In My Coming Out Late blog, I have pretty much chronicled my time from getting divorced, outed, and learning to live as a gay man. I have moaned and groaned my way with the best of them these past five years. I don’t know but I thought everything was going to be a little different.
Lately, I been thinking that may be there is too much hoopla about Coming Out. It makes for some great dramatic video, YouTube’s “I Am From Driftwood” is very good. I have seen some video blogs on You Tube also. It’s funny, but a lot of the blogs start off with a big bang, and then suddenly they fizzle out. The blog stops. I can understand, because at the time what seems as if it’s such a big event, fades. It’s not that I have gotten use to living as a gay man. I really don’t think of myself as gay or straight rather just being. My experience is unusual, Coming Out Late is a very different experience than accepting and living a truth earlier on within your life. Dr. Ashden and I have 74 years of heterosexual marriage between us. Our experience is different. You see, Coming Out doesn’t solve all of your problems, you still have to deal with life on life’s terms. Dr. Ashden is getting older. He is forgetting a lot. Due to a recent confrontation with his son, he has been in a deep depression, the type that manifests itself by not really being here or there when he is around. He is tiring much easier now. When he is happy, I don’t take that moment for granted. I play Sinatra on my Sirius radio in the car for him. He doesn’t realize that I have consciously selected the station for him. As the music plays usually his foot will inevitably begin thumping with the beat of the music. He will recall a story from his past. These are the little moments I believe I will always remember. Coming Out or Coming Out Late isn’t my whole life, it’s just a part, a very small part of an entire lifetime. In thinking about the video blogs, I think that the videographer eventually sees this point also. You have your big gay moment, and you think your whole world is going to change, only to find out that you still got to get up, go to work, pay the bills, do housework, clean the car, mow the yard, and hope somewhere in between you can crave out a little time for yourself. As I write these words, I see how much I have changed. The part of Coming Out that I thought would shake the world, really no one seems to care shortly after they learn. Yes, many of my old friends do not speak to me, but it may not be because I came out, but rather we meet friends that come and go in our lives all the time, well, it seems more unusual the older you get, but I try to defy that idea. I enjoy meeting new people, but it’s difficult to maintain new deep meaningful friendships as you get older due to the many demands that life places on us. My relationship with Dr. Ashden has turned into a deep meaningful friendship as oppose to lovers. I am good with that. It’s nice to take the time to just step back from the original chaos. It is a great feeling to start feeling like my old self. Yes, I have changed, but no matter who we are, I believe there is a core center of our existence. It’s a core part of our self that when we are lucky enough to get the time to feel it, then we feel centered and balanced. I guess what I am suggesting is what is known as our soul. When I am at this point I remind myself it’s good to be me, and I give a moment of deep thanks.
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Christian Cantu
Coming Out Late Archives
December 2019
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