Dear Old Friend

Dear Old Friend,

As bizarre as it sounds, Facebook, merely a popular “social network,” has added a dimension to my life.  It’s hard to admit, as I mostly enjoy disliking anything that is too popular, like the Kardashians.  (But don’t you mess with my Dr. Phil.) Nevertheless, even in a life filled with wonderful family, good friends, and a great job, it’s warming to find a quick hello or a like to a post.  It can make the, still, sometimes lonely world a bit less so.

It was with, then, excited intentions that I contacted you, in hopes that I could add you to the list of people who throw out cyber hugs to me and to whom I reciprocate with such hugs.  So, I did.  I contacted you. 

I have memories of you.  Mostly of laughter.  Just so you know, as I now feel compelled to tell you, many people didn’t like you.  They called you a Snob and Shallow, but I didn’t find you as such.  I liked you. 

You and I and Others spent summers together in Wisconsin.  I loved these summers and I loved the people there, including you, and these summers were so wonderful and free and lovely. 

I told Another Old Friend, that I had found you on facebook and had she talked to you in recent years?  This Other Old Friend and I both contacted you at the same time.  I am quite certain that I know why you accepted her friend request and not mine.

The pictures of me and my Alternative Family Freaked You Out.  Yes, even in these days of Ellen Degenerous, Rosie O’Donnell, and Chastity Bono, you still find my “lifestyle” Vile and Disgusting.  Some may argue, “No, that’s not why she rejected you--.”  But we both know the truth, don’t we.

The world is changing and I am changing and People like You don’t have the Power to make me feel Vile and Disgusting anymore.  So don’t worry about having hurt my self-esteem.  I’m sure you’ve lost many nights’ sleep worrying about this too, but I’m officially informing you now that you can get Over It.

I want to be bigger than you and wish you a good life.  I want to say your rejection didn’t hurt.  The truth is, while I don’t wish you any harm, I also don’t necessarily wish you a good life.  This is because it did hurt.  While I’m just as valuable a human being as my straight peers, your rejection of me, due to something I can’t control, did hurt. 

Perhaps I should just cast it off as the Others were right: you are Snobby and Shallow.  I think, though, that this makes you get off too easy.  I still think these old friends were wrong: you weren’t Snobby and Shallow and this is precisely why your rejection stings.  Instead you perhaps were (and are) merely Mean Spirited and, for lack of something more creative to call you, a Bigot. 

And so, it is with Disappointment in Myself that I am Not Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mahatma Ghandi (sp?), who would instead Pray for your Fortitude (don’t know what that means, but it sounds right) that I feel compelled to forever leave you with two little words that I find necessary to utilize in times like these.

Fuck off.

Signed,

What?  Did you think I was in Love with You?  PLEASE!

Dear Hilary Clinton,

As a child, I looked for Alan Funt.  I looked for him around corners, under furniture, inside of closets.  He had to be somewhere and I wanted to know where and how it was that he had hidden his cameras so well.  You see, it just couldn’t be true that I was a vulgar monster (gay) growing up in a household filled with perfectly normal people.  Instead, I had to have been cast in some bizarre episode of Candid Camera.  This episode was sure to be so outrageous that it would, perhaps, be broadcast during sweeps.    “You’re not gay—HAHAHAHAHA! Smile!  You’re just on Candid Camera! Wasn’t that funny?!”

Even as a child, though, I must have realized that I was merely perpetuating my own charade because I also remember lifting couch cushions to see if Alan Funt was there.  Obviously, even I knew that this was not possible.  Or did I?  When you’re gay, you stop trusting things.  All things.  Every thing.  Because from the moment you’re born and it is assumed that you are straight, something very strange happens when you realize you’re not. You suddenly believe that the world is filled with lies.  There’s nothing to trust.  You question everything.  Perhaps, then, it is possible for Alan Funt to Cirque-du-Soleil his body into a pancake.  Maybe he really is under one of our plaid orange, 1970’s couch cushions.  Stranger things have happened.   And so I did, in fact, lift those cushions.  But, alas, to no avail.  (Although I did find some coins, some cookie crumbs, and some old crayon pieces…)

Close friends have wondered how I knew at such a young age that I was gay.  Some have suggested that they were “unaware” of their own sexuality until much later.  Despite their not intending as such, the question itself takes me right back to the monster-like quality I felt as a child.  “So, not only are you gay, but you were also aware of it when you were young?!” 

Yes, I was.  And despite growing up in Conservativeville, USA, I had it easy.  My parents weren’t going to beat me to death or kick me out of the house.  I wasn’t going to be stoned or thrown into jail.  Nevertheless, the pain I felt was intense and palpable.  One of the differences in belonging to this sort of a minority is that, unlike a person who practices a certain religion, or a person whose skin is a certain color, a gay child is even alone in his or her family.  The outcaste status is not shared with parents or siblings and so there is no real sense of security even in your own home, away from the outside world.

No, it is not poor me, however, it is true.  My childhood was very painful.  If I am thankful for it, it is because I believe that I enjoy life today largely because I have such memories of what life can feel like and what life must feel like to others who live in isolation and fear, for whatever reason.   The openness and freedom I’m allowed has made me content and appreciative on a continual basis. 

My life-experience and my understanding of how being gay affects my life actually changed a couple of days ago, when the U.S. Secretary of State delivered an unbelievable speech, for all of the world to hear.  Somehow, when listening to Hilary Clinton so eloquently address what it means to have human rights and dignity, I transformed into that seven-year-old girl I once was, and imagined myself watching her speak on our black and white console.  I stood alone, near our dial-up green phone, on the brown, shag carpet, with the plaid seat cushion in my hand.  I stopped my search for evidence that my life itself must be a joke because I turned toward some strong lady who miraculously normalized me.  Something about that speech in Geneva healed a very old wound.  I’m oddly grateful that the scar will always be there, but I’m glad it hurts much less today. I'm shocked and appreciative to have found a sense of solace in hearing what Clinton had to say.  And I have gratitude and admiration for her having the courage to say it.    

While Sitting at the Computer at School

Dear Institutionalized, Systemic Homophobia:

I’m done with you.  And, to top it off, it seems like you need some kind of proof that you still permeate through every bit of air, some areas more toxic than others.  You seem to say things like no one cares about that anymore—you drop words like domestic partnerships as proof.  You correctly refer to the ways in which much of the world has changed.  

And it has. 

But not enough.  Not nearly enough. 

Here are just a few reasons:

·      When major political candidates promise a constitutional amendment to keep gays and lesbians (by law) as inferior human beings, and there isn’t a national outrage, and this candidate isn’t blackballed from his campaign, but, is instead, the ‘leader’ in his party, there’s too much TOLERANCE for homophobia.

·      When another political candidate thinks that being gay can be prayed away (I guess that’s what her husband did), there’s too much TOLERANCE for homophobia. 

·      When, out of the 5,000 or so books my school has in its library, not one of them mentions having two moms or two dads, there’s too much TOLERANCE for homophobia.

·      When, in referring to homosexuality, it is still implicitly or directly connected to bestiality and/or polygamy, there is too much TOLERANCE for homophobia. 

·      When it is automatically assumed that, yes, even children are straight—when we ask little girls if they have crushes on boys and vice-versa, there is still too much TOLERANCE for homophobia.

·      When, while sitting at a computer at school, a young Human Being gets shot in the head for having called a male classmate his Valentine, there is too much TOLERANCE for homophobia.  For calling him his Valentine.  He was killed. 

It was the shooter’s fault.  But, had the air been cleared, had we gotten INTOLERANT to homophobia, I bet this wouldn’t have happened. 

·      When our goal for relating to each other is TOLERANCE and not ACCEPTANCE, there is too much TOLERANCE for homophobia. 

Signed,

Can’t Believe this Kid was Killed.  The world can no longer accept breathing in bigoted air of any kind.