How I Became Me Chapter 2

I guess when you look back at your life we aren’t that different from one another. We may not travel the same path or have the same ideals, but we do have similar life experiences. As a child close to becoming a teenager I feared the age 18 for some strange reason. There would be nights I would wake up in a cold sweat praying to God that I made it to 18. To this current day I still can’t remember where the fear of making it to 18 came from. I do remember the fear as if it were yesterday. School was always exciting for me. I was always surrounded by many different types of people, but only Caucasian kids would become friends. Several of the African Americans kids said I talked “White” but when I was around the Caucasian kids I was always laughing and having such a great time. I really didn’t view color as a reason to be friends but for some reason I was black balled for quite a while. It would cause me emotional turmoil when I got home though I kept my smile and laughed while at school. Part of me felt like I wasn’t liked because of this great secret I was working so hard to keep from the rest of the world. I still couldn’t figure out what it was, no one I talked to ever spoke about being different, having weird or strange thoughts about the same sex. We learned that a grown up touching you was wrong but no one explained what it meant that a boy liked another boy in a way that a man liked a woman. So I figured I was just different from everyone else. In some strange and bizarre way I created the idea that maybe I was from another planet and my parents adopted me into their family to protect me. Remember I said I had a vivid imagination. I could create ideas and they would become so realistic that I would start believing them myself. Once that idea hit my mind it stayed with me for many years later in my life even though by then I knew better. When I reached 13 I had taken on many physical changes as well as mental changes. My voice was starting to change even though I still talked like my sister I could feel that change in my throat. My attitude started to change and what use to make me run off and cry started to piss me off royally. I still at this point in my life feared speaking out because I knew if I allowed my true emotions free this darkness would release its self and I would be branded the odd man out. My brothers started showing different talents. The oldest of the 4 younger kids started playing basketball and was very good at it. The next to the oldest started drawing and painting, the family raved about his creative talents. The youngest of us started playing basketball as well and also started to dance. I watched in support and at the same time sadness that they were able to blossom and bloom into these very talented individuals but I was still trying to figure out who I was. Getting past this attraction for boys created a wall that was so strong nothing penetrated it. My conversations with my mom were still deep and always fulfilling to me. It was those conversations that protected me. I once asked her if she thought I was different but I couldn’t elaborate as she requested because I was hoping she would have the answer. I was hoping that my hero could save me from this fear and these unexplainable feelings that crept inside of me and started to grow and become more powerful than me. My mom always told me that I had more talent than I would know what to do with. She said when I am older and understand myself more I would get what I needed by just stepping out on faith. That encouragement spurred something strong inside of me but the fear was equally as strong. Writing was always my escape when I started feeling these weird and unexplainable feelings. I would write to songs I heard on the radio, I would write poems after reading a poem, I would write short stories after watching shows and movies, but I would tear them up because I thought the writing was too adult for me. That idea was given to me by my sister. I wrote a love song after hearing a song on the radio by Barry White. I was so excited about it I showed my sister and she told me I was too young to be writing stuff like that. I felt so ashamed that I never showed my writings to another adult ever, though my writing at school impressed several people. I secretly wrote love letters and poems for the male friends I had. They wanted to impress their girlfriends and I was happy to oblige. I started making friends based on my ability to write just about anything. Without realizing it while I was doing it I had found my talent. I knew what I could do to be special. Yet that nagging fear of the secret kept me from sharing it with the rest of my family. It seems so crazy now being a 36 year old married gay man that at that moment of my life I could have blossomed and bloomed like the rest of my family but I was too afraid to embrace being who I was. At the same time it is very obvious why I couldn’t grab my confidence. There were no known openly gay people in my life. My cousin was older and extremely gay but no one ever explained what that meant. I just remember my father making that gesture with his hand every time someone mentioned my cousin. I saw that same gesture on Sanford and Son when Fred would be talking about a man being feminine. I wrote the idea off as there are strong men and there are feminine men. I never saw a man with another man or a woman with another woman. I just figured I was one of the feminine men that still was meant to be with a woman. I thought it was destined for a man to find a woman, get married, and provide for their family. I never saw someone living outside of the norm. Normal was all I saw and all I could imagine. No outside heroes that lived the way I imagined, no one saying that they were different and proud to be. So I kept all of those emotions to myself. The urge to leave Aiken South Carolina grew stronger and stronger. At one point one of my older brothers came to visit from Virginia. He brought my nephew down with him. Instantly that feeling of leaving became so great to me. I knew that I could get away from this town and make a new name for myself. I could create a life that I could control and wouldn’t be judged by family because I would be the only family member there. I could have the friends I chose and live the life I so desperately needed. My brother stated that my nephew was staying in Aiken South Carolina. My heart broke because I just knew that this would be my escape. Little did I know at the time my nephew would trigger that piece of the puzzle of my life. A little before my nephew moved to Aiken South Carolina my younger brother started talking about making a dance group. I was so excited to hear this and so shy to the thought of dancing in front of people. At the time I only had two dances I did which were “The Roger Rabbit” and “The Alf”. Those dance moves were hardly enough to bring into a dance group. Though those two dance moves were minimal, my younger brother and my nephew that lived in Aiken already showed me those moves. It didn’t register to me at the time that I learned them awfully quick and then changed them up to suite me. I started watching them practice and then I would wait until everyone was asleep and I would start imitating what I saw them do. To my surprise I did the moves exactly the way they did them. I started getting more and more confident in how my body moved. I wanted so badly to be a part of this dance group. Not only because of the love for my little brother but for the tearing down of this crippling fear to be me for once. Two weeks later while my brother, our cousin, and two of our best friends were practicing I came out of the house and stood ride beside my little brother. My little brother gave me this smile and when the music started playing I started to dance. The routine was on point and we danced for several hours. Before I knew it I was making up dance moves. My brother and I danced exactly the same. It was amazing how in rhythm we were when I was so shy and nervous before. That was the start of the wall falling apart. That smile from my baby brother did something to me that till this day still moves me. It was a look of support, being proud of me, and letting me know that he looked at me and knew I could do whatever I wanted to. That night when we got home I sat on my bed starring up at the ceiling and thought about the fear and the secret, at that point I knew that I had to conquer it and my little brother gave me the inspiration that I needed to be ready to face my fears.