3 posts tagged “derek”

So, you all know (or maybe not) that I had my 20th HS class reunion the beginning of this month. They just posted the photos on the website. Here are a few, but you can visit the website to see all of the photos and all of our comments back and forth to one another. Brian Montgomery took the time to ensure we had a venue to keep it going. I really appreciate his time and effort for one! I'm sure many others do too.

Here are a few of the photos with some friends and myself.

Don't take the drunk man's photo! And if you do, Make sure he's winkin' to hide his lazy eye!

I've always known I was gay as many of us internally do. There's just something in us, seemingly, that says to us “You're not like the others, your special.”. But when you grow up, like many of us had back in the 70's with Christian families and you heard over and over again, the many bigoted comments from the mouths of your family members and loved one, then you simply felt like there was something wrong with you, an outsider. At least I did. So I hid for years the feelings and the desire to explore my sexuality with someone of the same sex. And I did what I was “supposed” to do. I answered those “Do you like me? Check Yes or No.” boxes from the girls, when I really wanted them from the boys. Yes, I was that young.

I dated girls through school and only when I went to college was I able to explore my sexual side with members of the same sex. Only then did I realize what I was missing, yet I still hid it from my family due to the fact that what I heard growing up, instilled in me a sense of fear of losing my family, my home life, the only thing I had ever known up to this point.

Well, after a year of college and a few sexual experiences with men and a few loves to boot, I came home for the summer, got a job at a local yogurt shop down in McDonough, Georgia on the square and worked to save for the next year of school. And then I started going into Atlanta to Burkhart's and Crazy Ray's. Yes I was underage, but they didn't seem to care then, because I didn't drink. I wasn't being served alcohol so it wasn't an issue I guess. The issue is serving alcohol to minors. Being the good kid I was, I didn't drink then.

I would come home later, my parents would ask where I was so late and I'd tell a white lie. Feel guilty, but still continue to do it. Where else would I go if they found out? “They surely kick me out!” I'd say to myself. This continued all summer and the tensions kept growing, then I returned back to school for the fall quarter of '89 at Jacksonville State University where I has a music scholarship that paid for school, but I ran out of money shortly thereafter and had to return home due to no living funds. School was paid for, but food and living expenses were not. Upon returning home, I could not be the person I was in high school—I just couldn't, simply because I was the person I am and that included being gay and out to many, if not my family.

I moved to Atlanta shorty after returning home with someone I dated that summer and his best friend in a town home right in midtown and it was lovely. I made a few friends while living my new life, however, that was short lived due to finances. I had to return home. The day of my moving home, I called home to inform them of my departure time and my little brother answered. While talking with my little brother, my roommate picked up the phone on our end and said, “Girl, get off the phone.” jokingly. I gasped and my little brother became silent. The next thing he said was, “It sounds like you're living with a bunch of fagots.”

“I do.”, I said.

His reply: “You're not one are you?”

“Yes.”

My dad's truck was broken into in between trips to the car just before I was preparing to leave. I was nervous as hell all the way home that hour long trip, the longest trip I've thought I would ever take. I thought, but that's later.

All that trip home, I had this crazy, huge, tight, cramped knot in my stomach with a soured tasted in my mouth from the bile. I knew in my gut, this was not going to be good. I just knew it. I pulled up to the house, parked the truck, grabbed my few things from the front seat next to me as the rest of my things were in the back, and headed into the carport door, which enters in to the kitchen, where I was met with my father and my mother sitting with their hands folded as if in prayer, and their heads down. My mother looked up at me as I walked in and I could see the writhing of her face with anger, hurt, disappointment and disapproval and fear. I could see it all there. And then there were the eyes. I'll never forget those eyes.

I was asked to sit down as there was something we needed to talk about.

“It seems that you told your little brother you were gay. Is this true?” my mother asked, point blank.

I started sweating and became very nervous, but I was going to handle this like an adult. I knew it was my time to be strong. Nothing could have prepared me for how I would later deal with what happened hereafter, not even my faith.

Questions continued. They asked, “What about my girlfriend?”, about whether or not I'd ever been with a man, and the one big kicker, “What will people think of us?” At this point many tears were shed. And finally I was told that I could not live in their home if I was gay. I was crushed. My worst fears were confirmed. All I'd heard from their mouths all my life about all people who were different then my family, their race, their culture, all belonged on an island somewhere where we could end up being our own demises, came to the forefront of my head. I didn't know what to do, who to turn to, where to go or how to act without family. That thing that had been there my whole life, was no longer there, seemingly. So I ran. I ran for years upon years.

I don't ever remember unpacking the truck. I asked if I could use the truck to go somewhere and find a place for my things and to bring the truck back with a ride so that they or I had to be in this extremely uncomfortable situation of differences and beliefs. I had to start over, making a new family with whoever I could connect with. So I left home, went out to a local bar in Atlanta, and ran into a someone I'd made acquaintances with during my summers. He was kind enough and settled enough to give me a place to stay until I could make my way to some sort of life for myself. To this day, I thank Tommy for that.

I spent many years moving, many in relationships that failed, many with friendships that dissipated, and many of that drinking and drugging to numb the pain that comes with realizing you have no family that loves you for you. It all became “conditional”. I was not allowed to bring my boyfriends to holidays with me, but I was expected to be at holiday gatherings. I would sit a the table, watching my brothers with their girlfriends and going through the motions, but always with no questions of my life. Only the common courtesies of “Good to see you.”, and “You look good.” But I always felt an outcast.

At times, I wished I had died and didn't have to experience these moments, but I desired my family's acceptance. I didn't know how to have a meaningful relationship with anyone. If it got to close, I shut down. To a point, I still do.

I ended up moving back home twice. The second time, was after the breakup of my first long term partner, Dave, who by all intents and purposes, I will always love deeply, even if we don't communicate but only briefly via messages online. He couldn't deal with my shit and it wasn't fair for me to expect him to. I didn't know how to live as others wished I would. I've never been comfortable with that. I always rebelled. In work, in love, in life. Always from that unforgettable moment when I was told that I was no longer a part of my family. (That's not how it is, but how it felt then.) I love my family and still do, I just do it mostly from a distance. My mother, if it were not for her, I'd be out here without any contact from my father or siblings, if I am not the one to keep lines open. They simply wouldn't do it.'

I finally at one point, said point blank to my parents, “I want my family, I desire my family in my life, so this is no longer my load to carry. The choice to have me in your life is your, but I will not be someone for you that I am not. What you get is me, in all my glory including my gayness. It's part of who I am and if you want me in your life, you have to deal with it. I will no longer come to holidays where my partner is not welcome. No matter who it is, where they are from, how they look or act. I will not be silent, I will not act as you wish to me to be for your comfort. That's selfish. I am me, I'm gay, and I want my family, but again, the choice is yours.” At the last time I ran, I ran to Maine. It was during a move home after my split up of my partner, Dave. I was crushed. I didn't know how to live on my own. I was uncomfortable with myself. I couldn't sit at home alone, I craved being around people socially and not at work; people I could be with who were like me. We all needed that something of connection without connecting.

I failed living on my own. I had to move home. My parents were there, but conditionally. I was not comfortable in their home. I spent all my extra time for that one month in my room which I made my sanctuary. And I went out and got fucked up regularly just to deal. I didn't know how to deal otherwise in their home.

Finally, they had enough. I was confronted by my mother and these were her words to me: “If you look at yourself really hard, you'll see what your problem is.”--meaning that my gayness my problem. I looked at her as if she wasn't there, but there she was, waiting for me to respond however it was she wished me to respond. She said to me, “Don't look at me like you can see through me.” I had passed some point of no return. I was gone inside, my family, just then had died to me. “But I can. My problem is not my being gay, Mom. My problem all this time has been you and your telling me that I'll never be welcome in your life as I am.”

She left and I immediately went out and sold my $1000 flute and guitar for $125 and put all my things in storage that I could store (fully intending to get it all back, but couldn't pay the following month's rent on it) and packed the car that they got for me to go back and forth to work (which I once again fucked up) and drove to Maine not knowing a soul. It was there that I found myself and finally became okay with me alone for the first time in my life.

Luckily, I meet folks easily and make friends quickly. I had a job within a week, a place to stay (that didn't work out because they wanted a lover and I could not be that to anyone in my current state of being). I was gone for about a month (the longest I've been gone with no communication at all with my Mom. She hunted me down. Dad told her I left and left without any information as to where I was, where I was going, or if I was even alive. I didn't care. I was done with my family and my home. (So I thought).

One day not even a month later, there was a call on my friend's phone. He came in the room, “It's your Mother.” I answered the phone, scared, nervous, not wanting to, but did because she had hunted me down. She wanted to find me. To know that I was okay. She wanted me, as I was. She finally got it and told me, "No matter where you go, you take your mother with you." And to this day - that hits home with me over and over in many ways!

From that point, things changed, I knew myself. I knew where I stood, I was free. I was liberated and I was wanted. The drinking and drugging continued, but nothing like it was. It became social. I enjoyed my home life, my life in general. I could make friendships last, I could love again, myself and others (that's still a process, but it's getting much better, easier. I'm opening up to a fruitful life, slowly, like a flower opening to reveal it's full beauty and glory, but it's happening. My partner Keith is a Godsend and a love. I've finally met someone who can deal with me, as me, with all my faults and all my shit and you know what? It feels good to finally be coming OUT.

I hope that you find comfort in knowing that with this story, I did it. I'm still here when I very well could have been not, long ago and was almost. Boy am I glad I didn't leave this place. Because it does contain lots of beauty for us to experience.

Peace!

Derek