“It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly when I knew I was gay. For me, it was more of a process of coming out to myself and accepting who I really was.

“Growing up, I was an Air Force brat. In those days, not long ago, to be gay and to be in the military were not compatible. Even though my family never really spoke one way or the other about the topic, I presumed it was unacceptable to be gay because ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ was in action.

“That being said, I always felt a little different. I was never really into girls. I found myself much more interested in the guys in the locker room during gym class, but I never really thought about it much.

“The first time I really thought about my sexuality, I was in high school. Joining the drama club, I met an openly gay man for the first time. I admired the confidence he projected and his attitude, not only about himself but about life. I felt something for him, but I could not pinpoint what my feelings were. I told myself I needed to let it go because it was wrong. I had various moments like these throughout high school, always with the same thought process.

“My Sophomore year of college, I tried dating a good friend of mine from high school. She was my first ‘real’ girlfriend. I had relationships prior, but – looking back – they never really moved beyond friendship. She would have been the perfect girl by all standards. She was pretty, smart, kind, and she was going to school to be a dentist. We dated for a few months, but something did not feel right; it felt forced and unnatural. I think it was at that point that I really started to question my sexuality.

“I became an RA in my junior year of college. During a conference for student staff, I met a few RAs from other schools in the state who were out. Watching them, I saw that they looked so happy with who they were. Like they didn’t care what others thought of them. It was inspiring.

“Back at school, I brought the topic up with my hall director while we were in a one-on-one meeting. At the time, I regretted broaching the subject. The more we met, the more she really pushed me to talk about it, and it was a talking point during many of our one-on-ones. Listening and providing words of support, she really helped me through the process of accepting who I was. She helped me reshape my perspective. It is because of her that I am who I am today. Had she not pushed me and affirmed that it was okay for me to be gay, I probably would still not be comfortable with myself.”

– E

I’ve written very little on my experiences with being bullied. I have explored the topic from a distance, devoting my graduate thesis to undergraduate men’s bullying narratives, but the act of writing it out – airing the old wounds and sharing their scars – is something I have, to this point, avoided.

It’s a reality I think I owe to an age-old issue: my refusal to let my problems take up anybody’s space. But that’s a wrong impulse, I’ve learned, and it does nothing to shed light on the paths of people still struggling. It’s October, and anti-bullying messages have been part of the conversation this month, and so I’ll bare my bruises and share my story. Here goes.

Continue reading “on bullies and bruises.” →

“I always had intermittent feelings for guys or girls throughout high school. I was never sure which was the ‘right’ way to feel, but it was just high school, so I figured I would find out soon enough. When a boy I liked egged me on ‘as a joke,’ I did get rather upset. I thought we had a great connection, but since it never came to anything, it didn’t matter.

“A lot of things in my life, I reduce to ‘not mattering.’

–

“As much as I spoke about liking girls, I never really pined over them the same way I did guys. When I finally met the ‘right guy’ and felt comfortable coming out to my mom, I did so.

“And that’s when I wanted to change myself.

“My mom seemed so angry, and I felt like such a disappointment. Who wants a gay son? So, whenever my relationship ended, I felt like it was the perfect time to take a step back. I started talking about women, working to convince everyone I was straight – or at least bi. Who knows if it worked? It messed around with my mind a bit, though –– having feelings that didn’t match up with my words.

–

“Maybe I’ve wasted the last few years of my life, but a recent conversation with my mom really cleared up my brain. I don’t have to be something I’m not. And who knows, maybe being straight would be the easy way out.

“But I’m not about the easy way anymore. I’ve spent enough time trying to be someone straight. It’s time to be me – to embrace the feelings inside.”

– J

“I would lie if I said I didn’t somewhat know when I was 12-years-old, when I was surfing the Internet and, one miraculous day, dozens of gay porn pop-ups hit me all at once. I supposed straight boys ought to find it grotesque, and yet I didn’t immediately turn away. But I wouldn’t say I knew then and there. Don’t all young boys have gay phases?

“The high school locker rooms pretty much cemented it for me. I knew it when I saw it. There was something alluring about the male form that the female form didn’t do for me. No matter how hard I tried, it would always be the male form.”

– J

“By its very definition, Glee is about opening yourself up to joy.”

– Lillian Adler

At the dawn of the pilot, featured beneath a photo of a very homely woman making a comically awkward expression, the camera settled over this quotation for a moment. It’s interesting, six years later, to think of how perfectly a single frame captured the strange blend of irreverent humor and wide-eyed optimism that would characterize Glee.

I finished Glee only a few days ago, taking my sweet time with the sixth season. If you’ve kept an eye on the entertainment scene at all, you might be tempted to take a jab at the show’s rocky trajectory. It’s true; Glee had its fair share of bumps, and it certainly became in vogue to hate on it. But I never stopped caring about it, and I never thought it lost its heart. A wise friend even reassured me that it’s kind of perfect, the show losing its acclaim; it was always, at its core, the story of a bunch of relentlessly dreaming misfits in a world working to dash their hopes.

No, the issue was not that I lost interest in the series. It was, in reality, that it came to mean much more to me than I expected. So much so that, as the reality dawned over me that I would soon have to bid it goodbye, I began to drag my feet. I can’t encapsulate everything about what Glee was – reflect on each of the characters and their stories – or at least I don’t want to. What I’m setting out to do here, I guess, is reflect on what this show became to me.

Continue reading “goodbye to glee.” →

This morning, as I was walking home, I saw the grounds workers planting petunias on this, the second day of Fall. The inevitability of these flowers’ decline sat with me for some time, and I sat down to write about it. This is what resulted.

–

It rested between them, the end, like an unwelcome visitor unpacking a bit too thoroughly. Over dinners, they laughed and pretended it wasn’t chuckling with them. Helping itself to their morning coffee and robbing them of the words that once sprung out from each to the other. At the first sign of it, they’d kept busy, raising the hum of their day-to-day lives to drown it out. But, steadily, it clamored, waiting patiently for the silence, until resignation to its permanence crept over them. Acceptance of the Fall.

And, though the leaves around them began to dry into rustic oranges and browns, urging them by example to set free the shells of what once teemed with life, they glanced at one another and seemed to agree: ‘Let’s take the weekend together.’

And so they embarked. Despite the inevitability of the impending bite of frost, they planted petunias. Gorgeous purples and creams.

They held hands in the car as the concrete highway whipped by underfoot. Dig.
They listened to the song they’d first kissed to. Set.
They stopped at every roadside curiosity, laughing until their sides ached. Cover.
They booked a hotel room, pulling one another’s shirt off before the door had even closed. Tamp.

The flowerbed sung freely before them, momentarily deafening them to the leaves falling from the sky and billowing at their feet. Had the flowers ever burned this bright in the summer?

“I put the bottle of bourbon down on the corner with a hard thwack. I keep thinking I’m going to burst into flame and emerge as my true self when, in reality, I molt slowly, carrying the old skin around with me a little while longer. So there’s the bourbon.

“When I was a child, I would bounce around and talk loudly and dance to music with such wild spasms I would knock over plates in the kitchen. Once, in a Florida bathroom, I broke into dance to the music – anything to get the energy out – and I saw a man drag his son out by the arm, loudly telling him to stay away from the idiot. I looked around for the idiot as my dad fumed and dragged me out, too. I think I was four.

“The next year, I went to school and I was surrounded by girls who were beautiful and boys who were handsome. The girls caught my eye, no doubt. Everyone told me I was a ladykiller and that I would fetch a pretty girl someday. I thought that sounded nice, but, every now and then, another little ladykiller caught my eye. I was good friends with one of them. He was tall, his skin was smooth, and his lips were like two raspberries. When he would purse them, I wanted to put them on mine and see what would happen.

“We all had a sleepover, and we did what boys do: We climbed on each other, we wrestled, and we began playing truth or dare. My friend picked ‘dare,’ and we dared him to pull his pants down. His pants hit the floor, and we all gathered around him like he was an exhibit at the zoo. We lingered for a few moments, and then we laughed. We always laughed. His turn came around again, and he picked ‘dare’ and we were all relieved, so another of us dared him to pull his pants down and dance. As soon as his hand touched the elastic of his shorts, the door flew open so hard it rattled the plates in the kitchen. His dad pointed a finger in his face, his own face red with rage, and told him we weren’t going to do any of ‘that shit’ in his house. We put a movie on and fell asleep, one by one, next to each other.

“The next year, my friend with the raspberry lips and I stood outside on the sidewalk, waiting for our moms’ cars, and we ran around the tree, chasing each other making puckering noises. I faked him out and ran around the other side, puckering and planting my lips on his cheek for a single second. We froze, his jaw dropped, and we began looking around. No one saw, but he didn’t say a word. He just ran. I did something wrong. Later that night, I told my dad that I thought my friend was gay and he told me to not even say that word. So I didn’t.

“And so it went. In middle school, I chased girls, but I always noticed if a boy had smooth skin, or full lips, or a mark on his cheek like Marilyn Monroe. At night, I would toss and turn until the feelings stopped. During the day, if I caught myself lingering on the way a boy’s jaw curved around the bottom of his face, I would find a freshly blossomed bosom to bury my thoughts in.

“One day, when I was twenty and drunk on mojitos, I loudly gathered all my friends and proclaimed myself bisexual. They shrugged and said ‘no shit.’ I made it a point to tell anyone who asked, no matter how uncomfortable or inopportune, that I was bisexual. It’s not a word I’m comfortable with because it implies a forked road where I prefer a path anyone could trod on.

“Today, I wonder how much I still police my attraction, and I wonder if my mother actually knows and is waiting. Because I haven’t told her. I’m just somewhere in limbo. Me and my bourbon. I set the bottle down after another swig, gently. The glass on the counter didn’t make a sound.”

– C

“Maybe I should have known when I was six and my friend and I would rub our butts together. Or maybe I should have known when I got a hand job from a guy at twelve. Or when I desperately wanted to make out with my best friend at fifteen. But, for most of my life, I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe the gay thoughts in my head. I didn’t hear the word ‘gay’ until well into my teenage years, and as a kid I didn’t know any (out) gay people. Being gay was, well, a fantasy.

“Near the end of high school, I got my first girlfriend. After several months of dating, we had reached a point in out relationship when became clear that sex was the next step. It was something we wanted, both physically and emotionally.

“Or at least, I thought I did.

“When actually confronted with the very real thought of having sex with a woman, I had to acknowledge that it wasn’t something I wanted, but was something I felt I had to do. It would make me cool. It would prove my manliness. I wanted those things, but I didn’t actually want to have sex with this, or any, girl. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be straight. In realizing that I had something to prove, I guess, that’s when I knew.“

– A

When I was around eleven, a friend in my class whispered my name. When I glanced over at her, she gestured toward my stomach with her pencil. “You look pregnant,” she said, then laughed. That night, when I got home, I sprung into action mode: I wrote a diet and exercise plan. When my dad caught me, he smiled and told me it was just “growing fuel.” A bit relieved, I scrapped the plan, hugged my dad, and went to bed.

Moving into my teen years, I was disappointed to find my body didn’t spring up into something athletic or trim. My shoulders were relentlessly broad, my face a bit rounder than I’d like. With an athletic older brother, someone my peers often told me was strikingly handsome, I felt a little bit cheated. When am I going to get handsome?

I’ve documented the weight loss journey that marked my transition from high school to college. I ran miles and miles, lost a hundred pounds, and finally figured out what it was to pull on a small shirt and feel at home. I also learned, through that process, that shedding weight physically is an entirely different thing than letting go of the weight mentally. At my fittest, I never felt attractive or athletic enough.

Grad school marked the first time since my weight loss that some of the weight returned to my body. A thousand demanding time commitments, the ready availability of pizza, and – yes – a relatively frequent party culture found me spending less time running and more time frowning in the mirror as my clothing hugged tighter.

Since moving into the full-time realm, coming to Ball State and beginning my life post-masters, I have reintegrated running into my life. I’ve cut Diet Coke (mostly) and I’ve refused to set foot onto a scale, aiming for a healthy and happy body rather than the cold approval of a number.

But I’ve also set to work on appreciating the skin I’m in. My shoulders are broad, yes, and my face not ever be chiseled, but I have begun to allow myself the wild notion of believing that these are not bad things.

Compound this with a year of coming out, of speaking my story to all the people who know me, and the most recent journey in my life is a story of embracing my whole self. I’m not asking to be anyone other than me.

When my hall staff set out to complete an Abercrombie & Fitch-style photoshoot, I opted to embrace the opportunity. Lean into the chance to take a few shots. One of my RAs, Ryan, took our photos, and he sent the results. Here are some of the resulting shots:

These are probably not perfect photos. They may not drop jaws, they may not turn heads, and they may not mean much to anyone besides myself.

But they do mean something to me. I have begun to feel comfortable in this skin, a reality that’s taken me a good number of years. I like the person I’ve become, inside and out. My body is broad, and my nose is big, and my eyes are squinty, and – you know – those are kind of wonderful things.

I make this declaration not for attention or acclaim, but as a long sigh of relief. The journey to loving ourselves, as we are, can be a bumpy road. Let’s give ourselves permission; let’s allow ourselves the wild notion that we are worthwhile.

“I always felt nervous around girls; unsure of myself even more than I was around boys. I didn’t understand why, and then Jane moved into the house down the street from me. She had honey blonde hair, was all limbs, olive skin sprinkled with freckles, and the biggest eyes that were never quite brown or green. Her toothy smile lit up her entire face, and her laugh always chimed high and clear. For two years we were inseparable, spending summer afternoons together and weekends during the school year. When I couldn’t see her, I missed her.

“During the third summer, she told me she was moving down south. I wouldn’t see her anymore. My heart ached. We were lying on her deep red carpet in her bedroom, the midday sunlight streaming in from her windows. I felt cemented into the floor, immobile. I was watching her. Her gaze was up, her eyes following the reflections play on the ceiling, her chest gently rising and falling. Both of us silent. I wanted to reach out, touch her, hold her hand. More than that, I wanted to kiss her. Just once. It was consuming and paralyzing, and stronger than any whim I had towards a boy.

“It made sense in that moment. I made sense in that moment. I hated holding hand with my friends, who were all female. It meant something different to them. She was different for me. But I didn’t kiss her, and I didn’t reach out to her, hold her hand, or even speak a word. I laid there in the painful knowledge of recognizing oneself as different, as ‘other,’ for the first time. I was seven.

“Years passed, Jane and I lost touch, partly because of distance, partly because of my crippling fear of her knowing something about me that I barely understood myself. Confusion was my constant companion. I was different, yet not so different. I found boys could make my heart race, but so did girls. And I was terrified. I dreaded gym classes and slumber parties. Both promised an uncomfortable proximity or near nakedness to friends and classmates who were female and carried that certain something that made my heart feel like it was in my throat. I felt unsafe, tortured in moments that seemed so innocent and mundane to everyone around me.

“It wasn’t until college I had a name for it. It was amazing how my life felt after a word finally helped me understand who I was. Understanding I’m bi was, and still is, the best thing to ever happen to me. Yet that moment, lying in perfect stillness with my childhood friend, that’s when I knew.“

– S