Sometimes the happiness is in the hoping.
I was never so much in denial of being gay as I was completely clueless of the concept, and then a complete coward to it. There was never any discussion about being gay in my family; there were veiled slights against certain folks, but I didn't know why. I wouldn't, until someone in my middle school was bullied for being gay and I stood by, confused, because I was too naive to understand why - because I hadn't realized that I myself was gay. And when I did, I hid that part of myself; I was the new kid in a culturally conservative town and I didn't want to be on the receiving end of that social exclusion, that punishing ostracism. I packed up my dignity and exiled myself to the confines of the closet to shiver in shame somewhere off in Narnia.
I was scared. I didn't want the scorn and wrath of someone's judgment, but what I didn't understand then was that hiding a part of myself was perpetuating self-inflicted pain on my self-esteem. It's a suffocating feeling, being trapped by your own volition and having dug and buried yourself in your own psychological grave. There are desperate moments when you want to break through. You'll use gender-neutral pronouns, because you want to grasp at being halfway truthful. You'll dodge questions, because you don't want to lie. But depriving yourself of a voice and letting the silence speak for you is still a lie of omission, and a lie is a lie. You become scared of yourself; you become the monster in the closet.
There's empowerment in being true to who you are; there's empowerment to be found in finding yourself.
But life isn't like a movie. When you muster up your courage and go against the odds, you don't always win. That first time I bit back the choking fear and tried to come out, it was a disaster. Each word said to me, each expression on their face, was a punch in the gut, a puncture to the heart. It hurt so much to find out that love can have fine print, that there was an exception made for something I could not change. I had lost; I was lost.
I shut off after that, for a long time, and let my best friend worry. She would ask me what was wrong. I hemmed and I hawed and I fretted and I worried, until I got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired and I came out to her. It felt final, like an end, another end - but it was another beginning. She responded with so much love and humor and compassion that it overwhelms me with sentimentality every time I think about it. For once, life was like the movies; she told me she had already known, because she knew me and she was my friend and I was an idiot if I thought that would change anything. It meant so much to me that she still loved me and that nothing would change; some people seem to think the closet is some kind of cocoon and you emerge some exotic new creature (although if you do, props to you; shed that shell and rock those wings), but no, I was the same nerdy bookworm, the same person I had always been.
Since then, I've come out to others, and it's all been a heartwarming montage of acceptance. For instance, I came out to a friend of mine who games with me. I figured we spent so much time blasting aliens to smithereens that I should tell her - and she ended up coming out to me too in delighted surprise. Our world is full of serendipity, if only we are willing to risk opening ourselves to the world.
It only takes a step to leave the closet - and there is no shame in asking for a helping hand - and the journey from there gets much easier. There's happiness in hoping. Being true to yourself opens a realm of possibility, harnesses the full weight and world of imagination, and washes away the monochrome shades of life and flushes it with color. A rainbow after a storm, if you want to be extra cheesy with a side of cheese sauce. It does often rain in Williamsburg, and that usually annoys me, but the community here is also bursting with light and love. I haven't met an intolerant person. People will understand and accept. I feel more comfortable here than I have elsewhere. I'm not afraid, and I won't be in the future, because I'll always carry the memories of the College with me when I leave. The future is coming into being here at W
