My misspent youth of folly; part 4

I never came out to my parents.

I know, hard to believe isn't it. I was outed at Denny's but I never had to tell my parents.

I hear all these horror stories about what it was like for people coming out. How some religious families abandoned and disowned their children and what some peoples parents put them through, like reversion therapy and re-birthing therapy, which is some pretty scary shit in reality.

I always feel a mix of pride at how forward thinking and mentally evolved my parents always were and how easy they made growing up gay a non-issue. After all, this is a kid whose favorite Christmas gift from childhood was the deluxe two story, bright pink, She-Ra Princess of Power Crystal Palace. Not to mention the rather large barbie collection I had amassed by the age of ten.

In my interactions with other people in the gay community the first universal bond that we shared was the experience of coming out. Upon hearing so many coming out stories I, for some unexplainable reason, seemed to feel just a smidgen of disappointment that I didn't have a DRAMATIC coming out story of my own. My coming out was almost inconsequential...

I was going to American Career College at the time, taking my medical classes, commuting with my mom on her way to work. She was taking a course at Landmark at the time and I was helping her on her memorization. She spoke out loud like an actress with a script. I had her folder on my lap and was keeping her place with my fingertip when suddenly the words I was reading were not the words she was saying, and I looked up and said "huh, what?"

"Oh well, your gay right? I mean that's what we always thought?"

I looked away from her as quickly as I could. Mothers can read their kids eyes... and when time has stopped and you are caught in the mother stare, there is no lie you can tell convincingly. She will see it. Instead I focused on the trees on the side of the street. The tires on the other cars. We were at the intersection of Barranca and Sand Canyon Boulevard.

"Um... yeah? Turn right here..."

"That's what I thought, just checking. Anyway, where was I? You still have your finger where I left off, where was I?"

And away she went... back to practicing her lines. As if this was normal everyday conversation... As if it had no more weight to it than what would you like for dinner. She turned right and drove on toward my school.

The only other time she broke from the IFLP script that morning was when she turned to me and said, "drive through McDonald's for breakfast this morning?"

Again, my response was less than stellar and witty: "uh, yeah, sure, ok."

I cant remember a thing they taught in school that day. I couldn't believe that I had just come out to my mom. I had been so terrified at the thought of coming out to them. I don't know why. I don't even know when I started to be afraid of being gay. I knew it was wrong in High School, but I also knew that people didn't really always care the way you thought they were going to.

My Dad, and my brother however... not too excited about their reaction. After all, I had always been mom's little boy... and Josh had always been Chucks buddy. I guess I always knew my mom would take it well... I just couldn't say I was as confident with how they would take it. Mom picked me up after school on her way home from work.

We drove home singing along to the radio, and she talked about her day. At some point she said that she had told Chuck, and for some reason I don't remember her saying anything else. I didn't notice the pressure in my chest until we turned onto my street and I started panicking.

We pulled into the driveway and mom turned to me. "Chuck doesn't have a problem with you being gay, you know. We have known since you were about four. One of your therapists told us that you might grow up gay without intervention. So we didn't intervene, and we waited. It was an eventuality that we were prepared for."

As we walked in the front door, mom called out hello to Chuck who was just finishing a set on his drums. He finished and put his sticks down and came into the living room.

"Hey Sweetie" he said to mom before turning to me and saying "So, big day for you, huh." And then, I shit you not, he sang to me... "coming out is haaard to-oo-oo do" followed by some unintelligible high-pitched whaling a'la Frankie Valley. When he was done, he looked at me with that twisted dopey smile and said "well you know, I always wanted a daughter!!"

Finally, for once, my wit did not fail me, and I turned to him and calmly replied "Chuck, I am NOT going dress shopping with you!!"

And that was it. We chuckled, and hung out in the living room and watched tv. That was my DRAMATIC coming out story. Even worse was when I decided to tell my brother. It was a rare day about a week after my parents found out. Josh was in a surprisingly chipper and friendly mood, and we thought it would be a lot of fun to go out on Mission Viejo lake in kayaks. On the walk over there I built up the courage again and right before we got to the lake house I finally blurted it out.

"Josh, you know... I'm gay..."

"Um, does the word DUH mean anything to you? You have been in what I like to call a glass closet. You think your hiding it, but shit, everybody knows!!"

That day he tipped my kayak over three times before I got back to the lake house... bastard. When we got back to the house he told me he had a surprise for me. We got dressed and got into his beat up, dirt caked behemoth of a powder blue tank and drove down to the Laguna Nigel theatre.

He got out and said he had been trying to find someone to see this movie with him, and since I was a big ol MO now, I should enjoy it. That is how I ended up in a deserted dark theater in christian republican Orange County laughing hysterically along with my straight brother to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Again, robbed of all dramatic tension, my life seems to constantly play out as a grand comedy. All that's left for me to do is laugh along and enjoy it.