So much of my life just consists of daily activity that we all probably do. Things like house chores, taking care of pets, work, gassing up cars, and the list goes on and on. It’s only when something out to the ordinary occurs that you find yourself placed in a different perspective of how things really aren’t the same. A change has occurred.
My recent change occurred yesterday. My sister had a baby party at her house for her daughter. We are all looking forward to the first grandchild amongst our siblings. It is a moment of great joy. The party was also yet another event where I had to orchestrate my presence with Dr. Ashden, my ex-wife, and being in the presence of many others. This party was a couples’ baby shower. My first hurdle was dealing with my ex-wife. She RSVP that she was taking her father. Dr. Ashden at first decided he would not attend. The party itself would be at my sister’s house, so it was probably a more intimate setting than most occasions. Dr. Ashden decided to go at the last moment, and my ex-father-in-law decided not to go at the last moment. The party itself was fine. My sister’s home is large and people were scattered in different areas of throughout the home and patios. Actually, nothing really earth-shattering occurred, but there was something different inside of me. I felt as if I did not really belong with this group. I don’t know could it be that I have become self-conscious about being homosexual within a heterosexual group? There were other homosexuals within the group of 80 people. One, a couple of men, who have been lifelong friends of my sisters. Another was a celebrated hair-stylist. The hair-stylist who is about my age was showing photos of his half nude trainer to the group. I don’t know I guess I found it inappropriate. I could be wrong here. At the party I began to wonder if I have become self-loathing? I don’t believe so, I believe it is something that was much more different than that. Have you ever found yourself just thinking I really don’t belong to any group? I don’t really seem to “fit” anywhere. I have joined several gay men’s organizations but I don’t seem to quite fit there either, and now, in a group of heterosexuals, I guess I couldn’t help but stand out. Compared to the other guys, I was overdressed, most had on shorts and a shirt, and here I was wearing a checkered long sleeved Ralph Lauren shirt with a blue Michael Kors blazer. The blazer made me stand out, I probably should have taken it off. There was also the idea that with so many women there, there was my ex-wife alone, and I show up with my gay partner. It really has only been a problem once before and that was at my mother’s funeral. I was so distressed at the time, I hardly had a chance to think of the situation. My wife lives with my sister-in-law’s sister, and all of that family was attending the party. I guess it has been so many years now, and I still find myself not entirely able to escape all of these family entanglements. I see that I am becoming more and more withdrawn from almost everyone. I have been thinking for the first time in a long time of just moving, moving away to find some peacefulness. I found an old photo, a photo that reminded me of peace. In it I am sitting with a book on the arroyo in the Texas Valley area very close to South Padre Island. The breeze comes from the Southeast. It’s twilight and everything becomes still. The water that was fairly choppy just hours before, became calm. It was here that I thought of the adage, “To thy own self be true.” Why the saying contains deep depth and wisdom, I never realized just how hard it is to achieve. Dr. Ashden called tonight, and asked “What is wrong?” I just don’t have a proper answer.
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I kind of laugh as I write these lines. When I think about this blog, it more comes from memory than present. When I look back now on some of the writings, now, I think I probably wouldn’t have exposed myself so much. When I look back in time, I see a man, a man that was very troubled. I had no idea of the path before me, and when I looked behind all I could see were the remnants of the wreckage of a hurricane of disastrous circumstances. Maybe it’s a little easier now. What’s the old saying, “Time cures everything?” I am not too sure. What I do know is that life has changed, and I have, and I am still adapting to the change. Part of me longs for my past life, but not as much anymore, and there is the blessing. I have begun to truly accept that I am a gay man, and not just a gay man, but a gay man that is older. Dr. Ashton? Well, he is twenty-five years older than I am. He is beginning to forget things more often. My sadness here is only due to the fact that he has such a brilliant mind, and I realize that none of us are exempt from time. I still enjoy my evenings with him, and we still spend time on the weekends together. Even here, I wonder how it all began. You meet someone, and somehow no matter the age, gender, race, or financial differences, an attraction overruns your reason. A passion overruns all sense. A story so often told, but not really to be totally understood until you have experience it. Last weekend I met Dr. Loren Olsen. I have written about him so many times on this blog. When everything first was occurring with me, his book, Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, really saved my life in a way. Not to rehash so much about what I have written before, but at the time I thought that late realization of being gay, married, and in love with a man, had only happened to me. Yeah, crazy! It just wasn’t something I have really ever heard much about. He spoke to the San Antonio Prime Timers. A group of older gay men, who’s primary purpose is to have fellowship in a culture that doesn’t really value older people. I enjoyed Loren’s speech, he was quite frank on some subjects, I even found myself surprised he would say some things, but he did speak of the real truths of being older and gay. Our bodies are aging, and we need to accept this fact. If I have something to tell you, it is I come back to this blog a very changed man. The pain, the hurt, and the suffering, that I thought would never end, well, it has. I fell down an emotional spiral staircase of despair in a sense, but I have stepped myself back up. The pain has made me stronger, I am not even sure if that makes sense? I am beginning to become more into myself. The more people I meet who are just like I am, especially through Prime Timers, I see my story isn’t really anything new. What is new to me is that I first thought that I was faced with a suffering that would never end. I now see, it has subsided. I walk a new path with much more confidence, much more wisdom, and much more empathy towards others and their troubles. I believe that true human growth comes by facing and conquering our challenges, no matter what they are. To feel alive and good again is probably one of the greatest gifts I could know, and now the situation that I thought was so dire, so horrible, I now see as a blessing in human growth. Ah, these few words will most likely be just a short post. Actually, I read the statistics this site receives and I wonder why, especially since I am not so discipline to write on a consistent basis. If you have read my site, well, you would know that I have been unemployed at 53…with little expectation of getting a job. I applied for a year, and the only job that has come my way was via a friend working at company. So, after a year of being unemployed I now find myself working with 27 year olds. Oh, well. I keep telling myself, “That MBS, I mean MBA, has come in really handy!”.
The funny part about accepting this job is, that they made me start working a week early. Dr. Ashden insisted we travel before I went to work. I was thinking to myself, “Really, why now?” So, on a Wednesday night at a cheap Mexican food restaurant, I got on my phone and made travel arrangements to Santa Fe the next day. Yeah, that’s right the next day, as if I needed to spend more money I didn’t have. We arrived on Santa Fe on a Thursday. Since Dr. Ashden cannot walk too well, I had to find a hotel close to the downtown square. Due to limited time, I did find one, but the price was not too cheap. I have been to Santa Fe once with my ex-wife, and I really didn’t remember it as some where I wanted to go back. The downtown area seems too touristy for me. Case in point, Dr. Ashden wanted to go to the Shed to eat. I went, but I couldn’t help but think this place has seen some better days. The room where we ate smelled of a dirty mop floor. Oh, well, Dr. Ashden loved it. Funny, the weather was spectacular. My Ah-Moment from Santa Fe came when I accidentally missed a turn to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. We ended up all the way out at the Santa Fe Opera House. This was the place I fell in love with Santa Fe. Away from the touristy downtown, and just viewing the amazing vistas of the Southwest. The views had a mystical quality. Everything downtown seemed, I don’t know, just like shops, busy people trying to be so Santa Fe, and bars full of stench. The landscape away from the town, was, well, breath-taking. This trip went pretty spectacular, well, until the last day. Apparently, I booked the flight for Sunday correctly, unfortunately, it was a Sunday a week later than it should have been. If you are reading this, then you can probably understand why you should never book a trip at a Mexican Restaurant while drinking margaritas. That I was in New Mexico on a Sunday, and needed to be in San Antonio by 8 AM the next day….well, the stress level was a little high. I still don’t want to think about the added cost to fly the two of out of there on the last flight. Yeah, I went to bed at 2 AM that night, only to have to sit for 8 hours in front of my new boss and two work mates in his office. I was so zoned out, I don’t remember one word he said. I went through two weeks of training, and he kept referring to that first day. Well, the beauty is that I am still employed. I don’t know for how long, but they haven’t kicked me out yet. The beauty is, is that my life is settling down. I finding some time to write. As I state in every post, I write this post for the person who is out there, out there and unsure of themselves. Yes, being gay and older, coming into being gay and older, well, as I always tell you quite honestly, it’s difficult. I will probably just end this post with this, I really don’t think about gay or straight any more. Yes, love is strange. If there was a perfect way to make everything happen, well, life would be easy. I think I have lived enough just to know we do the best we can. When I started this blog, I was a totally different person. The change? Well, I am just coming back to being me. I will end this with a quote from an old book I read when I was younger, it probably states my feelings better than I can express at this particular moment. “The desert landscape is always at its best in the half-light of dawn or dusk. The sense of distance lacks: a ridge nearby can be a far-off mountain range, each small detail can take on the importance of a major variant on the countryside's repetitious theme. The coming of day promises a change; it is only when the day had fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day returned once again--the same day he has been living for a long time, over and over, still blindingly bright and untarnished by time.” ― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky I was sitting at the library, and I was working on writing a Cover Letter for possible employment. I still find myself wondering how the hell I could be unemployed for so long? Sitting at a very long wooden table all alone, and just wondering, and wondering. I looked at the new books on display from across the room, and I read the title of a book, The Gay Preacher’s Wife. I got up from my chair, and I thought, “Man I have to read this book.”
I looked at the back cover and I saw that the woman was African-American. Her name is Lydia Meredith. I went back to the table, and I immediate began to read her fascinating story. Lydia came from a poor Southern family. However, she would go on to have so much success in her life. She graduated Vanderbilt with an Engineering Degree. She worked for large companies in different parts of the country. Her husband was in the ministry, and by all accounts in the book they had a mostly happy marriage for 30 years. One day, Lydia was out in her garage and found some adult films. In her book, she does not specify if the films are homosexual or heterosexual in nature. She confronted her husband, Dennis, about the matter. She explained to him that a preacher should not have such films in his house. These films would only be the beginning of a truth that her husband was deeply concealing. She received a telephone call at work, and it was her husband saying he wanted to speak with her after work. She arrived at the house, and their children were with were being cared for by a neighbor. She had the feeling that her husband had a surprised romantic evening planned for them, what she wasn’t expecting was a confession. Lydia’s husband, Dennis, told her he was bi-sexual. He explained to her the different places where he was encountering men, jack-off parties, theaters, and even on ministry conventions. Lydia was of course devastated and overwhelmed with the husband’s confession. She and her husband sought Christian spiritual cures, as well as, traditional therapy for Dennis’ sexual appetite. Two of the named organizations that she mentioned were Focus of the Family and Exodus International. I know that as of this time, Exodus International has dissolved, and I would refer the reader to the documentary, One Nation Under God, to learn more on this subject. Lydia and Dennis worked through their problems, and would eventually leave California to move to Atlanta, Georgia. Thinking that the move would be a fresh start, Lydia was encouraged that her marriage would ascend from its California nadir. Of course, it wouldn’t be too long before she found out that Dennis had a new lover in the church. The man would be much younger than her husband. In the book, she works through this issue with great integrity towards Dennis. However, she would finally leave Dennis and her marriage. Lydia overcame a tremendous amount of challenges to heal herself. Besides her husband’s sexuality, she dealt with her son’s homosexuality and AIDS diagnoses. She would encounter members in her congregation that spewed hateful messages to her about her husband and son. Lydia was determined not to let these challenges stop her spiritual growth. Lydia saw a need for Christians to change their viewpoints on fundamental Christianity, and seeing this need, she would proceed to become a minister herself. The last part of the book details her challenges with her family, her ex-husband and his lover, and her own inward struggles with holding on to one of the most important values of her life, her family’s cohesiveness. As hard as it may have been, she realized that to keep her family together, she was going to have to accept her husband’s lover to family events, and even more deeply as a member of her new family. Lydia shows amazing strength and courage in her book. Her act of forgiveness is to be commemorated. Lydia had to accept her son’s homosexuality as well as her husband’s homosexuality. She demonstrates her faith was not weakened but strengthen in the process. Her book was a quick read with a powerful message. I been hesitant to continue with my story. Probably like you, our stories never really seem to stop. I am at an age where my family and friends are experiencing either extreme happiness or much sorrow. Our parents are older, our parents are in the process of dying or have died. Children are leaving to college, children are having babies. Life is on full display.
I am probably going to end my story, here, telling my mother, “I am gay.” While it was difficult to do, I think at the time I viewed it as another hurdle to jump through in a life at a time, when everything had gone from order to chaos. I didn’t really even get the time to go to therapy in order to try to make some type of logical sense in my life. My ex-wife was intending to move in with my sister and my brother-in-law. What I do remember is asking my ex-wife that if this is what you intend to do, then please let me go down South to tell my mother, “I am gay.” I also had to tell my mother that “I am getting a divorce, and that I cheated on my wife.” There is a lot all there, breakup, divorce, and outed. Even now, it is difficult to look back and view it all. My mother lived 150 miles away from me along the Texas-Mexican border. So, I left the city in my car driving south, I had called her in advance to let her know that I was coming down. To be honest I don’t remember a thing about driving down. The only thing I can actually remember now was sitting at my mother’s kitchen table. It was a Saturday afternoon, and since I visited my mother almost every other Saturday, there was an extreme ordinariness to the whole setting. Well, I am afraid my admission was quite anti-climactic. After sitting and driving in a car for over two hours, I just wanted everything to be over. My mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table, and I just told her everything. Blatant, upfront, and non-dramatically, I told her, “I was gay.” I think she looked at me for less than five seconds, and she said, “I know.” She then went to talk of the past. She went into a conversation that she said we had on one of our Saturday afternoon lunches in Mexico. In that conversation of the past, I told my mother, “I am getting married.” She said, “Are you sure you want to do that?” Of course I wanted to get married, I was in love. When she brought it all up at the table that Saturday, I honestly didn’t remember a thing. I have had four years to think about it, and it’s only now that I vaguely remember the conversation prior to our marriage. At the time that she was questioning me getting married, I thought maybe she was just questioning me as to my readiness. I had no idea what she was really referencing. Twenty-four years later, I tell my mother “I am gay.” She said, “I know, now let’s go to lunch!” It was nowhere near as dramatic as I thought it would be. However, the non-dramatic conversation has opened a door to my subconscious, a door that remains open still today, because it has a long unknowing list of questions that will forever remain unanswered now because both of my parents are deceased. I find myself wondering when did my mother suspect me of being gay? I assume it was at a very young age. I fit the pattern of having an emotionally distant father and an overcompensating mother full of love. Somethings seem just to make more sense now more than they ever have, especially my relationship with my father. I don’t get extreme joy by unloading my dirty laundry to others on the Internet. What I am trying to do here is to help the person who still struggles. My experience is that it’s especially hard to be who you want to be. Also, by denying the truth or by not challenging yourself to really know who you are, you cheat yourself out of much of the joys of life. I lived in denial, I buried a truth that others all could see. To be who you are, what bigger commandment can there be? You cannot love another, if at first you don’t love yourself. Guess, I took a Spring Break week last week? I want to continue with my story, especially since I have come to the moment when a 47-year-old married man must tell his mother, “I am gay.” I will tell that story soon. Today, I am just doing some heavy reflecting. I feel compelled to write down some quick notes.
Within the past ten days my phone has been ringing a lot. I have had some old friends call me, and they have wanted to catch up on things. I find it funny, and of course I am glad that they called me. I think I have mentioned before that most of my friends sided with my ex-wife after our divorce, and I really wouldn’t have expected them to have done otherwise. I am thinking as in all things, time changes everything. I must admit that I have walked a long path. It’s only now that I have the ability to live alone in comfort and in my solitude. I hated being alone for such a long time. My evenings use to be filled with two or three glasses of wine and the television. I don’t know why, but I have quit drinking. Maybe it was the attempt of putting on an old bathing suit and I found the whole experience discouraging. Let’s just say my new bathing suit is going to have to be a little bit more flexible around the waistline. Two or three glasses of wine a day have had their effect. I see that I really miss my little wine friend. My paradigm shift occurred when I was helping a friend last week endure her husband’s alcoholism. He had ended up in the hospital. I was shocked to find out how terrible delirium tremens really were. I felt sorry for everyone involved. Of course, it is hard not to internalize the whole matter. It made me step back and look at my own drinking. Well, just looking back on my past, I could easily express the idea that I probably shouldn’t drink again. However, let me be clear here, I am only on day six, but I have determination and high resolve! Some times I have found myself feeling as if I am in a bad comedy these last six days without alcohol. I never realized how much alcohol entered into my daily life. I go out to dinner almost every night. Dr. Ashden and I met up with a couple of friends this weekend. So, there I was, sitting at the dinner table, and the waitress comes along and asked for dinner drinks. Everyone at the table ordered a glass of wine, while I ordered a soft drink. When I said, “I would like a Coke.”, suddenly the whole table turned around and looked at me. I never realized that this simple little soft drink order would generate so much conversation. During the past six days it seems as if when I turn on the television every other commercial is a beer or liquor commercial. I guess the real difference here is seeing the reality of drinking. When you spend time in a hospital waiting room with a mother and her children while their dad is in the ICU with delirium tremors, well it’s very heavy on your heart for everyone involved. I am no Puritan, and I could care less if anyone drinks in front of me, or if my ordering of a non-alcoholic drink might make someone uncomfortable. At 53, I just see that the dreams that I have had in life are becoming less attainable as time passes by. I also see, my whole idea of Coming Out was misconstrued. Coming Out, Coming Out Late, is not an event, it’s process. Discovering I am gay, and I am in a gay relationship maybe a bit unusual relationship, but a relationship none the less wasn’t something I ever imagined would happen to me in life. To quit drinking alcohol is another concept in my life that I never really thought would happen. The real question here is, “Is the quitting of alcohol and Coming Out Process related to one another in my life?” I am going to have to admit, I believe they are. Four years have passed, and I believe that I have emotionally and mentally grown up from the destruction of my life. I don’t have to pretend to be anyone, I can be the person I choose to be. Having to get rid of 24 years of collected possessions from a marriage made me realize that I really don’t need too much in life to get by, all that stuff didn’t bring me lasting happiness. I guess at 53, I realize that the best things in life, aren’t things. I look at my present life as a wonderful growth opportunity, and that feels good! I questioned as to why I write all of this down? I am ready to leave it in the past, but I find by remembering it all to be therapeutic in some odd way. Working on memory I am sure that some of the details have been lost, maybe not the one’s I wanted. My memory comes back to me at the oddest times and places. Maybe it’s just taking a wrong turn and being on a familiar street that my wife and I use to take together. Seeing a house that we considered purchasing or just being in a familiar restaurant. My memory constantly stays with me, on some days it’s a welcoming friend, and on other days it’s a petulant devil.
What is little remembered or little known is my wife and I tried to stay together after the exposure of the affair. I wanted it to workout, she wanted it to workout. We both knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was at least worth a try. I did and I do love her. This horrific situation that I created needed a remedy. I would like to tell you everything I remember, but to be honest I just cannot. I can remember thinking that the gay thing would forever drape our marriage. I could and did stay away from Dr. Ashden. He knew that I loved my wife. What I do remember was thinking there was going to be a time and a place where everything is going to wrong, and it did, it just happened much more sooner that I thought. So, what I do remember was a night out of the house with my wife during that three weeks or remaining togetherness. We went to a lecture with an interesting title something concerning "Design" at Trinity University. The campus grounds were beautiful. We found the lecture hall, and we promptly took our seats. What was to follow seems more surreal now as I write these words. A woman professor went to the stage. She warmed up the audience with personal stories, one of which had to do with her Lesbian partner. The next hour to pass she only discussed gay advertising, of course she wasn’t doing nothing wrong, it was just all wrong for my wife and me. I knew that this circumstance was just a beginning, I knew this circumstance was also the end. The ride home was a quiet one. This incident was over three years ago, so gay marriage was not the law of the land. The professor demonstrated the acceptability of gay couples by placing children within her ads, again there was nothing wrong with what she did. However, her words, her advertisements, and her personal stories planted a seed within my wife’s mind. A second seed comprised the one, two, knockout punch concerned my Father-In-Law. He told my wife that she needed to divorce me, and if we still loved each other after we got divorced, then we could get re-married. What? The real irony of this particular aspect of the story was my Father-In-Law even made perpetual cheaters look good. This man probably hadn’t been loyal to his wife one full year, possibly one full month, of their whole marriage, that someone even listen to his advice on marriage seems akin to listening to Tony Montana of Scarface fame talk about just saying “No” to drugs. My wife and I stayed together three weeks from when she first discovered the affair. The end came on Valentine’s Day 2014. Why my memory is vague on many things, I will never forget this day. Valentine’s Day was during the week this particular year. My wife woke up very sad. I tried to go through the motions of making it a normal morning. No matter how hard I tried, this morning was not going to be a normal morning. How could it be? I came into the living room, dressed and ready to go to work. On the sofa, my wife sat crying. I could hardly blame her. I tried to wipe her tears away, I tried to mend a broken heart, but the damage was done. My wife called into work and informed them she would not be there. She then asked me to call my boss, and to stay home. Well, I went to my home office, and made the arrangements to do just that. Afterwards I walked down the long corridor into the living room only to find my wife was no longer there. She was in the Master Bedroom, packing a suitcase. She placed so little number of items in the suitcase, that really by the time I got into the bedroom, she was packed. All I can remember, and will ever remember is that she got up, and said, “I am leaving you.” She walked out the front door, and that was it. A marriage of 24 years was over. A marriage of 24 years was over on what is known as the most romantic day of the year, Valentine’s Day. Now, I don’t blame her for one nanosecond as to her right, her sense of determinism, or resolve to leave me. I have owned up to my failure many of times. I take ownership for what I caused. Please in no way feel that I write about this incident with a sense of pride or a sense that I have been wronged. However, her departure only marked the beginning of what was to become a quick ticket to Crazyville. My wife was going to ask my sister and my sister’s husband if she could move in with them. Here is probably one of the only times I put my foot down, and not even very forcibly. I told her if she was to move into my sister’s home, then I would not want her to do so until I told my mother the whole truth. At 47, and with 24 years of marriage behind me I had to prepare myself to drive 150 miles south to the Texas-Mexican border to tell my mother, “I had an affair, I am getting divorce, and by the way I am gay.” I really haven’t found that line in too many of my readings about Coming Out, and I find it entirely unfortunate that I am the one that had to prepare myself for what could easily have been the most difficult thing I would ever have to do in my life. This part of the story is probably one of the most difficult parts to tell. As difficult as it is, it needs to be told. I can vividly remember it so well, there I was sitting on the couch in my comfortable living room. It was a Monday evening, so I was catching up with the latest news. My dogs were by my side, I remember feeling a little tired from enjoying a long weekend, and then I was hit with the first workday of the week. “Ah, to relax on Monday evening.” Well, maybe not so much.
“I saw this letter on your computer, it was written to a man, are you gay?” Yeah, it’s difficult to even write that sentence even today over four years later. I am not really sure what the exact conversation happened after that moment. It’s a moment when you feel three inches tall, confused, upset, deceitful, and challenged. It’s a moment when every deceitful cheater is faced with his crime. It is as if the prosecutor comes into the courtroom with the bloody knife with your finger prints on it. This situation is a moment that I don’t want to glide over in my story. You see, this is the actual moment my comfortable life forever changed. Yes, I am guilty, and yes, I have entirely done something incredibly wrong. And, yes, I was just as confused and irrational as any man could be. Besides knowing the pain and the emotional hurt I caused to someone I really love, I was also being confronted with the truth. The truth of my actions, the truth of my homosexuality. The truth of admitting who I really am. The exact moment of the argument, all of the crying and the fear of the uncertainty to follow are all distorted in my memory, but there is one moment that I will never forget. There in my comfortable living room which had now become a torturous courtroom, I can still remember the pivotal moment of my life, it is as if a big spot light came shining down on me, the sounds of the television seemed no more, and a stillness overcame the room. Here is where my lovely wife with tears in her large green blue eyes asked the question, “Do you love him?” Four simple torturous words, asking for me to be honest, to be honest to her, to be honest with myself, to be honest to everyone. I am thinking there would be many people in a moment like this one, that would scramble to try to put something coherent together to tell the person you married and love, some type of reasonable explanation for everything. I just couldn’t think of one. I just had to quit running, running from the truth. Three nervous breakdowns that led to the hospital, the pills for the deep depression, the alcohol to ease the pain, the dishonesty of cheating, the tiredness of trying to be two people, I don’t know what else to say here, but “I was just tired”, I wanted the depression to end, I wanted the uncertainty of not knowing what was really right or wrong anymore to just stop, I wanted to just stop running.” So here is where I decided to be completely honest with her and with myself. I said, “Yes, I did find myself in love with him.” So, at 47, I said to myself, “Just quit lying.” You see, this dishonesty was deep rooted within me. The truth was I was living a life that others expected of me. What I thought was completely wrong, was actually a lie, men can really fall in love with one another. If homosexual love is a sin, then why did it seem so right? The gay man wasn’t those people, the gay man was me, and it was time that I acknowledge it. Yes, there are times even now that I still fool myself, I see a woman, and I find myself very attracted to her, but by acknowledging that I have loved a man, I am reminded that my pain and my deception have caused serious emotional damage to another person, to another person that I loved, so I detach myself from the unsuspecting woman. What I did was wrong on all accounts, but I knew I didn’t want to keep lying, I knew it was time to start being honest. I mentioned, “torturous journey” by all accounts after meeting Dr. Asheden, my life became quite torturous. Even to this day, I look back and I wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?” I was a husband, a son, a son-in-law, and a brother. I have always tried to live a good life, and an honorable life. I placed the needs of others before myself. How could I allow for such a dishonesty, a deceitfulness to come into my life?
Here, I had to acknowledge an idea known as “Cognitive Dissonance.” According to Wikipedia the terms means, “In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress (discomfort) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, when performing an action that contradicts those beliefs, ideas, and values; or when confronted with new information that contradicts existing beliefs, ideas, and values.” I knew an affair was wrong on all accounts. However, I couldn’t totally understand what I was feeling. I couldn’t totally understand what I was doing, though an insight into everything began with a kiss. I have never kissed a man. I never wanted to kiss a man, but when I finally did I think I began to finally understand what that “difference” I felt was all about. It was like placing the last piece into a jigsaw puzzle, everything just came into its own place. I held these traditional values deep within me, yet I was confronted with something, no a feeling, that was totally against my deep held beliefs. What seemed so natural, so right, was at the same time for me just wrong, so here was my cognitive dissonance in action. I wanted no part of it, but at the same time I could not stop it. You see, I was in love, and I would soon find out love has so little to do with rationality. My wife and I were living two separate lives in the same house. Hell, if most of us are truthful in our modern lives this paradigm isn’t so hard to understand. My wife and I were best friends. She was my rock within a difficult period of my life. I hated myself for what I was doing to her, and I hated myself for what I was doing to our relationship. How did I balance a wife with a lover, well, I didn’t do a very good job at it. There were many days where I said, “I will end this, I will get back to my life, this is all so very wrong.” My passion would lead me away from rationality every time. Yes, I have become something I detested, and yes, I have become something that I always wanted rather consciously or subconsciously. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on with me. The one person I counted on throughout my life, I was hurting the most. To be sure what I was doing was a form of self-inflicted torture. Trying to live two lives, trying to be all sealed up from other’s judgments and my own was a sure path to self-destruction. I was living in two worlds, and there were many times that I didn’t know which world I was in. A storm was brewing, a mistake was soon to be made, and it would be here at one particular moment in my life that my life would forever be change Four years ago, my life completely changed. Four years ago, I was living in a large home in Oak Hills, I had three cars, I was on the board of my HOA, I had a good job, and I was married to a beautiful woman. People looking at me from the outside probably would have said, “He is living the dream.”
The truth of the matter was that I was crumbling within from depression and anxiety. Four years ago was the last time I would be rushed to the hospital for yet that unknown phenomenon that was occurring within me, a panic attack. I can still remember the emergency room at the Methodist Hospital being so overcrowded that I was laying in a bed next to the doctor’s station. I can still remember wondering what is going on? What is really the matter? It was shortly after returning from the hospital that I would find what really was the matter. It was suggested to me to pick up some activities away from the home. I was always interested in art and classical music, so I focused my mind on these interests. My ex-wife was and still is an equestrian, so that took up most of her free time outside of work. If I was going to have interests, I was going to have to explore my interests mostly alone. It was a feeling I knew well. We were a childless couple, but not by choice. On a cool night in October I went to the San Antonio Museum of Art for a lecture on Greek gods. I really don’t remember too much about the lecture, but I do remember asking some questions afterwards during the Q&A session. After the lecture, I then went to view the Greek and Roman statues within the museum. It was there by the statue of Aphrodite of all places, that I would meet a person that would forever change my life. I tell you this part of my story because at 47, I never thought I would then go on to find myself forever challenged. You see, I never thought I was gay. Between working long hours, taking care of elderly sick parents, cleaning the house, doing yard work, going to the grocery store, cooking, paying the bills, and cleaning the cars, I had buried something deep within me. At 47 I did know something was wrong. I grew up along the Texas Mexican border and within that culture there were certain expectations about what a real man was. My father epitomized that man figure, a man’s man. He and his friends were big hunters, hard drinkers, gamblers, golfers, and yes, womanizers. This is what my idea of manhood was, and I knew I fell way short of this male expectation, I knew I was different. I just did not know what that difference was? At 47 I came to know what that difference was. I met a man, a man that I have never seen the likes of before, and there at the cool white marble statue of Aphrodite, I fell in love. It was there, I would begin and would start a very long tortuous journey of not only Coming Out, but I also say, “Coming Into” my true self. I remember hearing a doctor at the hospital say, “Life isn’t for sissies.” How right she was, to be true to yourself takes guts, and little did I know I was going to have to face the biggest challenge of my life. At 47 I began what would be a continually life long process called, “Coming Out.” |
Christian Cantu
Coming Out Late Archives
December 2019
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