized in that moment was that it was time to stop jumping around the facts. It was time to stop dodging the cutting comments my friends made at me on a daily basis about being a fag, it was time to peer through the fog of a childs mind, and it was time to face the future with a positive attitude. I was undeniably gay and, on this day, I declared to myself that it was time to embrace it.

With another glass of zinfandel in her hand, my grandmother announced that it was time. The family meeting that I called was about to happen. In attendance were my mother and father, grandmother and grandfather, my sister, and my aunt and uncle. With an uneasy, awkward smile, I assisted in filtering everyone into my grandmothers conservatively designed, yet well-furnished, living room. Everyone coupled up and took their spots. Mom and dad on the loveseat, grandma and grandpa on the armchair and ottoman, while my sister and aunt and uncle all gazed at me questionably, then complied with my wishes and took their seats on the couch.

This was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for. A strange mixture of dread, excitement, and anxiety inched its way up my esophagus and lodged in my throat. I took center stage. The carpet beneath my sock-garbed feet felt like insects creeping beneath my toes and I stumbled forward a bit as I brought myself back to reality. There they were, staring at me as they wondered what the hell I could possibly be calling them all together to tell them.

So I dont really know how to say this I managed to say through a cloud of anxiety.

Come on, Tom, just tell us already! Just spit it out. Well all be a lot less on edge if you just spit it out already, chimed in my no-nonsense aunt.

Alright. Well, might as well just say it.

And then I froze. Two words. TWO WORDS. I had spoken millions, probably billions of words in my life up to that point. And yet, two words just wouldnt spring forth into existence. I looked down at my mismatched socks, held my breath for a second, then closed my eyes.

Im gay.

Silence. Silence so thick you could cut through it with a serrated knife. A confused look, an unreadable nod, a silent wave of awkward body language that I was unable to read because of the anxiety running through me.

And then, one by one and without words, each member of my family stood up, walked 2 or 3 steps over to me, and embraced me. These werent your run-of-the-mill hugs. These were the squeezes that leave you gasping for air. Needless to say, after 7 of them I was more unable to speak than before. Then, my mother broke the minute or so span of silence.

We know. Weve known for a long time. You arent really too covert about it, but keep this in mind: all of us still love you and support you in everything you do.

Elation. It is the only word to describe my feelings at that pivotal moment. I smiled stupidly. The wide grin on my face was one of love. The day that I thought everything would fall apart more than it already had, everything came together. In that moment, it was absolute. It was final. My family was okay with gay.

Since that day, Ive been living happily and uninhibited. My family is always asking for updates on the boychasery that young men my age tend to engage in, and that sort of genuine interest is all I could ever ask for.

Family support can be hard to come by as someone who identifies as something other than straight, and I am extremely fortunate to have it. For all of you that arent as lucky, I feel for you. I fought with myself for years over whether my family would accept me or not, and that is the hardest period of anyones life. However, it is important to lay it all out at some point. Freeing yourself from the secrecy and darkness of keeping your identity within you is essential to growing as a person. If not now, pick a general time period in the future to talk it over with your family and stick to it. This kind of honesty with the ones whom you cannot escape is crucial to loving yourself and realizing who you are and what you can accomplish.

Thomas Borg is a student at Illinois Institute of Technology. Hes majoring in Humanities with a specialization in Literature and has a minor in Architecture. He is openly gay and would love to chat with you about it. He directs the Crown Joules, IITs all-male a cappella extravaganza and takes passion in writing, editing and singing. Check him out on Twitter @OhHeyTom or follow his Tumblr (ohheytom.tumblr.com) to take a peek into his life.