I was never your typical child. I was a sensitive, precocious and dramatic young boy with a real desire to keep people entertained and interested in me so that they wouldn’t leave my life like my mother did. I had followed my grandparents into religion, and loved the music and pageantry of it, so it came as a bit of a shock when it turned out that I liked men.
I remember having a lightning bolt epiphany one day whilst at church when I saw a boy from school and I remember thinking he was hot. Light shining through those dusty old Stations of the Cross illuminated my future and it all sort of looked a bit like my past. It didn’t seem right to me. I was meant to serve the Church, but I also knew what I was and truly believed after all the indoctrination that I was made in God’s image, so this was it, this was the path I was taking.
1997 was a different era to what it is today, especially in deeply conservative country Australia. My orientation would go on to cause me no end of trouble growing up, but I never really feared or hated it, at least those aren’t the feelings that I remember, just quiet acceptance.
It took me a long time to tell my family about it though. Piece by piece, people in my life were either told by me or gradually worked it out (at least those that didn’t suspect it, I was never especially subtle, despite thinking for sure I was blokey enough to pass).
It wasn’t an easy road, but I never resented myself for it. Only other people. I think that helped me keep walking forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment