Posted by:
GayLayAle
(
)
Date: January 25, 2011 09:06PM
When I met Jeremy, I was looking for anything but a new relationship. With everything I had been through with Bill, I couldn’t imagine myself ever giving my heart to someone ever again. I had resolutely made up my mind to remain single for the rest of my life, and I was completely comfortable with that. I had come to understand that the only person I could really trust was myself, and even that was surviving only on shaky ground.
One of the only good things to come out of my relationship with Bill was that I had somehow dug deep and found the courage to tell my family about my sexuality. My only regret is not doing it while my mom was still alive, but from discussions I’ve had with my dad and my aunt Suzanne since, she knew. My mom had such a scary intuition. It bordered on psychic at times.
It’s actually kind of funny how I came out to my dad. I was living with him and my brother at the time in a rental house just a few miles from where I grew up. Since I had moved back home and my mom had passed away, I had developed such a great relationship with my dad. He and I would spend evenings together with take-out food and movies. We sat down all the time and just had fantastic conversations. I really enjoyed spending time with my dad, and we started connecting in a way we never had when I was a kid.
One night, I was downstairs in my bedroom listening to music. Out of nowhere, I made up my mind to go tell my dad right then. I have no idea where the impulse came from. I hadn’t even been thinking about it that night.
I marched upstairs and found my dad in the family room watching TV. I just said, “Dad, I need to talk to you if you have some time.” He didn’t even look overly concerned about what I wanted to talk to him about. I asked if we could go up to his bedroom and talk, just in case my brother came home.
We went upstairs to his bedroom. He sat on the bed, I in the rocking chair across the room. He asked me what was up, and I took a deep breath and just blurted it out. “Dad, I’m gay.”
He didn’t look surprised at all. Without missing a beat he said, “I know.”
I was pretty taken aback. I mean, really, if you’ve ever met me, you know it’s not all that difficult to tell that I’m gay. I’m not queeny or effeminate, but it’s not a challenge to figure it out. At the time, though, I had absolutely no idea he knew. Before I could even ask him how he felt about it, he looked at me, his eyes filled with love.
“Michael (he’s the only one that still calls me that), you’re my son. I love you no matter what. Nothing you could do or say would ever change that. I can’t pretend I understand how you’re feeling, but the most important thing is that you’re happy. I’ve known you were gay for quite a long time, but I didn’t think it was my place to confront you with it. I knew you’d tell me when you were ready. You know my belief and faith in the church, and I still haven’t found a way to reconcile this with that, but someday I know I will.”
My eyes welled up with tears. If I had had any inkling this is what his reaction would be, I would have told him so many years sooner. I looked into his eyes and knew he meant every word. We talked for over an hour, and as the conversation was winding down, he smiled at me and said, “How about we go grab some KFC and rent a movie.”
Both of us started laughing and he came over and gave me a big hug. There was no awkwardness at all, just an immense sense of relief and unconditional love.
My dad asked me if it was okay if he talked to my brother and sister about what I had told him. I told him I had no problem with that.
Since then, both my brother and sister who are very active in the LDS church have been two of my biggest cheerleaders. My sister told me she had known I was gay since I was a teenager. She had made up her mind if I hadn’t come out by the time the month was out, she was going to pull me aside and force me out of the closet, which is just like her. She’s a fabulous spitfire, just like my mom.
One of the things that makes my eyes well up with tears even now is my dad, my sister and my brother all told their respective spouses on their first dates that I was gay, and if they (the spouses) had any issue with it, the relationship wouldn’t work.
I never take for granted how lucky I am that I have a family that supports me. I realize I am an exception to the rule. So many GLBT people, especially those who come from Christian backgrounds are shunned by their families, some even kicked out of their homes. I never fail to keep this in the forefront of my mind every single day.
So as I said, when I met Jeremy, I was only looking for friends- some nice gay people to form solid friendships with; people with good energy and who weren’t emotionally crippled like Bill was. I put an ad up on a gay singles website stating very clearly that at that point, I wasn’t looking for anything romantic, just some people to hang out with, which was the God-honest truth. On that website was a feature similar to the one on Facebook where you can “poke” someone, but on this site they called it a “wink”. One day, I received a “wink” from one of the most adorable men I’d ever seen. It was Jeremy. I promptly sent a “wink” back, and before long, we were exchanging emails. If any two people had more in common than Jeremy and me, I haven’t met them. From the most obscure, random movies, to favorite foods, to music…we even smoked the same cigarettes (not a good thing, I know, but it’s more to illustrate how much we had/have in common).
I had to firmly plant my feet in the ground, though, and not give in to the pitter-patter of my heart. The truth is, I hadn’t even met this guy, and I’d be damned if I was going to break down the wall I had built around my poor little heart. It took a lot of conscious effort to keep that wall up where Jeremy was concerned, because with each email I found myself liking him more and more, which scared the living crap out of me.
After exchanging emails and instant messages for a few weeks, we decided to meet. We had talked on the phone a few times and just the sound of his voice made me weak.
To illustrate just how gay I really am, Jeremy asked me to meet him on a certain night, however I had already made plans for that night to watch the season finale of the first season of American Idol with some friends from work. To this day, Jeremy has jokingly never let me live that down.
Jeremy and I exchanged text messages throughout the entire show, and when it was over (yay! Kelly Clarkson won!), he suggested we meet for a drink. I happily accepted. I had to drive a friend of mine to her apartment downtown, but since Jeremy and I both lived in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley, I agreed to pick him up in the parking lot of a grocery store near his house, and he’d come along while I took my friend home, then we’d go grab a beer. I felt the familiar butterflies that like to do jumping jacks inside my stomach whenever the mood strikes them. But I figured what the hell? I’m not going to meet him for a romantic liaison, or even a date, we’re just going to hang out and get to know each other.
As I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, I immediately spotted his little black coupe parked near the doors of the store. I pulled up next to him and I’ll never forget the absolutely gorgeous smile he threw me when he saw me. We both got out of our cars and my heart was about to pound out of my chest. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my entire life. I thought to myself, thank God we’re only meeting as friends; no one that good looking would ever be interested in me!
Shawntelle, the friend I was driving home, got in the back seat and Jeremy into the passenger seat. From the get-go, we began talking…it really was like we had known each other all our lives. There were no awkward silences, no fishing for things to say. The words flowed so easily. Now, one thing that made this a lot easier, and if you’ve ever met Jeremy in person you know this, he is a self-professed chatterbox. In the nine years I have known Jeremy, I don’t think he’s ever been at a loss for words, which I find absolutely adorable.
By the time we arrived at Shawntelle’s apartment, she had fallen asleep in the back seat. I woke her up, said goodbye and Jeremy and I drove off, looking for someplace relatively quiet where we could get a beer and have a few smokes. Neither of us were into the bar scene, so we decided to go to a place downtown called Anchors Away, which was a very laid-back restaurant/bar/pub thingie, where they allowed smoking. Alas, when we pulled up, it had been closed. We had been driving around for over an hour looking for somewhere to go, and not finding anywhere. Honestly, I barely noticed we had been driving that long. I was too engaged in the conversation we were having. Eventually, we ended up in the parking lot of Target. There was a small strip of grass and trees and we decided to get out of the car and have a cigarette. We sat down on the grass and kept talking. Before I knew what had happened, we looked at the clock and it was nearly 5 a.m. We had been talking for over eight hours. Hours had flown like minutes, and I knew then and there that this was the man I was going to go the long haul with. I knew it more surely than I’ve ever known anything else in my life. Jeremy was going to be my rock and my redemption, and the more I learned about the challenges he had been through in his life, the more I respected, admired and adored him.