Be True To Yourself!

Posted on June 18, 2012

As I have mentioned in a previous blog titled,” It’s a battle every day”, I have grown up in a very little French northern NH community where they rolled the sidewalks up every evening at 8:00 PM sharp.  It was exciting to watch the fire trucks roll by every so many months with their lights on to rescue the neighbor’s cat that was actually trying to end its life from boredom and really wasn’t stuck in a tree.  The entertainment sources consisted of Atari video games which I think are now displayed in the Smithsonian and a small single screen movie theater.  We had our pedal bikes, big wheels and skateboards for our locomotion fun but our main source of entertainment was the relationships that you formed with your friends and peers from school and your siblings.  Life was uncomplicated and simple back then.  We played outside all day and didn’t come home till it was time for “supper”.  Sometimes our parents didn’t even know where we were or what we’re doing but it was all good and all safe in the community we lived in.  We lived in neighborhoods which a groups of children that lived in those neighborhoods became “gangs” of friends to play outside with.  We engaged in outside activities which involved various balls, bats, sticks and pucks and snow and shovels with frozen handmade mittens in the winter.  We also relied on our creativity and our imaginations to play games.  Some of them that I can remember are…tag, hide & seek and Simon says.  We enjoyed our group of coed play activities.  We at times would also break up into gender group activities as well.  The girls would play Chinese jump rope as well as classic jump rope. The boys would play cops & robbers and cowboys & indians. Occasionally the boys would let the girls into our “boy” games and we would occasionally jump rope.  I was quite content enjoying activities with both groups.  But then we all had to start growing up.   Our gender group activities became more prominent as we got older and started getting out of grammar school and moved into junior high and high school.  It was no longer cool for the boys and girls to play together and we had our gender behavior stereotypes that we had to follow.  The boys had to carry their book in their hands and girls wrapped their arms around them.  It was what was expected!  There were rules you know.

Because I lived in the community where you were expected to conform to societies expectations, I was expected to follow these rules or accept the consequences from your peers.  The boys were expected to hang out with your “bros” and the girls hung out with their “girlfriends” at school.  We did not look at sports and coed participation as we do today.  There were “girl” sports – field hockey, soccer and basketball & cheerleading.  There were “boy” sports – ice hockey, basketball, soccer & football.  We did not have the liberty of having coed sports such as tennis, swimming & track / field. It was unthinkable to have a girl play ice hockey or a boy be on the field hockey team or cheer leading squad!

Because my parents were not very open and communicative with my brother and I about anything except to give us harsh punishment and critiques, so my brother and I kept many of our thoughts and feelings to ourselves.   We did not have a lot of financial resources growing up since my parents were not college educated so we were not encouraged to participate in band, boy scouts or anything that would cost money other than that was required for our basic needs.  So I did not many extracurricular activities.  Even sports were out of the question due to the cost of registration.   I did not hang out with friends and go bowling or roller skating secondary to the costs so I spent a lot of time by myself outside of school.  My friends did note this and started labeling me as odd or weird because I would go with them.  I was frequently teased and was told, “Wayne can’t go because he can’t get permission from his mommy”.  This would hurt and I started drifting away from my standard pack of friends.

This led to me having a label as being different.  I had to make a new group of friends which was extremely intimate.  We were a group of 4-5 of us depending on the day.  We did not spend money to do activities.  We would just enjoy being with each other and usually just hang and talk.  Because my new groups of friends were very unpopular kids, I inherited the title of geek.  I struggled with this because I was at the age in my life that I was attempting to figure out “who I was”.  Unfortunately I was then started to feel alone and did not want to hang out with my group of friends because I wanted to shed the image of being a geek.

Being alone was ok with me in that time of my life.  It gave me time to figure out, “who I was”.   Once I figured out “who I was”, a new set of challenges started in my life.  I realized that I was a gay teenage boy in a Catholic rural community and I could never be my “true” self out in the open.  These feelings were not accepted in the community that I was growing up in.  There were not any openly gay students in my high school.  The next chapter in my life had started since I realized who I was but what do I do now?

I have never felt more alone than I did when I realized what made me feel comfortable in my life would have made others feel uncomfortable.  How was I going to deal with my personal feelings?  Would I ever dare to attempt to engage in a relationship that would make me happy or would I have to compress and bury those feelings deep inside my core and keep them locked up there?

I decided to bury those feelings that I had about how I felt.  I finished high school never even considering dating a fellow female student.  I basically kept to myself and complete high school to the best of my ability and then to go onto college.  When it came to my senior year in high school, I wanted to experience senior festivities as I should.  I invited a girl to go to the senior prom with me just so I could say I went to my senior prom.  This was the first person that I have ever asked out on a date.  Well, I use the term date loosely.  I asked her to go with me because she didn’t have a date and she was in several of my classes.  We basically went as friends.  I was very happy when that night was over…it emptied my wallet and was uncomfortable for both of us.  Slow dance…not on your life!

Once I graduated from high school it was off to nursing school.  I was feeling like there was something missing in my life.  I was correct.  I was denying my true feelings because of the community that I lived in and the expected stereotypical life I was supposed to be living.  I was a man and was expected to find a girlfriend, get married and have children.  That’s what my parents wanted and unfortunately that’s what I did.  Why did I not listen to the little voice in my head that said, “do what makes you happy”.

So I decided that I needed to start dating girls so that’s what I did.  Well, let’s be honest.  I dated 1 girl.  I guess I followed my expected path that society planned for me and I got married and had 1 child.  My son Ryan.  I stayed married for 15 years.  I was not happy internally for all that time.  I struggled frequently with my decision to live the life I was living but I was a father.  I had to be there for my son and for his well being, I stayed in the relationship till he was 13.  I wanted him to get to know his father and enjoy his time with me.  I knew that my wife at the time would not be happy if I wanted a divorce and she would do anything to make me miserable.  I knew my son had to know me and love me before I made any decisions about my life.  So there I was again, trying to decide what to do with my life.  I then made the decision that I had to make.  I was not happy and it was affecting my relationship with my wife back then.  I then decided to do live my life happy and make decisions for me.

Today, I am an openly gay man.  I have a loving son, Ryan and a wonderful spouse Michael.  I am happy every day of my life.  I have a terrific life and ask myself today, “Why did it take you so long to get here”?  I learned a valuable lesson in life.  You should never deny who you really are.  You should live your life to the fullest because life is too short.  Don’t live your life by rules of other’s expectations.  We are in control or our future paths and we should always take the path that will make us holistically whole person to enhance our mental and emotional well being.

Categories: Goals and Motivation, Mind, Body, and Spirit, Uncategorized