Over the
years I've come out through letters, in phone calls, and while
chatting online. I came out to my mum in a moving car, and wished I’d
planned the evening differently. I've come out to one adult at
a time, and I've come out to a room of 30 children, twice. I
came out to one friend at a bus stop in the rain, and another in the
library during study break. I came out to two friends while we
ate McDonald's at the food hall after
school. I've come out so many times in the past 17 years that my
racing heart, as I correct an assumption of heterosexuality or confirm a
suspicion of the opposite, has become the soundtrack to every memory of those
admissions.
I don’t remember when I first came out to myself.
I don’t even recall when I first allowed the word to enter my mind and let it attach itself to my understanding of who I am. For the longest time I came out to people without saying the word ‘gay’ at all.
In the summer after Year 10 finished, I was 15 and had been sitting in silence on the phone tothe girl I was in love with my best friend for longer than was
comfortable. She’d asked me why I had been so quiet while we were laying
together in the park, hours earlier, and why I’d seemed so angry when we left.
I didn't know how to answer that because I didn't have any
of the words which would allow things to both make sense and still be
okay. Strict upbringings and Catholic school environments can do a real number
on you.
“I don’t want to be what I seem to think I am.”
There it was. Without using any of the words I needed to include to have it all make sense, I’d revealed every one of my fears in a single sentence. Over the next year I tried not being who I seemed to think I was, at absolutely every opportunity, and then another girl came along, made me fall for her, and completely foiled my plans. This is where the letters, phone calls, and the car ride with Mum began. While each of these ‘outings’ was a different shade of heartbreaking, in among them is one that serves to remind me that amazing people are lurking everywhere and simple acts of kindness can change the world.
On weekends in college I worked serving food at a street market. There were many regular customers who came by, ordering the same thing week to week, and two of these customers were a young, gay couple in their 20s. The two women would often arrive at the stall holding hands or with their arms around each other and I looked forward to Saturdays just to be able to see people expressing the very affection my mother had warned me not to show in public with my girlfriend. On the weeks they didn't come by at all, I would leave the market feeling a little dejected as though we’d had a standing arrangement and they had let me down. On the weeks they did arrive, I found myself looking at them and in my mind I would be screaming I’M GAY TOO, hoping desperately that they would hear me.
School was horrible. My girlfriend and I were bullied relentlessly, locked in toilet blocks, pushed around, and became targets to throw unwanted food at, and the nuns and priests in charge didn't know what to do about US. When the consistent message from all sides was that WE were the problem, I decided to write a letter to the two customers at work. Even writing that now feels absurd, but I didn't feel as though I had a single other person I could turn to. I can’t remember all of my words, but I do remember describing the difficulties my girlfriend and I were experiencing, and then writing 'I just want to know if it gets better'. Part-way through my next shift I saw them approaching our stall and while I worked with three other people, I hurried with the customers I was serving in order to ensure that I would be the one to serve the women.
I began preparing their order before they spoke and I’m not even sure I heard them over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. As they paid for their food I dipped one hand into the coin draw for their change and the other into my pocket to retrieve the letter.
“Can I just give you this too?” I'm sure if my voice was even audible, it would have wavered as I spoke to the taller of the two, and offered out my hand, the change sitting with the letter I had written.
The following Saturday, she came along by herself. She ordered the same food as always and, this time, when I handed her some change, she handed me a letter. I don’t know if the smile on my face was a big as the one in my heart, but I do know the remainder of my shift went by very slowly as I waited for a chance to read her response.
The only things I now recall about her letter were her writing that she felt I was brave, and providing me with her phone number. There was so much more in it, three pages of blue paper, but those two things are the two which stood out. She was praising me for saying the words everyone else frowned upon, and she was offering her support.
Over the following year, this woman and her girlfriend offered me, and my girlfriend, advice and support at every turn. They invited us into their home and allowed me to phone them when I needed someone to talk to. They put us in touch with other people and organisations which could offer support. They supported us when my girlfriend took too many pills, and they visited her in the hospital. They supported us the first time we broke up and the first time we got back together. Knowing we had the support of these two women was one of the only things that helped me through my final year of Catholic school. The following year they moved interstate and we kept in touch sporadically over the next few years.
My relationship with that particular girlfriend ended about three years later and, a couple of girlfriends and a lifetime of experiences after this, I found myself crossing paths with these women once again. My ‘new’ girlfriend and I had been together for about six years and she was pregnant with our first child when I heard that they were moving back home as they, too, were expecting a child. We arranged to meet up and, at 28, I felt almost as nervous as I had done after arranging to meet them for the first time 11 years prior. Our children were born three weeks apart, a girl for us and a boy for them, and we now consider them to be some of our closest friends.
I don’t remember when I first came out to myself.
I don’t even recall when I first allowed the word to enter my mind and let it attach itself to my understanding of who I am. For the longest time I came out to people without saying the word ‘gay’ at all.
In the summer after Year 10 finished, I was 15 and had been sitting in silence on the phone to
“I don’t want to be what I seem to think I am.”
There it was. Without using any of the words I needed to include to have it all make sense, I’d revealed every one of my fears in a single sentence. Over the next year I tried not being who I seemed to think I was, at absolutely every opportunity, and then another girl came along, made me fall for her, and completely foiled my plans. This is where the letters, phone calls, and the car ride with Mum began. While each of these ‘outings’ was a different shade of heartbreaking, in among them is one that serves to remind me that amazing people are lurking everywhere and simple acts of kindness can change the world.
On weekends in college I worked serving food at a street market. There were many regular customers who came by, ordering the same thing week to week, and two of these customers were a young, gay couple in their 20s. The two women would often arrive at the stall holding hands or with their arms around each other and I looked forward to Saturdays just to be able to see people expressing the very affection my mother had warned me not to show in public with my girlfriend. On the weeks they didn't come by at all, I would leave the market feeling a little dejected as though we’d had a standing arrangement and they had let me down. On the weeks they did arrive, I found myself looking at them and in my mind I would be screaming I’M GAY TOO, hoping desperately that they would hear me.
School was horrible. My girlfriend and I were bullied relentlessly, locked in toilet blocks, pushed around, and became targets to throw unwanted food at, and the nuns and priests in charge didn't know what to do about US. When the consistent message from all sides was that WE were the problem, I decided to write a letter to the two customers at work. Even writing that now feels absurd, but I didn't feel as though I had a single other person I could turn to. I can’t remember all of my words, but I do remember describing the difficulties my girlfriend and I were experiencing, and then writing 'I just want to know if it gets better'. Part-way through my next shift I saw them approaching our stall and while I worked with three other people, I hurried with the customers I was serving in order to ensure that I would be the one to serve the women.
I began preparing their order before they spoke and I’m not even sure I heard them over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. As they paid for their food I dipped one hand into the coin draw for their change and the other into my pocket to retrieve the letter.
“Can I just give you this too?” I'm sure if my voice was even audible, it would have wavered as I spoke to the taller of the two, and offered out my hand, the change sitting with the letter I had written.
The following Saturday, she came along by herself. She ordered the same food as always and, this time, when I handed her some change, she handed me a letter. I don’t know if the smile on my face was a big as the one in my heart, but I do know the remainder of my shift went by very slowly as I waited for a chance to read her response.
The only things I now recall about her letter were her writing that she felt I was brave, and providing me with her phone number. There was so much more in it, three pages of blue paper, but those two things are the two which stood out. She was praising me for saying the words everyone else frowned upon, and she was offering her support.
Over the following year, this woman and her girlfriend offered me, and my girlfriend, advice and support at every turn. They invited us into their home and allowed me to phone them when I needed someone to talk to. They put us in touch with other people and organisations which could offer support. They supported us when my girlfriend took too many pills, and they visited her in the hospital. They supported us the first time we broke up and the first time we got back together. Knowing we had the support of these two women was one of the only things that helped me through my final year of Catholic school. The following year they moved interstate and we kept in touch sporadically over the next few years.
My relationship with that particular girlfriend ended about three years later and, a couple of girlfriends and a lifetime of experiences after this, I found myself crossing paths with these women once again. My ‘new’ girlfriend and I had been together for about six years and she was pregnant with our first child when I heard that they were moving back home as they, too, were expecting a child. We arranged to meet up and, at 28, I felt almost as nervous as I had done after arranging to meet them for the first time 11 years prior. Our children were born three weeks apart, a girl for us and a boy for them, and we now consider them to be some of our closest friends.
What is perhaps most
significant about having these amazing women in my life again, after all those
years, is that they know, better than anyone else, how much my life has
changed. It got better, just as they told me, scared at 17, it would. Of the
hundreds of coming out stories I have accumulated, this one stands out as being
the very first positive. I don’t
remember when I first came out to myself, but I do remember the very first time
I was told that it was okay to be who I am.
