I was a strange child.
Well, okay. Maybe “strange”
is a bit over the topic. Let me try a
few other words.
Unique?
Peculiar? Unusual?
Getting closer. But I
think all of those words still miss the reality. Not to mention they carry with them a bit of
a stigma that needs to be unpacked.
How about…creative?
Pensive? Imaginative?
Hrm. Those are good
adjectives that described me as a child but they still aren’t quite capturing
the reality I’m trying to describe.
Maybe because there is no easy, clean-cut way to describe
people. Or, in this case, the result of
what people become because of the coping mechanisms they end up using.
Let me explain.
Today I’m having one of those “stuck on the outside, looking
in” sort of days. It’s a phrase that
basically means there’s something separating you from all of the activity you
want to be a part of. Think of it like
walking down a city street and passing a huge window through which you see a
party going on. Fun looking people
eating great food while laughing and dancing and celebrating life in one
another’s presence.
The reality, though, is that when I say this, like many
other people, I mean, “I’m trapped on the inside, looking out.” In other words, I’m stuck inside myself and
the reality I experience, longing to be a part of the world I see around
me. This isn’t a new phenomenon for
me. A lot of LGBTQ people feel this way,
especially when they are literally trapped inside of themselves for fear of
revealing who they truly are.
Some of you might recognize this experience. Growing up, particularly in my teenage years,
school was not a pleasant
experience. It wasn’t that the academic
work was difficult; I would have had straight A’s if I would have decided that
was what I wanted. What made it
difficult was watching the people around me and, in many cases, wanting to be
involved in what they were doing but never daring to step up and be
involved. I was awkward and inept, like
all teenagers, I suppose. But the big thing
that kept me from coming out of my shell was fear of simply coming out. How would I dare try to hang out with one of
the guys that simply radiated cool when it wasn’t his charisma that attracted
me to him but how incredibly attractive he was?
Sandy brown hair, bright green eyes flecked with gold, not a zit in
sight, and (don’t you dare laugh) a permed mullet that was so damn sexy back in
the day. Not to mention his sense of
humor, his quick wit, his athletic body….
….you get the idea.
Like I said, some of you will recognize the experience. And you’ll also recognize the fear that grips
you in these situations because you’re so worried about being “too interested”
in something he or she does or says.
What if I laugh too hard? What if
I ask the wrong question? What if I just
say the wrong thing and he figures out who I actually am and what I actually
see when I look at him?
When those are your fears, when you live with the anxiety of
being discovered and outed, it just becomes easier to withdraw and live inside
yourself. If you don’t interact you don’t
risk interacting too much. Sure,
that means watching the world move on around you—people laughing, having fun,
falling in love, having relationships—but it’s worth the occasional twinge of
pain at being left behind if you can protect yourself.
Isn’t it?
I mean, look at it this way.
If the story I’m about to share would have happened today, it would have ended quite differently. When I was in ninth grade I was the victim of
what today would have been considered an assault. Or worse.
It was in an art class.
“Back in the day” we were required to take a certain number of art
classes, music classes, writing classes…the artsy classes that are only
occasionally offered now as electives because there’s not enough time in the
day to indoctrinate students on taking standardized tests. These classes were mandatory in my
school. It was a large room that seemed
to ramble on in every direction. The
main part of the classroom was near the door.
Large, wooden worktables with worn tabletops which had been nicked and
painted and stained by generations of pubescent Picassos were our desks. I don’t remember what the teacher was
lecturing on that day or what we were actually working on but I do remember the
sense of panic I experienced when one of my classmates took a wire used for
slicing chunks of clay off of the larger blocks and, from behind me, wrapped it
around my neck and pulled it tight. I’m
not sure how long he held the wire around my neck but I remember the laughter
of his friends and the pain when he finally released the wire. I don’t know where the teacher was when this
happened; he never did find out about it.
Plenty of students on my side of the room saw what happened but no one
ever said anything. Probably because I
never said anything. I forced myself to
laugh, as if I was in on the planning of the morning’s entertainment. I knew that if I made an issue about it my
complaint would just draw more attention and more attention was not what I
wanted.
If this was the kind of thing my peers did when they only suspected I was gay, what would they do
if they actually knew I was gay? If I said the wrong thing, did the wrong
thing, walked the wrong way, talked the wrong way, gave someone too much
attention….It was just easier (and safer) to withdraw as much as possible
within myself.
I think this is how my imagination and creativity blossomed.
I began to write in junior high school, which for me began
in seventh grade. Puberty had arrived,
bringing with it a number of realizations that couldn’t be unrealized. This is when I started pulling back within
myself. But once there, apart from the
world outside, I would create worlds and scenarios. Sometimes I would even bring the people
around me from the “real world” into my imagination; if I couldn’t hang out
with them in the “real world,” I could hang out with them in my fictional world
where I could be the cool one that they wanted to hang around and
emulate.
So I wrote stories starring mythical versions of myself and
the people who were either too cool for me to talk to or the guys I was too
attracted to that I avoided lest they look into my eyes and see my soul. Looking back at the thought of writing those
stories I have to admit I’m embarrassed—but not for reasons you would
think. I’m not embarrassed because of
what I turned my fear and anxiety into and how I attempted to capture the
personalities and characteristics of my classmates. It was the writing that was cringe worthy.
I think some of the best writing, some of the best fiction, has to come from something
relatable and something real. Learning
to take my struggle and turn it into a narrative in which I learned to expose
my thoughts and feelings to even fictional versions of the people around me was
an important lesson for me to learn. I
still do it. In These are the Days, I’ve inserted pieces of myself and people I know
into the characters. In the new story I’m
working on I’ve taken it a step further and am actually using people I knew as
the rough outline of the characters in the story—and it’s working really well.
Where am I going with all this? Well, I have two points I need to make.
The first point goes back to where I began: I’m having a “trapped on the outside, looking
in” sort of day. It’s been….an
undisclosed number of years since my high school days but old habits die
hard. There are a many people whose own
paths mine has connected with in some way, whose light I find refreshing and
inspiring. Being a connection oriented
person I find myself aching to learn more about these people. This is why I hate doing “meet and greets” at
concerts; the twenty minutes or so I have with the artist or artists isn’t
nearly enough for me to develop that connection—especially when I have to share
the artist with other people with meet and greet tickets. So, for example, when I try to interact with
people through social media and my attempts fall flat, I feel like I’m looking
in through that large window at fun people having a fun time and I have no idea
how to get involved.
Still happens.
I think it will always happen.
So I think it’s important to remember that I’m in control of
how I respond to this feeling. If I let
myself be consumed by the sights that are holding my attention through that
window, I’ll become rooted to the spot.
I’ll never find a way in and I’ll just make myself feel worse and
worse. But if I choose to change my
perspective, to leave that spot and turn away from those tantalizing sights, I
might someday find my way “into the party.”
Or…better yet….I might find something even better to be a part of.
Remember, though, that the grass is never greener on the other
side.
The second point is this:
You aren’t alone. I know there
are people reading this who can identify with my story. I know there are people out there who are
victims not only of the ignorance and prejudice of the people around them but
who are also victims of their own coping strategies, the things they do to make
it through life. Things like disengaging
from the world around you because you’re too afraid that the world around you
won’t accept you. It gets better. It really does. And the experiences you had or are having,
experiences like mine, will give you something.
They’ll give you lessons to help you be a better person. They’ll give you motivation to become a
better person. And they may stimulate your imagination and creativity to help
you help others to stimulate their imaginations
while telling them that there is absolutely nothing wrong with who they
are.
