After having a dream recently, I thought of an excerpt from Alan Down’s book, The Velvet Rage. I read the book some time ago, and now reflecting upon that period of my life, I see, I wasn’t truly open to accepting some of the main points of the book. I see now that I have changed as a person over the years from when I first started writing this blog. My life has dramatically changed over the years. How could it not, I was married for 24 years, and then suddenly I was divorced and outed in one quick moment. I had no idea what outed and being gay was. It was only through the help of books, serious film, and joining some groups did I ever come to understand more about gay life. Concerning my dream, well, it was about something so small, but it turned out to be something much larger than I understood at that time. The dream started with being in my father’s office, he had a large conference table at the back end of the room. At the conference table there were two Mexican National businessmen. I lived on the Texas/Mexico border for 25 years. My two brothers were sitting at the table. The dream just really consisted of a conversation, a normal conversation that could have occurred at any time while I worked for my father. It was the matter of the conversation that strikes me. The conversation flowed the way a conversation would normally take place in a business meeting. The two Mexican businessmen and my brothers were talking about women, hunting, and drinking, I guess what I am getting at was this conversation was “Guy Talk.” In that dream, there I was at the table, and I clearly did not have any “Guy Talk” to add to the conversation. I was sitting at the table listening to the guys, and I was thinking to myself, I clearly do not belong here. And, here comes the truth of the matter, I did not belong there, I knew I didn’t belong there, but I did not know why I didn’t belong there. I clearly was different than these guys, however I didn’t know what that different was. Believe it or not, I was clueless that I was gay. This dream haunted me for several days. It haunted to me because it was so real. I started thinking about that table, and the feeling I felt at that table was a feeling I knew so well. The feeling of being different, and not knowing what that different was. “Guy Talk” isn’t about art, architecture, books, film, or classical music, subjects that all interest me. So much occurred at that table in my mind, because it was so real. There is the idea that I was watching myself in my mid 30s or early 40s with the mind’s eye of a 54-year-old man. In the dream, the younger version of myself is clueless to being gay, but aware of being different. And, then there is the 54-year-old man looking at younger version of himself, and wondering how could you not know you were gay? The answer is easy enough, I did not know I was gay, because I never wanted to be gay. In Alan Down’s book, The Velvet Rage, he writes a lot about “shame.” My dream reminded me of a small portion of his book, there he wrote: “The truth is that we grew up disabled. Not disabled by our homosexuality – but emotionally disabled by an environment that taught us we were unacceptable, not “real” men, and therefore shameful. As young boys – we too readily internalized those strong feelings of shame into a core belief: I am unacceptably flawed. It crippled our sense of self and prevented us from following the normal, healthy, stages of development. We were consumed with the task of hiding the fundamental truth about ourselves from the world around us and pretending to be something we weren’t. At the time, it seemed the only way to survive.” Reflecting back upon my life and being at that table in my dream, I think I am more open to accepting Down’s idea about “shame.” I always knew there was something different about me. I am thinking that when I was very young, and experiencing my first feelings of sexuality, I quickly buried the idea that I was attracted to men. And yes, I believe now that there was a feeling a shame inside of me. Internalizing that feeling of shame and rejecting the idea that I was gay, would be a lifetime curse. The curse would affect me emotionally, physically and professionally. We are told to be true to ourselves, but what a gay man knows at a very early age is being true to yourself most likely means we will not be accepted by our families and friends, and when I was young all I wanted to be was accepted. Coming Out, Coming Out Late, I have to say, that I learned that I am now not accepted with many people. However, now, I have the strength to not care about those people who do not accept me. The feeling of shame stayed with me for many years after I came out, especially in the manner of how I came out. What I can tell you now is that as the years passed, I have come to feel good about myself. I am growing in ways that I have never imagined. For me being gay is not an easy life, but at least I feel a wholeness as a person that I never have before. Yes, being true to yourself is a wonderful feeling, but getting to my truth took me through a journey of a lifetime of hardships. Today, I feel that I am lucky to be me, there are so many others out there that go a whole lifetime without ever coming to their truth. Coming Out, Coming Out Late, really is a gift. I will end this post with a Joseph Campbell quote. According to Campbell, “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasure of life. Where we stumble, there lies our treasure.” #ComingOut, #ComingOutLate, #TheVelvetRage
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Christian Cantu
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