XII: Finding Myself in a Closet

I decided during this time that I needed to figure some stuff out.  I had put it off for as long as I felt like I could.  I had continually found myself crushing on guys, yet dating girls.  The result was always the same.  I would be longing for love, would hook up with a girl.  She would begin to have feelings for me and I couldn’t commit because I didn’t want to have to give up my guy crushes.  So it always ended badly.

The girl from Florida was the last girl I would ever date.  I really liked her and realized that I hurt her very much.  I couldn’t do that to anyone anymore.  So I decided that I wouldn’t date another girl until I figured that out.  I started to slowly talk about my sexuality and even refer to myself as bisexual.  Even this was enough to put many people close to me in shock.  I certainly found out quickly who loved me unconditionally as I started exploring all this.

The range of emotion that I was experiencing at that point in my life was all over the spectrum.  I felt anger, regret, excitement, loneliness, shame and maybe a little hope buried under all that.

At first I began to flirt with a guy online, this was back in the good old days when everything was done in bulletin boards and such.  I got involved in an MOO that was like an interactive text based virtual reality.  This was before the world wide web and we would have to dial up to the university and then hop over to the MOO server.  It took forever to do anything and it was all just lines of green text on a monochrome screen.  

So through our chats I became more and more comfortable with my attraction to other men.  I had begun to express a more feminine look and for a period of time was very endogenous, which was kinda my aim.

Along with my online chatting I met a real live guy during this time.  When I met him however, I never expected us to end up dating.  It wasn’t until I was telling him about a book that I was writing about my lost opportunities for love called “Cupid’s Tears” that the topic was broached.  I told him that much of it had to do with my denial of my sexuality.  He then exclaimed that he was bi as well.  I think he was actually more bi-curious in retrospect.  I was young and new to all this so that was enough for me.

We began a very adolescent like exploration of our sexuality that I thought was very comforting at the time.  I then started to get it, the whole love thing.  I remember thinking to myself that this is what people must be talking about, writing songs about, smiling about.  It was a beautiful feeling as short lived as it was.

I soon moved into a small apartment in town determined to earn my living as a psychic.  I didn’t do very well, I was far too interested in having fun and exploring my new life.  As the friendship continued I was pretty sure I was gay, the bi part of it was the last thing I was clinging on.  My friend however was swinging the opposite way and wanted to keep our relationship a secret.  So at the moment when I wanted to come crashing out of my closet, I stayed in for his sake.

Once it was obvious that we were done, I came out, loud and proud.  My dad called this my Liza Minnelli phase.  Oh, That does remind me about another interesting thing that happened around this time.  I reconnected with my dad and I’m quite glad I did.

I had called my Grandma and she had told me that Dad was back in town and had got married again.  She told me I should call him.  I felt horrible for not staying in touch with my Grandma, but I didn’t mainly because I didn’t want contact with him.  I was so hurt and didn’t feel like I could handle his drinking in my life.  Timing is however key and at that moment, I felt very alone.  My mom didn’t react to the news of my relationship with a guy well, and I wasn’t speaking to my brother.  So I called.

I ended up talking to his new wife for a very long time.  I liked her and told her I was gay and I wasn’t sure how dad would act about all that.  As it turned out Dad kinda knew because of my rather close friendship with my hippy friend in Indianapolis.   I mean I guess it was kinda obvious.  So Dad called me when he got home and invited both me and my boyfriend over for dinner.  That scored major points with me and I forgave Dad for a lot of things on that day. We basically stayed in touch after that point until his death.  Not always consistently but we did stay in touch.  

I can’t tell you how strange it was to meet Dad’s new wife, who I would later affectionately call my “evil step mother”, only because she was actually very kind to me. To top it off having Dad and her meet my boyfriend.  Hell to have a boyfriend at all, and to introduce him that way to a parent was very strange.

Neither of my parents have ever met anyone I have dated since that time.  For whatever reason it was only important that one time.  Honestly there were only a few that I really cared for on that deep of a level.  I will always love him deeply, I hope he has found all he is looking for.

We split and remained friends for some time after.  Until I basically started living a pretty outwardly gay life.  We severed our ties around that time.  During our dating I was still chatting with a guy online.  I mean these days that sounds so bad.  In those days however it was so far from real life, it wasn’t really seen as a threat by anyone.  They knew about each other and it didn’t really matter to either one until my relationship ended and my online romance became my primary one.

So by this time I had moved out of my apartment and moved into a house with a very unstable older lesbian.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was on many levels, but wasn’t perfect by any stretch.  I had built a gay community and was even dating a bit here and there.  One of the guys I was dating would become a valuable friend that I still adore to this day.  He showed me how okay it was to be gay and was also a crazy aloof artist.  It didn’t help that he was pretty.  I would have fallen for him hard, but something told me not to.  I’m glad because I could have and it would have destroyed me.

Anyway, I went back to my crazy magickal practices as a way to manage my grief.  I walked ever so gently into my darkness, the warm darkness that would eventually define me for many people.  I was no longer just angry I was also tragic and began to identify with the many vampire characters in literature.  I became a small shadow creeping around the world, looking for power, meaning, happiness and love.