The coming out process for a gay/lesbian is never ending and definitely never easy. Although, the more you do come out to people the easier it is to do so. The hardest part is taking that first step into uncertainty. For those of us who grew up prior to today's mild open mindedness , coming out seemed like an impossibility. This isn't really the case with today's young generation who have a comparably greater mainstream representation of gay culture in the media. When I was growing up the only memorable gay representation on TV were the "Men on Film" sketches of In Living Color..."hated it!"
Personally I never had a gay figure, be it in my personal life or in the media, with whom I could relate. The only gay personas portrayed on my television set were all overly flamboyant characters I had nothing in common with. As a teenager that made it extremely difficult to "find" myself and so I pretty much hibernated throughout my high school years. Depression set in and I slept my way through those years. I would go to school, come home and sleep, watch some TV, and sleep some more. Day in and day out that was my routine. It made it so I didn't have to deal with it at all. Add to those socially awkward years the pressure of having to live up to the Latino "machismo" attitude and it makes for a very unpleasant experience.
I always knew that I liked guys. Sure, growing up I had a couple crushes on girls, but those were always little puppy dog crushes. The crushes I developed on guys were always more intense and went further than simply wanting to hold their hands. I had other parts of their anatomy in mind. I don't know for sure if I was born gay, I do know for sure that some of my earliest memories involve being attracted to men in one form or another. Therefore, growing up I always knew that I was different. While my male peers were talking and fantasizing about having sex with girls, I was fantasizing about my male peers having sex. Still, as is the case with many gays still in the closet I actually envisioned getting married, having kids, the nice home, the white picket fence...the whole nine yards. It wasn't until late in my senior year in high school, while I was preparing to head off to college that I realized "the whole nine yards" were not going to be in the cards for me. I finally accepted that I was gay and that was who I was. One of the persons who has the hardest time accepting that you're gay, sometimes is yourself.
When I started college away from home, away from old friends, family, away from all that I had known for the passed 18 years I set out on a quest to find myself. I took to the internet in search of some little nitch in the gay community, which I never knew existed, for myself. It was a new awakening, a realization that I had been sheltered from so much growing up in my small town. As I learned more about what it meant to be gay, I felt a slight confidence growing in me. By this time I had made sure that I was totally independent of my family. I had been cooking for myself and doing my own laundry since high school. Now in college I was living on my own, I had a job and was paying for my own way. One of the most important things I have done in my life has been learning to fend for myself. My urgent desire to become so independent of my family was two-fold; I knew that eventually I wanted to come out to my family and if for some reason they rejected me and dissowned me that I could be self-efficient. Luckily, that hasn't been the case. Secondly, I wanted to show my parents that I could be gay AND become a man on my own, that those two things - being gay and being a man were not mutually exclusive.
In a way I had been a bit socially retarted until I left my comfort zone, which had been my home town. What most people figure out while in high school, I figured out well into my college years. Growing up, never in a million years did I ever think that I could be as comfortable as I am today being gay. It was supposed to be life ending, the sky was supposed to fall, the ground was supposed to part and swallow me whole if anyone ever found out my little secret. Well, I'm still alive, the sky's still intact, and I'm walking firmly on the ground. It is this other end of the coming out process, that is not as grim as I had envisioned I wish I could share with all those kids who are now where I once was. That dark, lonely place that unknowingly only exists in their minds. That unhappy, guilty, angry place that toys with your mind to the point where it seems that the only way out is to end the life you refuse to let yourself live. Sadly, many never find the courage.
I don't know that society will ever be fully accepting of me in my lifetime. I do know that I can live my gay life, however boring it may be, as an example to break the stereotypes that box in the gay community. I am not a deviant, a sex-crazed child molestor, a coniving sexual predator hell-bent on putting the moves on every straight man I come across. I am simply a son, a brother, an uncle, a godfather, a friend, your neighbor, your teacher, your classmate - a man who is trying to live his life to the fullest, while working his ass off, paying his taxes, and searching for love.
