Out With It

I am out to my family, my friends, children of all ages. Surely that should be sufficient. Yet I have my plan and in less than two months I will also be out at work. It is a planned out – a military like operation taking into account my personal preferences, appropriate etiquette and of course, office politics. The details are unimportant, subject to change, and someday may be a blog post as a matter of history, not conjecture.

But what fascinates me is my need to do this and how my underlying feelings have changed. At work I have friends who I have shared my life with – stories of big vacations and those little “I’m going to kill the kids” moments. So it seems natural to share the gayness, not for the gayness sake but for the “Oh, my friend and I had dinner at this little bistro” sake, for the not needing to self edit before speaking because someone may notice a little gender slip. As it is my friends know I have “friends” and that I am likely dating: clearly women in their eyes and while many would say that is enough, to me it feels false. And it raises dual issues of pride.

Now, as always, I must digress. I have never been one for displays of pride. My car has no bumper stickers, I march in no parades. It is not that I do not have deep core beliefs and pride in many of them; I just do not feel the need to emote them to the world.

Yet now I do feel that desire to share, a bit of wearing myself on my sleeve. I want to share the “micro” – I have a friend who is a wonderful person. Who in my shoes would not want to share that – straight or gay. But there is also the “macro” level, the pride in being gay.

Pride- all groups seem to have it of late, St. Patrick’s or Columbus Day, other less famous ethnic groups. But in the case of gay, at least for me, the pride is rooted in shame. I do not think the average St. Paddy’s day reveler was ever ashamed of being Irish. But I think many, at least of my generation, have roots deep in a closet, deep in a place of shame. It is in the overcoming of my shame that now springs pride, pride in all of me and that of course includes the gay.

I was listening to music last night and played a song that I have loved for thirty plus years:
“All I know is what I feel whenever I’m not playing,
Emptiness ain’t where it’s at,
neither’s feeling pain.
......
And sunshine’s waiting for me a little further down the road”
Jorma Kaukonen / Jefferson Airplane

It is not that I have not had more than my share of sunshine – I have led a blessed and good life. But on levels I still do not fully comprehend, my acceptance – pride – in being who I am has allowed me to achieve a new level of sunshine - at home, at work, with others and most importantly with myself.


And it is good.