My mood has been a reflective one of late. It seems as though my thoughts are constantly going to my past and revisiting moments in my teen and college years.
In fact, a majority of my recent conversations have begun with the phrases, “Remember when…” or “How about that one time…” and I’m fortunate that a smile usually accompanies those stories.
A few nights ago I thought about a vacation I took with my parents and one of my best (girl) friends to Myrtle Beach, S.C. We were both still in college so we left the condo and attempted to experience the local (straight) night life. We were dancing on a floor right out of Saturday Night Fever when my friend looked at me and confessed, “I’m too old for this.” We were 22.
I also recently shared a story with another friend of mine about a botched romantic evening I tried so hard to plan with an ex-boyfriend I lived with in Missouri. I knew I wanted to surprise my hard-working man with a dinner that was out of the ordinary. Since I couldn’t (and still can’t) cook well, I had to get creative. I found some candles, a few blankets and set up a dining experience on the back patio sans the table.
Although I am a Missouri native, I failed to remember that November nights there can get very cold and very windy. After about 10 minutes outside struggling to hang onto our food and our warm blankets, we ended up just ordering pizza.
I’m not sure if this reflective mood is simply nostalgia, a carry-over of the vacation from which I recently returned or the disturbing accounts of bullying-related LGBT teen suicides related to bullying plaguing our nation.
Almost everyone can relate to the terror of our secrets unraveling, especially in those days before we were out. Remember when you were terrified that your gay life and your straight life would collide? In a depressing effort to show off my geekdom: it was comparable to the infinite destruction the collision of matter and anti-matter would release on a city.
That’s a fear I lived with for years. In college, I purposely shut out friends from back home that should have been a part of my life. Every story was constantly edited in a way that was gender-neutral so that I didn’t accidently out myself to any high school friends or members of my family. The pronouns “he” and “she” were always replaced with “they,” and any stories of my inebriated bar days were generic, at best, lest I reveal I was partying under a rainbow flag.
The thought of my straight world meeting my gay world was almost beyond comprehension for me and in my mind the results would have been devastating. I didn’t think I could retain the identity of my youth if I admitted I was gay. If only I could go back in time and tell my former self that it would all work out in the end.
Today it has to be even worse for those struggling with their sexual orientation. People my age and older didn’t have to worry about Facebook updates, webcams or cell phones recording or announcing our every move. Today’s reality of an awkward sexual escapade—or even simple same-sex hand holding—making it online would have shattered my self confidence.
The simple reason for that? I constantly heard that my feelings and actions were wrong.
When politicians, family members or even someone sitting in the cubicle next to you at work says something anti-LGBT, it is our responsibility to stand up for the generation of LGBT youths currently coping with their sexual identity.
Since we’re unable to go back and visit our former selves to share what we’ve learned in life, it only makes sense that we let the younger generation know that there is a great life to be had after coming out and more importantly, that they are not alone.
Hopefully, in the not-too-distant-future, we can have more conversations that start with “Remember when…” But maybe those tales can simply revisit the difficulties of coming out as a thing of the past rather than a daily struggle in our society.
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