Ok, somewhere around there. I think I was 11 or 12. So, a bit early. What brings this memory crashing down, you ask? Well, like most of my memories, stashed and pushed into their own little corners, this one was dragged out kicking and screaming by this little fantastic, exceptional and heartwarming story found on Milkboys of acceptance, making things right, and making a way for things to be right: http://milkboys.org/article/the-kid-who-simply-knew/. I would love for you to read this story, if you haven't already. Go ahead....... I'll wait.
Back now? Cool story, huh. Well, my story is not nearly so cool, so I guess I would completely understand if you wanted to quit now while you were ahead..... Well, don't complain later if you don't.
Way back when, the skies were brighter, the air cleaner, there was a wonder in the world that new eyes could see and appreciate....and little randy was getting ready for holloween. You in other countries may not have such a holiday, but it's second only to Christmas in kids' eyes here. To dress up and traipse through the neighborhood begging for candy from neighbors and total strangers with equal underlying half considered threats of vengence upon those so stingy as to rebuke the beggars... For a kid, it's magic.
Most years I went as a ghost, a hobo, a pirate or a vampire.... whatever we could create here at the house. It was a time when there wasn't a great deal of money in the household for more elaborate costumes. Well, this particular year, I'd realized that my main friends had grown distant. It was a period of time in which I'd been taken aside by the local bully, who was either gay or ??? and, like all kids do, they somehow knew and stayed away from me. They were still there, just distant....and this is actually the holloween either just after or a year after I'd realized I was way over my head - the only way kids ever learn, when it went from fun to scary. I was healing by this time, more or less ok.... but still had issues, I guess. For holloween that year, I went out alone... I designed my costume, my disguise, in haste and with little help, utilizing two small cups from the bathroom - you know, those little paper/plastic ones of about 2oz? - and a funny blond wig, finishing it all off with long winter underwear and one of my sister's nighties...... you have to imagine the shock on my father's face, because I totally missed it. Perhaps that was the first time the folks realized that little randy had issues. Perhaps not.
So, I guess the whole odd point to this story....yes, there is a point: perhaps it is only kids who can be honest enough with themselves, unencumbered by the full weight of societal expectations and concepts of normality, to even come close to knowing who they really are. And, yet, there are others who insist upon placing time and distance upon these fresh growing minds and souls to reportedly allow them to "grow up and determine who they really are" rather than listen and support them as they are. I wonder, sometimes, what life would have dealt had I been more honest with myself.
4 comments:
Hello Randy
Your last sentence has a lot of resonance for me - I've often wondered where I would be in my life now if I'd been able to accept my 'difference' from my peers when I first became consciously aware of it, when I was 12 or 13. Why didn't/couldn't I embrace it, and be honest? Little more than fear, really - I'd heard the insults, aimed (usually completely inappropriately) at others, queer, fairy, poof were the most common in that era, and I just didn't want anyone to be able to say those things to me. I didn't want it to be true, so the path of least resistance was to pretend that it wasn't. The only trouble is, you can't pretend to yourself, not for any length of time, anyway. With hindsight, not accepting the 'real' me is the probably the worst mistake of my whole life, and there have been plenty to choose from, but, of course, hndsight is the most useless commodity known to man.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B
Yes, I guess it is. We can look back and wish we woulda, coulda, but we didn't. And yet, life goes on. For both of us...
Sammy, I know you are struggling in some ways, but you have a wonderful daughter - yes? I have my blessings.... I just, like you, wish I could have been stronger than to take the road of least resistance at the time.
Hugs, my friend.
-randy
I think the story of this family is inspiring. I have to wonder what the world would be like, happier and healthier if everyone could be who we truly are.
In this respect my life is grand. I simply who I am. I do not have different faces, I do not pretend, I am. There are people who like me and people who don't. My life is what it is. I happen to like it and me.
I wish I also could have been accepted for who I was growing up. Those are scars that will not heal in this life time. I think my whole family would have been happier if we could all could have accepted our differences.
But when I turned 18, away from home, making it on my own, I promised my self I would be whole, I would be me. I wont accept others determining who I am, I wont accept them treating me badly. ( different topic, but had a heart doctor come into the unit yesterday morning and give me a hard time. I told him off. My people backed me. He stormed off. Heart doctors are use to being treated as royalty, and for the most part are very arrogant. I told him my blood was the same color as his and my charge told him he put his pants on the same way he did and we would not be disrespected at work. )
I have all my adult life never been in or out, I have been me. I don't have a gay sign but truth be told if you can't see it your blind. It is part of me and the way I like being. I never hid it in the service or in my other jobs. It has cost me at times, but I never wavered, never felt bad about my decision on the way I live my life.
Today at nearly fifty I am happy, I am loved, I have a life I greatly enjoy. I have great sympathy for those who for different reasons have to hide who they are,I understand they have to decide for themselves. For me it was the only way I could live with my self.
Love you. Hugs
Scottie;
You are fortunate. I know that I do struggle - and yet I am learning to be me.
The oddest thing, though....it's easier to be me with strangers than with those who know me. That seems backwards, huh.
hugs;
r.
Post a Comment