i could eat.

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[lukasdmiller]

The words to come out

The indulgence shot: a body rigidly hanging over moving water; drawing a breath too sweet to end—cut a cold winter night car ride.

“And…?”

“I guess that makes me gay.”

(Silence.)

I have no idea if my mother even heard the words as I feebly squeaked them out—I sure couldn’t.  In fact, I was unaware of all my senses. My palms bloodlessly gripping the steering wheel in a sweaty fervor, my eyes fixated on the darkness ahead. Thank god I did this in the car at night; there is no way I could have looked her in the eye. I felt like an adolescent, confessing to a crime that, at the time of its commencement, didn’t feel wrong to me. Here I was, on trial with my mother’s strongest verdict: her silence. My stomach swirled.

It was a few days before Christmas, and here I was telling my mother first guy I had feelings for. This was the first relationship that I had seriously explored my “curiosity” with my gender—beyond that no-homo locker room stuff nobody admits to (it’s out there, America).

This was like, first kiss in the rain, Fourth-of-July fireworks, gossip-grilled on Facebook kinda stuff that I absolutely detest. All cautiously, with a tad bit of anxiety and ambiguity as I let loose the bonds of taut consciousness that had always steered me in the linear path set before me.

I waited until this night (months later) to tell her because I never felt I had the words or courage. Now, I didn’t care anymore if I was gay or not; I couldn’t stomach another dinner at Outback without being able to confess what titillated heavy on my head every hour of the day, day after day. Heavy lies the noun: gay.

Maybe a different angle on that opening shot: crucify him in the frame.

Was I truly gay though? I wasn’t in love or having sex with men. I hadn’t switched to low cut v-necks and jockstraps just yet. Top or bottom… bunk? But I had been called gay before. I had been called a lot of things: “fag,” “faggot,” “homo,” “queer” (when it was still cool), “pussy” (still very popular) and, not to mention whatever else the Robert Frosted-Tips and Ben Jonson-jokes engraved in bathroom stall bibles included. These labels never meant much to me because I never thought of myself as gay. They were a drag to my straight-dude ego more than anything. These words wouldn’t help me understand anything, yet they were all I had.

And after I dropped the gay-bomb on my mom, I sent my whole body into shock, obliterating any meaningful vernacular into a million little pieces.

My real handicap was my [lack of] education. The number of out-LGBT paled in comparison to the slurs and stereotypes in Michigan farmlandia. There were no role models, respect or understanding of LGBT, or words. My blue-collar family was no exception to the region’s challenges. Throughout my life, my mother was my role model: a hardworking and honest woman that spoke with reason and understanding.

Revisit the opening shot. This time we’ll do it handheld and see what happens.

When I was eight years old, my mother got our family into religion after a divorce to make changes for the better. Being the all-on-board kid I was, I dressed as an angel for Halloween that year (white feathered-wings and all). I had no notion of what repercussions there would be. As it came time to march in the annual Vera Wilson Elementary Halloween parade, I shrunk under the chatter my costume had caused, cowering to my mother’s office blocks away.

Not that in second grade I knew shit about gender identity or being gay. I hadn’t actually contemplated the definitions and institutions of sexuality (especially my own) until after a few successful and serious straight relationships. For the past few years, my ambiguity led me to believe I might be bisexual: another term I didn’t understand.

That night I thought if I told my mother about my relationship from the summer, that I’d finally be able to put my sleepless thoughts to rest, burying my anxieties for good. 

On one hand, that night I felt a deep relief, and later experienced a step toward identity and association. On the other, I confused my mother in a way that I had once been confused, leaving her understanding something less than she ever had before. Once far from home, gay was now tangible. It had a face. It had uncertainties, fears, questions. Gay had a name. 

Our next series of discussions didn’t always possess the right words or feelings of relief, but they happened. And to tell you the truth, I hardly remember how things were framed and phrased. What mattered was that they were finally able to come out. With that, progress was made. 

After the opening shot, cut to black screen with title in bold, white caps. 

Even with all the very recent progress in LGBT rights, I plea for us to push the conversation, expanding our vocabularies, changing our perceptions and having these very awkward conversations about definitions we don’t understand no longer be private and awkward. 

When you look at them long enough, some words begin to look very, very strange. Now, I don’t waste a moment’s thought on this one.

lukasdmiller.com