I am going to try something here. It may work or it may not. My attempt is to tell my story in bits and pieces. Perhaps like several short stories or chapters. I don’t truly know yet. What I do know is something can be learned.

I am biased and this is from my perspective, of course.

This is in honor of National Coming Out Day.

When you come out, being attracted to someone that isn’t the norm, is ridiculously frightening.

I never felt like it was wrong or abnormal. I have never felt shame. Loving a person whole heartedly is not wrong.

The fear comes from the outside. You are afraid of losing everyone and everything, and for some that is true. The fear is real.

For me, that is why my family is my family, but friends are just as much my family.

Break. Now remember this was a different time.

October 24, 1994 I got sent away. I got sent away, brought, to live with a friend of my Mom’s, Bettie and her two kids, Rebecca and Jacob. Bettie turned 30 while I lived there; Rebecca 10, and Jacob 6 years old. I just turned 17 years old, a junior in high school.

They lived in a big old house, in Brandon, MN, population 400, so the sign said. It is 138 miles away from where I lived. The two surrounding towns were Evansville and Millerville.

I believe I was sent away because I was gay. I will never truly know, because my Mom will never, ever say for absolute. But, the last year before I was sent away, I had a friend that I was too close with, which my Mom hated, and my Mom asked me at least a dozen times in a threatening tone, “Are you gay?”

“No,” I said.

Each time I said, “No,” because I felt as if I was in an interrogation room where my wrists were strapped to a chair and a light was above my head. I did not feel safe to say anything but, “No.”

The last time she asked me I said, “If you ask me again, I am just going to start saying I am.”

If her stare could have thrown me across the room, it would have. But, it worked. That was the last time she asked.

This may go against National Come Out Day, but if I could have suppressed me in some way longer, done something different. Lied? I would have waited until I turned 18, a glorious age. Freedom.

I tried running away. That didn’t work.

What I do know is that year changed the direction in my life forever.

I was being punished, sent away for being me, and I experienced some deep depression and phenomenal anger. Truthfully, I can say 20 plus years later, I learned pretty much everything I needed to know in life that year. The guts of life. Now, I just have more experience and wisdom to back me up.

Note: Do not ever feel bad for me in any which way. It is against my belief. I will refuse it.

Life is a blessing.

Was that experience a blessing? I have a hard time with that one. But it did make me, me.

National Coming Out day is a big day for a lot of people.

My heart, is yours.
Till my next bit or piece. Hugs.