There are those lucky ones who have an immediate supportive friend or relative who understands, but for many there is only fear and self-loathing.

This is not the place for stats and surveys; but we all know that the numbers are high and immeasurable for the suicide rate among people of any age who are going through the struggle.

Religion can often offer a safe place for individuals in need, but when it comes to dealing with sexuality – on any level – it often falls short due to the unwillingness to address such a ‘private’ issue or because of its black-and-white stance that sex is only for a married man and a woman – period.  So where does this leave the millions of us who need an ear to hear and a shoulder to lean?  Out in the cold.

When I was working with homeless gay youth, I realized that many kids who didn’t end their personal pain by taking their life instantly, were taking the long road to suicide with drugs, alcohol and survival sex.  We all deal with life differently – either constructively or destructively – and while some can bring about instant results, others linger in the ether for years.

All of this was stirred in me again when, on August 4, a man walked into a gym in suburban Pittsburgh and with guns in hand killed three and wounded nine women.  The motive given by experts and the shooter himself was that he felt isolated, unloved and no longer in control of his life.  Obviously he wasn’t struggling with being gay, but it was a current reminder of the real and devastating power that the feelings of being all alone in the world and the thoughts that “no one understands me” can have on a person.

If you don’t have a supportive family, friends or church, where else is there to turn?  For many, the first answer is “no where”. Even the local gay community can fail at offering mentors to help pull up and encourage those who are falling behind.  (There are many reasons for this, which I’ve mentioned in my other posts; they include not having an organized social ‘club’ like churches; a fear or being labeled a pedophile for being involved with anything with minors; or a selfish survival amnesia – having come through the trials and tribulations ourselves, we don’t want to revisit or relive it, even vicariously through the stories of others.)

The point of this blog is to let others know that you are not alone.  Whether you’re wrestling with “What Would Jesus Do?” or struggling with the truths in the Torah; or fighting the love you feel inside for the love of Allah – there are countless others who have felt exactly as you’ve felt.  You need to know that no matter where you are on your life path, you don’t walk it alone.

One great place to go to talk and begin to connect to others is the Trevor Project. The Trevor Helpline is a free and confidential service that offers hope and someone to talk to, 24/7. The Trevor Helpline’s trained counselors will listen and understand without judgment. If you or someone you know would like to talk to one of our highly trained counselors, dial 866-4-U-TREVOR. www.thetrevorhelpline.org.

Of course, this was relative – if you were an ant or a lighting bug in my backyard, you were destined for a grotesque demise.  I was fascinated with spiders and when I would spy a spider web in the notch of a tree or in a pile of dead leaves, I would hunt down an ant from somewhere in the vicinity, snatch it up from its daily chore, drop it ever so gently into the web and watch with excitement as it struggled to free itself and in the process alert the host of a free meal.

The eight legged beast would always emerge – sometimes quickly, lurching towards its prey; sometimes hesitantly it would seem to asses the situation before making its way calmly to the struggling ant.  There would then be the confrontation where the either the spider would begin to bind the ant in a cocoon of web and place a final paralyzing bite that ended the struggle.  Or the ant would fight so ferociously to free itself from the trap and drop to safety.  If it did manage an escape, I believed it had earned its freedom and would hunt for another victim.

My young mind was fascinated with watching this drama play out before my eyes.  Like a Roman Caesar in my own personal coliseum – deciding the fate of my prisoners.

Then there was the most wonderful creatures of all, the lighting bugs.  Every June they would dot the evening air with flashes of random sparks.  These easy to catch creatures are a great “experiment” for children.  The most common use of lighting bugs is to fill an old mayonnaise jar with some glass, catch few bugs and put them in the jar to create your own personal night light that would sit next your bed.  Although, usually by morning – or at least in a day or two – the confinement would take its toll and you’d have to start the hunt again.

A more sinister use for lighting bugs would be to create jewelry.  We quickly discovered that if you rip the light off of the lighting bug it would remain lit in all its yellow fluorescent glory, and you could ‘stick’ them on your finger to create a ring or line them up around your neck for a nice glow-in-the-dark necklace.

During all this savage butchery, the question always surfaced in the child’s mind, “Why do they light?”, “How do they make the light?”  No adult ever had an answer, and even if they did have the biological reasoning for it – it would’ve made no sense and only added confusion to the mystery. It just WAS, period.  We accepted that fact and enjoyed our night lights.

Life is always more about the questions, rather than the answers.  It is believed that is the root of all religion – to give answers to the questions that without a god or gods there would be no answers.

Our inquisitive nature starts out simply enough; why do lighting bugs light? What happens to the ant when it dies in the spiders grip?  Where did we come from? What happens to us when we breathe our last breath? Then as we age the questions become more complex and personal; why are we here?  What makes something ‘right’ or ‘wrong’?  And if you’re gay or struggling with sexual or gender identity – why do I have these feelings and what do I do about them?

In the world in which we live today, almost all of our questions get filtered through religion – whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or ‘other’.  It’s great from the vantage point of providing an answer; but not so good since it usually creates a contradiction and conflict for what we are feeling in our soul.

I’ve stated in previous posts about the dark times that surrounded me as I was in my questioning phase; so here I want to state where I am today with all the questions and answers.

Gibran wrote, “You can’t have youth and the knowledge of youth at the same time”.  For many, we have to search for the meaning of our lives at an early age, before we’ve lived long enough to acquire the real wisdom of life. It’s one of the unfortunate facts of our human condition.

We are the choices we make.

I believe we are all born with “what we are” and as we grow and make decisions – whether small or large – we craft who we will become.  At any age, all of our decisions are based on what we know, or believe, to be true.  The hardest times in life arrive when we are forced to make choices that are counter to all we believe to be true.  Hating to sound cliché, but the best decisions are those that are made based on being true to yourself – even if it means going against all you’ve believed up to that point.

This is where we all differ on our personal paths; deciding how much of our beliefs of tradition to cling to and how much of our personal knowledge of who we are to accept.  Some end up with an ‘all or nothing’ approach, and some create a hybrid life and can reconcile the two.

The key is to chose and dedicate yourself to that choice. That is how the freedom arrives, in the act of the decision.

Everything does not need to make sense.  Every question does not need or have an answer.  Things are as they are. You don’t have to reconcile all of the mysteries of life at this very moment.  The choice to accept who you are and who you love is an initial decision – not the final one.  If you know who, or what, you are, all the other crossroads will become a little easier to navigate.

My evolution has led me to a knowledge and belief of who I am and in a universe that exists without a big old god in charge of it all. I’m still open to the possibility of a “great unknown” force or energy or power or whatever – but my faith currently rests in humanity and the fact that we are capable of great good and evil.  I know I am the result of all the choices I’ve made, big and small, along the way, and it not only affects my outcome, but touches on lives and choices of those near and far from me.

Peace definitely comes from acceptance.  That is the first and most immediate choice – to accept what you know to be true, whatever that is, in your heart.  Once that happens, the ‘why’ becomes a little less important.

Though I still don’t give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to the final destiny of ants in spider webs, I do still sit in my own personal coliseum deciding the person I am and the person I hope to be.

“An engineering professor is treating her husband, a loan officer, to dinner for finally giving in to her pleas to shave off the scraggly beard he grew on vacation. His favorite restaurant is a casual place where they both feel comfortable in slacks and cotton/polyester-blend golf shirts. But, as always, she wears the gold and pearl pendant he gave her the day her divorce decree was final. They’re laughing over their menus because they know he always ends up diving into a giant plate of ribs but she won’t be talked into anything more fattening than shrimp.

Quiz: How many biblical prohibitions are they violating?

Well, wives are supposed to be ‘submissive’ to their husbands (I Peter 3:1). And all women are forbidden to teach men (I Timothy 2:12), wear gold or pearls (I Timothy 2:9) or dress in clothing that ‘pertains to a man’ (Deuteronomy 22:5). Shellfish and pork are definitely out (Leviticus 11:7, 10) as are usury (Deuteronomy 23:19), shaving (Leviticus 19:27) and clothes of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19). And since the Bible rarely recognizes divorce, they’re committing adultery, which carries the rather harsh penalty of death by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:22). So why are they having such a good time? Probably because they wouldn’t think of worrying about rules that seem absurd, anachronistic or–at best–unrealistic. Yet this same modern-day couple could easily be among the millions of Americans who never hesitate to lean on the Bible to justify their own anti-gay attitudes.”

–From lesbian columnist Deb Price’s book, “And Say Hi To Joyce.”

On the one side I had all that I believed my entire life about the world, the universe, the here and now and eternity.  On the other side was the great land of the unknown that was full of deception, earthly pleasures that lead down a path of destruction, temporary earthly gains that paled in comparison to streets of gold, and every sort of dark trickery that the devil could dream up to destroy our relationship with God, and ultimately eternal damnation.

There I stood, facing that wall with the internal wrestling’s of who I was and the growing knowledge that the real world was different than how I had viewed it through my Christian eyes.  It was a moment – a moment that literally lasted years – where I debated within myself what to do with the wall and the worlds that existed on either side.  To say that it was gut-wrenching or troubling is an understatement.  I don’t know if there are adequate words for the feeling of facing all that you believe to be true and dealing with the growing evidence that it may be false – either part or all of it.

At the time I didn’t feel there was any middle ground.  For me there was not a third option of being a gay Christian – I had never heard of such a thing as a “gay Christian” and the concept was an impossibility based on all I had been taught.  In my mind the choices were clear; it was all or nothing, one side of the wall or the other.

Those were horrible years for me as I believed all of eternity hung in the balance.  How could I turn my back on my faith – yet how could live a lie?

The wall began to crack slowly as one by one I began to question certain aspects of my beliefs that just didn’t make sense – biblical contradictions, comparing beliefs of other faiths and religions, the viewing of commonality of other people regardless of their beliefs, and the fact that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was gay.

After many years, and suicidal attempt, realized that the truth about being gay was not worth dying over, and living life trumped everything else.

It took so long to feel a sense of peace about my decisions.  Much time was spent questioning and worrying about all I was giving up and all I was exploring.  But rest and assurance does come, and threats of heaven and hell do fade into the normal contemplations of what lies beyond the grave.

It is not easy to walk away from your faith, and it took me many years to free myself from my beliefs and convictions.  I was determined to search for truth, wherever and whatever it may be.  Others have chosen various other paths that lead them to being a gay Christian, still holding onto and reconciling their faith and their life.  Some find solace in other faiths and beliefs that have always allowed for personal truth to be incorporated.  And some never cross the wall at all and chose their convictions of their faith over their feelings deep within.  I cannot judge that one way is better than another, all I can address are the choices I made, and from where I stand now, the other side of the wall is scarier than I ever imagined this side to be.

Once you get it all figured out, it’s like you’ve unlocked an ancient secret.  You are now equipped with the uncanny ability to judge, and by judge, I mean rightful, justified judgment, not just petty declarations based on personal preference – you’ve got Jesus on your side, and who can argue with God?

Not only can you pass judgment on everything you see, everyone you meet, and everything they’re doing, but you also get to apply the check list to your own personal life.  Every thought, action or non-action, and every word you utter gets to be weighed on these scales.  Having this discernment is not only a right, but a gift for being a good Christian.  It is suppose to assist us in living a better life; a life more pleasing to God.  One of the side effects, however, is a good portion of guilt.

I can’t address the stereotype of Catholic of Jewish guilt – a lot of religions seem to generate their own variety of guilt – what I am familiar with is the Christian variety.  I think the reason you hear more about Catholic or Jewish guilt is because the emphasis is on feeling guilty and/or doing penance, while for the Christian it is a matter of recognition of the error of our ways and having it atoned for through the cross – then it’s gone forever and we can get about our business of saving the world.

The majority of our sins we can deal with.  Stealing work supplies, letting a curse word slip in a fit of anger, not witnessing to someone who we knew needed to hear the good news of the gospel, etc…. These are flaws in our behavior that we recognize and say a prayer that we may not do it again.  If we should backslide and do the same things over and over, we continue to seek forgiveness and strength to avoid such sin.  We feel the guilt, but only in small doses or until the next church service.

There are a few items in the “wrong” column that have been predetermined to dose out a heavier portion of guilt; whether or not we seek forgiveness.  Murder is on that list, and so is adultery – depending on how many times and how many people actually find out about it.  High on the list is gay sex; it may even trump murder in some fundamental circles.

Most of the declarations that put gay sex on the top of that list are about the act itself.  But there is a nice trickle down effect that encompasses the very thoughts about being gay.  Not only are you committing a sin, but, as some would say, the most heinous sin against God – it’s the only sin that caused him destroyed two entire cities!  Let the guilt games begin!

When you’re young and start to know you are feeling things that are different than what you are suppose to be feeling, it starts the questioning of, “why am I different?  Why do I have these feelings?” As you get older and learn more about the ‘birds and the bee’s’ and the fact that God didn’t make Adam and Steve, you start to see these feelings and thoughts as pure evil.

It felt like a disease.  It felt like something eating away at my very insides, trying to drag my very soul into hell.  As a boy hitting puberty and sexual awakening – having these thoughts and feelings became an ultimate test of my faith.  I would spend hours – and that is not an exaggeration – in prayer trying to pray away these evil urges from my mind and heart. I even tried fasting for a while to assist in proving my dedication to Jesus that I was seriously serious about not being gay, and surely at some point he would take away my attraction to Stephen Shortridge, who replaced John Travolta on “Welcome Back Kotter”, and was my first boyhood crush.

I don’t know whether I didn’t starve enough, or just was a few hours short on my prayer time, but regardless, Jesus did not take away these feelings.

The guilt was great.  The worst thing about this guilt isn’t the guilt itself, but all the things associated with it.  When you realize that you are not going to be saved from these sinful thoughts you start to feel all the negative effects – you are letting God down, you are sinful or evil, you are not measuring up to who you are suppose to be, you are not worthy, or simply just not good enough as a human being.  So it starts – the self-loathing, self-hatred and low self esteem.

It took me years to reconcile and rid myself of these feelings; although the scars from that time in my life will always remain. Many people never fully recover.  Some linger in the guilt and live a lie as they suppress all that is within them and act out a straight life and acquire an enormous amount of self control, never acting out on their natural urges.  Some marry and have kids.  Some never settle down – blaming it on never finding the right woman.  Some sneak a bit of gay porn every now and then or even a gay fling while out of town on business.  Some try to make a peace treaty with the battle within by using drugs or alcohol.  Sadly, some lose the battle completely and chose death over a life of fighting between who they know they are and who they think they are suppose to be.  In the end, no one comes through it without battle wounds.

This cause and effect is rarely, if ever, acknowledged by the church.  Instead it’s attributed to the evil devil and his tempting ways; to the proof of the destructive force of sin in our lives; to casualties of living in a world that has turned its back on God.  They’ll never admit or acknowledge that the souls they’re trying to save were first damaged by the weapon of their guilt.

We all handle life and the stresses of life in different ways.  Some try to escape it with drugs, alcohol, rebellion – some internalize it all with depression or repression – some act out violently to release the inner pain and rage.  However we deal with life, it always leaves a mark.

I was much more the internalized type and chose to repress my feelings and thoughts, as much as I could.  As stated in an earlier post, this eventually took its toll on my body which eventually wanted to give up the fight.  I’m very thankful I came through that ordeal, but know that others aren’t so fortunate. For many, the act of dealing with conflicting truths about who we are often leads to devastating consequences – dropping out of school, drug addiction, low self-esteem, etc… Very few end up on the other side unscathed.

It’s very little consolation to hear that someone else has made it through when you are in the midst of the storm.  It’s as though there is no escape or shelter that will ease the pain. There is also very little general advice that can be given to make the situation right – so many factors affect us and, for as common as our path is, the journey is personal.

My evolution took years.  I couldn’t tell you on what day the peace settled in, just that it did.  It also put me on a quest for truth – whatever it may be and wherever I might find it.

So many of us who have survived never look back.  It’s a shame, really.  When I would travel and talk about my work with homeless gay youth, a common question from the audience would be, “How is the gay community helping with this problem?”  Sadly, this issue of gay kids on the street was not a front-and-center issue for the gay community.  I think there are two reasons for this, first, surviving the coming out process is a traumatic experience for most of us and once that battle is over we settle into our lives and choose to forget and never revisit those war stories. Second, the gay community is still a little self-conscious about dealing with anything youth related.  The years of lies comparing gays to pedophiles – no matter how untrue it is, has left a lasting scar on the community.  God forbid a gay man try to help or mentor a teen dealing with sexual identity without being labeled a chicken-hawk!

We leave the isolated all alone and hope for the best; wondering why so many arrive on our shores damaged and scarred.

For young gays – either young in age or just coming out at any age – Pride celebrations can be an event filled with amazement, amusement and often a sense of belonging.  It’s usually a large group of individuals from all walks of life gathered together in one place – in most cities the crowds are large and impressive.  It can be a wonderful time of mingling and reaffirming that we are not alone in the world.  It can also be a time of bewilderment as you take in the variety of the community – AIDS organizations, anti-hate groups, bears & twinks, recreational clubs, and even gay churches and gay Christian support groups.  I remember my first few Pride celebrations and being surprised just how diverse the gay community is; truly something for everyone!

In the end though, it often leaves you feeling a little like December 26th.  All during the build up to Christmas you often hear the sentiment, “why can’t it be Christmas all year long”, only to realize once the day has come and gone, you’re kinda glad it’s over cause you know you can’t sustain the “cheeriness” all year long, and the fact that it is only one time a year makes it all the more special.  Same with Pride – it’s great to unify, at least once a year, but too much togetherness and openness seems difficult to maintain for long periods of time.

For older gays – either in age or “out age” – Pride becomes a debatable topic.  We discuss whether it is even still necessary, or if it should be refined to not be a spectacle of drag queens and shirtless boys in glitter and rainbow shorts.  Does it help or hurt the community and our ‘standing’ in society?

I usually don’t participate in the discussion; I think it is a great thing that the glbtq community can come together for other reasons than fighting against those who disagree with us.  Our worlds is a diverse one, especially within the community of drag queens and leather daddies, to corporate CEO’s in suits, and why not expose all the things that make up who we are as a social group?  At the end of the day, it also allows those who are feeling isolated in their lives, for whatever reason, to feel a sense of connecting with others who share a common path.  It makes visible the multiple support groups and resources that are available for people of any age that might otherwise go unnoticed or unutilized.

Wherever you are in the spectrum, whether you’ve been out a day, a week, a year, or a lifetime, the most important thing is to be proud.  Self-esteem is a major issue for individuals within the glbtq world, in no small part because of the lies and hatred that have emanated from pulpits on Sunday mornings.  The most important thing is to be comfortable with who we are – the way we were created to be.  Once that happens, we are free to be proud – while we watch the parade go by and everyday…..maybe it can be Christmas year round.

The words are the same – God is good.  Jesus is love, and the only way.  The Bible is not only the inspired word of God, but the foundation of all things.  Good and evil are concepts divided into black and white.  All these are the very truths that had ruled my life, but now, after years of study, I listen to them as though the sounds were warped and distorted – like noises heard when underwater; muffled and unclear.

I’ve always been thankful for my youth in the church, especially as a born-again, fundamentalist Christian.  It gave me a perspective of knowing what they believe and why.  When others would say that they are just “raving lunatics”, I would know and could explain why they were saying these things.  I would know what biblical passage, and the story around it, that they would present for their arguments.  Having once lived in that house, I knew my way around pretty well.

For most Christians, even the most ardent studiers of their bible, the majority of what they believe comes from what they have heard.  Faith is a wonderful thing because it doesn’t need facts or reason to back it up; it just needs to be believed. Faith is a place where facts become insignificant and ideals without foundation become facts.  This becomes the major stumbling block for those within and without the faith.

In a recent conversation with my Mother, who is one of the most devout and sincere Christian women I know, the topic of God and living life by the standards of the Bible came up.  She was happy to hear that although I wasn’t attending a church that I was still very interested in religion and faith and truth.  I confided in her about my journey – my search for truth.  Her response, predictably, was that the Bible is true.  Not wanting to spend my limited time with her getting into a heated argument, I simply stated a few points of contention.  First, why are there two creation stories?  Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 seem to be the same story told with different facts.  She didn’t believe me and pulled out her Bible, which is always close by, and we read it together, sure enough, different timeline.  Second, that the Bible as we know it now was compiled by men who decided which scriptures to put in there, and even they couldn’t agree – the book of Esther was denied in the original cannon of scripture, it was actually thought to be blasphemous for being about a strong woman leader and no reference to God.  We talked about how there were hundreds, if not thousands, of scripture text out there in early Christendom, especially at the time of Paul.  When Paul stated that all scripture was inspired by God, which of these thousands of scriptures was he talking about?  (I do know the response is that these 66 books of the Bible were the true scripture and God inspired the men to write them and to place them in the book we now call the Bible – again, a matter of faith.) Third, I mentioned that the trinity is not a biblical concept.  Again, my Mother went right to the index to find where the trinity was mentioned in the good book; it wasn’t there.

It gave her points to ponder and we moved on to other topics, but it was a reminder to me how much Christianity is based on regurgitation of stories and “facts” that don’t have a foundation or follow a clear course of reason.

The most important point is that when you have two sides – one that believes that the Bible is the foundation of truth and that every word is inspired by God; and the other side does not view the scriptures as a divine note pad or a foundation for life – there are almost no arguments that either side can ever win.  They are always talking two different languages.

This is clearest with the gay issue.  Christians love to use the bible, especially the old testament – which was suppose to be made null and void when Jesus died on the cross and created a new covenant and new testament for Christians.  But that doesn’t stop them from using the words to apply to contemporary situations.

It’s wrong.  It’s evil.  Period.  God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.

Unfortunately, that is only the beginning of the issue, not the end.  Such belief only stirs hate and fear.  It destroys families and individuals.  It leaves so many growing up in that belief system feeling isolated, alone and either one of God’s mistakes or an embodiment of evil.

When I do have arguments with my Mother about certain social issues, she is as clear and decisive as anyone can be.  If we discuss a woman’s right to choose, she’ll say it’s murder because the Bible says so.  And I’ll respond, “what if that woman doesn’t believe in the Bible?”  She’ll quickly return with, “but the Bible says it’s wrong.”….and in her mind that’s the end of the discussion and she is constantly bewildered at why she hasn’t clearly won the argument.

I believe there is very little malice in the things that are said by the fundamentalist Christians, even though it sounds like it is filled with hate.  For many it’s just the way things are, it’s what they believed for a long time and what they’ve accepted on the basis of faith from the pulpit.

There were parents in Indiana who found out their son was gay.  Believing that it was evil and caused by outside influences, they put a strict curfew on the kid – he could go directly to school and back again, at all other times he was confined to his room.  Hopefully this isolation would keep these influences from their child.  After a few months their son was still gay.  Obviously evil was still finding its way to him, so they took away the television, cell phone, computer – all in an attempt to straighten him out.  He was in solitary confinement in a prison that was once his home.  More months went by, and the Mother and Father were faced with the realization that they were the parents of a gay son.  Not knowing what to do next, they gathered all his saved baby memorabilia, family photos with their son and burned them all in the family grill.  They put the ashes in a shoe box and handed it to him and said, “You are no longer our son and you no longer live here”.  With those words they kicked their 14 year old son out of their house and into the streets with nothing, all because they truly believed what their son was feeling was evil and it could not reside under their roof.  Whatever happened to that boy is unknown – some say he got a bus to Indianapolis or Chicago; regardless, they destroyed that boy’s life, if not ended it, in the name of god and their faith in that old time religion.

I couldn’t tell you when I knew I was gay, although a part of me always knew, even before I had a name for it.  Once a name was attached, it usually wasn’t very nice: faggot, queer, girly-boy, etc….but in spite of the names I knew that I was gay.  Being the good Christian boy, I also knew it wasn’t what I was suppose to be; there was no way that God had made me this way which meant it was either something I did or was doing wrong or, more simply, it was just part of my sinful ways.

Throughout my youth I would try to pray away this sin, from begging Jesus to take away these thoughts of other guys – especially when I was masturbating, which then I was praying away two sins!!

The struggle was there from an early age, but the battle became a war in high school.  My attraction for guys in general suddenly became an affection for one particular guy who was in my class.  This seemed to change the rules quite a bit; it was no longer imagination, but a real person who I couldn’t keep my eyes off of.

Nick was ‘guys’ guy’ who loved sports and dated girls, many of them.  He also came from a good Christian home and would bow his head for grace before a meal if his Mother was around.  He had rugged good looks and muscular for his age.  He was perfect in my eyes and filled my mind with lustful thoughts!

Nick and I had become friends.  We would hang out with a group of other guys from school, and eventually we would hang out one-on-one.  We got to know each other as friends and there was no talk of my secret obsession with him.  We would talk about everything else, though, and over time became very close personally.  I enjoyed my time with Nick very much and had enough self control to keep my thoughts to myself when it came to my sexuality, in truth I had not even admitted it to myself yet, let alone anyone else. At that time, being I was still a virgin, all I could think about was kissing him.  I didn’t spend much time thinking about what sex would be like with Nick, but I did want to know what it would be like to have my lips touch his.

Then one night the world changed.  My parents had gone on a weekend trip to visit my sister and her family and I had the house to myself and Nick was spending the night – just to watch movies and hang.  It was a night of teenage experimentation as we acquired a bottle of whiskey and were going to have a sort of ‘bachelor’ night.  Well, I never much cared for the smell of alcohol, let alone the taste, so I was lucky to get three sips of the whiskey down.  Nick, on the other hand, had no problem with the taste and was enjoying himself.

I have no intention into turning this into a ‘porn blog’, so I’ll skip the details and give an overview of that night.  We watched some movies, Nick drank some whiskey, the conversation turned to talk about sex and porn, pulled out some VHS tapes from my Dad’s hidden stash, watched porn, started talking about what “things” would be like or how they “felt”, started touching each other, got naked, learned what certain things felt like, then Nick passed out and I stayed up the rest of the night in a feeling of bliss and regret.

It was a wonderful night and solidified in a part of me what I really was.  It was also an awful night because nothing about this new confirmation coincided with everything else my life was.

The next morning, all I wanted to do was talk to Nick about what had happened, talk it through like we had all of the other worlds problems in times past.  Nick didn’t want to talk, he just wanted to leave, and he did.  For the next two to three months Nick wouldn’t talk to me, hang out with me, and acknowledge me or what had happened.  I’m sure he was wrestling with a lot of the same demons, and avoidance was better medicine than confrontation.

So I had to figure it out all alone, and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t gay, it was just a one time thing, an experimentation, with Nick.  I wasn’t attracted to all guys, just him, and this was the one and only time it would happen – I would move on and date and marry a girl and have kids and never speak of this again, and Jesus would forgive me and with the help of prayer I may even forget it ever happened.  Done.

It wasn’t done.  Nick and I did talk again and rebuilt our friendship.  A few months passed and it happened again, although this time without the whiskey.  Again, he distanced himself from me.  We would repeat this cycle for years, each time the distance between incidences would be shorter and shorter.  It would happen, it would be hot, and then it would be as if it never happened – we never spoke of it.

After a few years I found myself in college with Nick – I had taken some time off from school to figure out what to do with my life, and he had joined the Marines and finished up his tour.  We shared a small studio apartment with room enough for two beds – on against each wall.  We still had our “moments” and we still didn’t really talk about it.  We were both dating girls and enjoying college life, but all the guilt, secrecy and inner turmoil (will expound more on this in later posts) were taking their toll.

One morning I got up, went to the bathroom and was surprised to see the toilet filled with dark blood.  My first thought was that I had food poisoning and it would pass.  But as the day went on, the blood kept coming.  In my mind I figured I would be fine if I just rested and didn’t want to make a fuss about it.  Luckily for me, Shannon, the girls I was dating at the time, believed it was serious and took the day off from work to take me to the hospital.  When we arrived, the doctor admitted me immediately and said that I had lost 2/3 of my blood and if I had waited even 15 minutes longer I may have gone into shock and been dead!

I was in the hospital for three days as they stabilized me and the blood stopped.  They did numerous tests to try to discover the cause – all they knew was that it was coming from somewhere deep within my body.  They never found anything wrong or the source of the blood…..but I knew.  The stress from withholding my truth and suppressing my feelings had taken their toll and my mind had triggered my body to shut down – it was subconscious suicide.

As I lay in the hospital bed I finally realized that being true to myself wasn’t worth dying for.

Once I got the ring, I couldn’t just give it to her; maybe hesitation and trepidation are in-born traits when dealing with anyone that touches our hearts.  So I put the ring in a little zip lock bag, along with a handwritten note that simply stated, “I like you”.  I placed the bag on the door handle of her house and ran home, awaiting the response.  That is where the memory ends – not sure what she said or her reaction, we really were very young, but what I do recall the excitement of having someone that I liked and wanting to let them know.

As the years flew by, there were other girls that caught my attention.  One in particular was in middle school – she was the daughter of one of my teachers and would come by the classroom to see her mother after classes.  She was my first taste of love at first sight.  Can’t recount now what it was about her that had smitten me, but I was smitten.  Even with my few years of experience, I really hadn’t developed any new approaches, so in order to show my affection I bought some flowers and decided to take them to her house; although this time I didn’t leave them and run, I actually rang the door bell.  In hind sight, I should’ve run.

I entered the house of my teacher (who had no idea why I had just appeared on her doorstep) with the flowers concealed under my jacket.  The house was filled with people and I proceeded, against my initial ‘fright and flee’ urges, to open my jacket and reveal the flowers and my heart.  Humiliation is not a strong enough word for that moment, yet something even more powerful had pushed me to let my true feelings be known.

There were other girls and other crushes, nothing too serious, though.  After all, I was a good Christian boy and there were limits.  Boys younger than me were playing doctor and showing their private parts and getting girls to show theirs, but that just was too risqué and sinful in my eyes.  I just wanted a good girl to be with.  Having heard over and over again about the evils of premarital sex, it just wasn’t for me, not even the temptation.  I think I wanted a girl friend more than I wanted a girlfriend.

It was at this time that I also started wrestling with other feelings.  From a very young age I had always been drawn to the attractiveness of guys, from celebrities on TV – like the guy who replaced John Travolta on “Welcome Back Kotter” to the Chippendale dancers who where highlighted on a TV special with Morgan Fairchild – to guys in my school.  There was always some strange fascination and draw to them that was beyond explanation to my young mind.

Even though I didn’t have a name for it at first, at some point in the middle school universe kids start throwing around names like “gay” or “fag” along with descriptive explanations.  I didn’t know why it was a bad thing just that it was.  Being “that way” didn’t seem like it was even an option; these were bad people in the eyes of society and evil in the eyes of God – end of discussion.

So the repression started and these thoughts and feelings were suppressed as I continued my search for the perfect girl to date.