Coming Out

(Written Thursday, April 11th, 2013)

I feel like I should be afraid, ashamed, freaking out, depressed, frustrated, and so many other emotions...  I feel like I should apologize and try to make it better for them, for us, for everything.  But I can't.  I won't.  And, the funny thing is, I don't even want to.

I came out to my family.

And I feel like I should be flying off the handle, freaking out, crying, screaming, running.  I feel like there are so many stereotypical things that I should be doing.  I can't tell if I think that I should be doing all these things because it would make it better for them or just because that's how I always thought I'd act when I told them.

I can't explain it.  I don't understand any of it.  All I know is that for the first time in my life, the very first time, I feel it.  This thing I've been begging God for for as long as I can remember: the respite from the insanity, the passion, the depression, the fear.  This thing that I thought I'd never have.  And now I have it.  And I feel like I should feel bad for having it because my whole family feels like they're spinning out of control.  And yet there it is.  Washing over me, showering me, engulfing me.  I have it now, and I'm afraid to let go of it, that it'll somehow go away, that all of these things that I "should" be feeling or doing will come in and crash it all down.

But somehow I know that it won't.  And somehow I know that this feeling, this thing that I have that I've always wanted will stay with me.  It's washed me clean and made me whole.  For the first time in my life I feel clean of this sickening depression that has clung to me like a plague since high school.  And I don't want that sickening feeling to ever come back.  But most of all, I just don't want to lose this.  Because I have it.  Finally.

I'm at peace.  And I'm free.

Free of the running and the hiding and the fear and the stupid fucking demons in my head telling me that everything would crash down if I ever told my parents the truth.  Free of the inner voice telling me that I should stay hiding, ashamed, afraid of anyone and everyone knowing.

I just feel so free and so at peace, but that doesn't mean I'm not worried.  That part of me still isn't freaking out, trying to find the right words, the right answers to make them understand.  Trying to learn how to act to show them that I'm still me.  Trying to express through the way I act and talk that they need to re-examine their beliefs.  And I don't know if that'll ever happen.  And I'm afraid that if I fail to act in such a way to show them that I truly am still following God not just despite but because and through me being gay, they'll never come around, they'll never accept, and we'll never, as a family, have the same peace and freedom that I'm feeling.

And I want them so badly to have this too.  But for now, I'll just let it wash me over.  And I'll finally be able to do the one thing that I've been wanting to do since I first felt the sickening grip of depression: "Be still and know that I am God."

For once in my life, I'm still.  And I'm at peace.