This was written shortly after the author came out, it was the first story written...yet sat unpublished for four years.
*
"He's perfect...and...he's mine!" The last thing I thought of before falling asleep in his arms. You'd think I knew that already, but no...I take my time when things aren't as black and white like I want them to be.
_____________
That's how I had to approach my coming out. I knew I was gay (the black and white part) but I didn't know anything else about me (the color!). My colors aren't grey goddammit they're blue and green! I bleed them, I feel them and for once I finally got it.
I feel blue when I don't understand how I came to fall this low, I become green when I realize I can pick myself up; and, it was only a matter of time before I finally took the turkey by the gobbler so to speak. Even if I'd done it a few times before (my humor can be cheesy sometimes).
I thought I fell in love really early in life, what I realized later was that I fell in gay. I knew it wasn't normal and I knew I felt at that time it was kinda right. Not that feeling that way wasn't great, because it was an escape I could only dream for in those days... but because it was how it was supposed to go. My few firsts at that age were so miniscule compared to what I did after coming out that my life was restarted.
For once it was about my real happiness, not the façade you put on when adopting that smile you hope people don't think twice about. The one that says you really are happy, not just in need or desperate to be liked.
Sometime during college it occurred to me that all I had to make me happy rested inside of me. The outside carried a lot of weight and baggage. I was overweight, underperforming and overly anxious about being closeted. I tried so hard to hide it I basically broadcasted it to everyone around me, I was the last person in the dark about it all.
I watched a movie one night, stoned as hell. I was depressed and sad about myself...nothing I hadn't already observed of my own tendencies. But this was different. It dealt (the movie) with a young man finding himself, not what he thought about himself but what he wasn't thinking about himself. He found his new life and his new love.
Well now I couldn't stand for that, two men finding each other when I was so depressed and alone.
So it happened at that moment. I realized for the first time that "I" was the person doing the holding back. I had that moment you pay a shrink to help you find, you know...that inner certainty that comes crashing down during a realization moment.
So, I started to lose weight and dropped 70lbs in exactly twelve months to the day of my coming out.
It wasn't that hard to tell you the truth. Being happy tends to do great things for you as a whole. I had no idea how important for your health your own happiness could be.
I thought I was happy, I mean I REALLY thought I was happy. Doing everything in a shell of happiness, that was me. I laughed, I cried, lied, ate, smoked, ate, drank, ate and was quasi merry.
But it all changed thankfully. I'm seventy pounds lighter and still losing, I'm at about 215 now, but at five foot eleven inches I carry it well yet the evidence of obesity hangs around me. I have to start weight training to get rid of the pudge that lingers on.
So from this point on we're moving into the affairs that I hope will entertain you...or, "And now for something completely different, a man with a reason to be happy."
__________________
He was waiting for me before I even knew he existed. He sat there, actually looking at me like he knew all about me. That's saying something.
I realized that I was grimacing and immediately changed to a grin.
He introduced himself to me as Rick, I thought of my uncle Rick M.D.
"Hey I'm Rick. I think I've got your name because the prof told me you we're going to be late today. Jordan, right?"
"Yea", I said. "I knew it was gonna be hard to get here in time today, so I told her last night through email. Did I keep you waiting?"
"Not at all, I just got here myself." Then he smiled again. Well hells bells if I didn't nearly go weak at the knees. I'm a sucker for a genuine smile. He had it, ohh man did he have it.
I think that was the day I fell in love with Rick. Probably the second I saw him, I think I could tell he really SAW me. Not for what I was, but for who I am.
"Sweet. So what do we have to do?" I asked because I figured he paid a little more attention than I did, I mean Music History is just so...so...it's just so. "Well, we need to work on our essays. I have the criterion from Dr. Arnold, but I'm afraid I don't know much about the topic."
"No prob. I actually did the assigned reading this time and I think I can help you out. We needed to learn some of the backgrounds of the opera stars of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Who wrote for them, where they performed, how it was received etc..."
He nodded in agreement and we set down to work. I'd swear, in an almost mechanical way I focused on him and then the work. It was like a clock inside chiming every quarter hour. I would stop writing and gaze over his left shoulder to study his features then with clocklike certainty write a few lines.
We finished up our rough drafts and as it turned out, we pretty much guaranteed ourselves A's. So with that we said our goodbye's and went off to our respective enclaves. I went home to discuss my encounter with my friend Lindsay; she wasn't surprised I'd responded so well.
