I talked to my best friend Liz almost every day during the summer before my freshman year of college. On the night of July 10, we had a conversation that lasted for about two hours. We discussed high school, college, life in general really. We talked about our futures, and the need that both of us felt to do what was right, what was just. After a two hour conversation, I knew that the time had come to break the silence.
I called Liz on the night of July 11, 2002, and told her that I was gay. As my best friend in the entire world, the girl for whom I would lay down my life, her reaction would shape the course of my life. I don’t remember the exact words that I used to open my world to her, but I remember the first words she said in response. “Are you kidding?”
At first I thought that she didn’t want to believe that I was gay. I then realized that she simply couldn’t believe it. I had acted in every way the part of a heterosexual male, convincing even my best of friends that I was straight. I had done the job well, because it took another minute or two before Liz believed that the words I spoke were finally the truth.
Whereas I remember the first words Liz spoke in response, I also remember what she said after she finally understood what I was telling her. When Liz was at last able to understand that I truly meant that I was gay, she said the words that keep people strong in the hardest of trials; she simply said, “I love you Anthony.”
I’ll never forget the night that I told Liz that I was gay. I felt nauseous, excited, and scared all at once. There has never been a harder thing to do than come out to my best friend. With an opinion that I valued more than any other, Liz’s reaction was what gave me strength to live my life the way I have chosen to live it since that day. I knew that telling Liz had changed me inside, because now there was at least one person that I could be totally honest with, regardless of the consequences.
I’ve received a considerable deal of criticism because I chose to share my story with Liz before I did with my Walton parents. The reason for this is two-fold.
I didn’t feel as if there was a natural obligation to tell my parents everything that was happening in my life. Struggling for many years to be accepted by my parents, I didn’t feel that I was accepted even before I came out. In my mind, if I wasn’t accepted before I brought homosexuality into the equation, what made me think I would be accepted after that? In my thinking, my parents didn’t deserve to know. I would much sooner tell Liz, one of the few people who had been a constant in my life, a rock to which I always found myself anchored.
The second reason that I had to keep my Walton parents out of the loop, and perhaps the most prominent of reasons, was that I knew my parents wouldn’t be accepting of the “gay thing” as a whole. My parents, the ones with whom I lived in Walton, always seemed very prejudicial to me. When I would confront them about this, though, they’d claim that they weren’t prejudicial at all. I knew what I felt, however, and the decision that was right for me, at that time, was to first tell Liz.
I knew that there were a couple of other friends that I needed to tell before I went away to college, so when I was able to travel back to Walton for a night, my friends all met at Liz’s house to say goodbye to me for the summer. On a hot July night in a small town upstate, I finally told a few more people the truth about my sexuality. I felt confident that I had done the right thing, to tell the truth, face-to-face, to the people that mattered most to me.
After these few people knew the truth, I had planned on telling my parents, eventually. I planned to tell my parents in New Jersey first, followed by my parents in Walton. I returned to New Jersey from Walton the night I told my friends with very real ideas in my head about when I wanted to tell my parents. Little did I know that the option of telling my parents face-to-face is something I would never have to deal with.
In September of my freshman year at college, I phoned home to talk with my mom in Walton about how school was going, how I enjoyed my classes, and random college events that I knew she would want to hear about.
The tone of our conversation was uncomfortable to begin with; I knew that my mom had something that was bothering her, something that she was hesitant to bring up in our discussion. I asked her to talk to me about everything that was on her mind, and she said that when I came home we would have to talk about some things. I had an idea that perhaps my mom knew, but I played the fool, asking her what she meant. My mom said that there were some rumors going around town about me that she would like to talk about with me. When I asked what those rumors were, knowing full well the entire time what my mother was about to tell me, she said that we needed to figure out a way to stop people from saying that I was gay, for apparently someone approached her at work with the startling revelation that they had heard I was gay.
She knew. I knew that she knew. But this wasn’t the way things were supposed to go down; I had planned exactly how I was going to tell my mom, and now small-town gossip had brought the truth to her ears. It hardly seemed fair that other people were able to tell my mom my greatest truth without having any verification from me as to whether or not it was true.
“Well, are you gay?” That was her next question for me, to which I simply responded, “Yes.”
In a quick tone, instantly she responded, “Well I still love you and accept you.” That sentence sounded so forced that it came out sounding as one word. I knew that she wasn’t alright with it, but it was something she knew that she had better learn how to work with, and quickly. We hung up the phone, after I asked my mom to at least allow me to tell my dad. My reasoning was that I was going to call my dad on the phone and let him in on the “hot gossip.”
I hung up with my mom, waited two or three seconds for the line to reset, and then dialed my dad’s number. It was busy. I knew, at that moment, the exact reason that my dad’s telephone was busy. My mom was on the phone with him, and I knew it.
I left my room, deciding that I would call my dad later on in the night. I walked around campus for about an hour; I knew that my life was changed that day, and I tried to prepare myself for the phone conversation that I would inevitably have to make later that night.
Sure enough, the next couple of hours seemed not to exist, for it was suddenly time for me to give my dad a call. I took a deep breath, and dialed his number for the second time that day; this time the results were different, as I heard the phone ring. My Dad informed me that my mother had called him earlier in the day. He then said, “Anthony, what are you doing?”
I paused for a moment, took a breath, and simply said, “Men?”
He started laughing.
We talked for somewhere close to an hour, with the end result being quite different than the reaction of my mom.
Whereas my mom seemed to feign acceptance for my benefit, my dad did not. My dad doubted me, refusing to acknowledge that I was gay. He suggested that, because of my young age, seventeen years old at the time the call was made, it was impossible for me to know exactly what my sexual orientation was. I tried to explain to my dad that I was certain that this was my way of life, that I had known it for the majority of my life. My dad, unaware of how long I had carried this secret inside of me, remained skeptical. He could not fathom the idea that his son, whom he had watched grow up, could know already that he was gay. I explained that I was sorry to disappoint him, but that it was true.
I then asked how it came to pass that he learned of my sexual orientation. He said that my mom had called him earlier in the evening and said, “George, are you sitting down?” From there, she had told him everything we had talked about. I had not been able to tell my parents my story, and now they all knew. It didn’t seem fair, but it also took a lot of the pressure off of me; I didn’t have to search for the words that would have been the hardest to speak.
Lying in bed that night, a lot of thoughts were running through my head. I knew that, at long last, I could finally begin to pursue my own life, founded on truth. Was it a relief that my parents knew? I guess that it was, but their reactions were what continued to run through my head.
In my mind, homosexuality still continued to be a very taboo topic. My parents had reacted in such a way as a family does when one of its members is stricken with cancer. Neither set of parents denied homosexuality existed, but they were able to put it out of mind, knowing that it would never be brought onto their household. Both parents treated the truth about my sexual orientation in two very different ways; I’m not sure which one I should be more pleased with. Both reactions were not the desired effect, but that could very well be because they did not come out of the ideal circumstances. I was scared to tell my parents, but it was clear that neither set of parents was going to hate me because of this new part to our relationship.
So, while it may not have been the best way for my parents to find out, or even the best of reactions on either front, the truth had come to the surface; I was breathing, and now able to live my life in any way that I chose.
My parents knew, my friends knew, my town knew; all of the foundations that I had laid in two towns, in two different states, were suddenly changed, and I would simply have to wait to see if, upon my return from college to either New Jersey or New York, the relationships themselves were dramatically altered. One way or another, I had more important things on my mind.
College was here.
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