It Gets Better

 I'd heard the phrase, 'it gets better,' and I'd heard it specifically in regards to being gay and coming out.

It didn't mean a lot. It was a vague projection with little comfort.

It gets better, eh? That's nice, because it's really really awful right now. It hurts. All the time. And I'm scared.

And that can be said for many things besides being in the closet.

Its hard to imagine a better.

It's impossible to see a future without the fear. When you still believe you are abhorrent and sinful, you can't envision a future where you don't believe that. That in itself is terrifying. Because it means you lost the way, accepted your sin, and began to embrace evil. You can't envision a future in that that isn't even worse than where you are now.

I recently talked about my coming out in an interview for a friend's YouTube. And I kind of forgot a detail.

The first person I came out to was accepting. She's one of my dearest friends. But coming out to her made me actually face the reality. 

Until then, I had swathed myself in a cocoon of denial. The truth still stabbed through and cut me every now and then, but I did my best to hide from it. Telling my friend had ripped the cocoon away entirely. I couldn't hide from myself anymore. The secret had been spoken aloud and it took on a solid form: I was a homosexual. I was attracted to men. And this disgusted me. Terrified me. I had grown up steeped in casual and blatant homophobia. I went to a church that said it was sinful. It's a heavy thing to grapple with: being the monster you've always heard about in hushed tones of derision.

My friend tried to tell me I was ok. And I wasn't ready to hear it. I didn't believe her. And I struggled, unwilling to really listen to her or discuss my internal battles with her--because she didn't believe like I did--she might lead me to lose the battle if I listened to her and believed it was ok to be gay. I thought I needed to tell someone who would help me fight this.*

So, months later, I talked to one of the ministers at the church I went to. I confessed my darkest secret to a man who had recently, over the pulpit, expressed his horror at being accidentally trapped in a pride parade in Spokane.

He asked if I wanted my "unnatural" desires to go away, and to have "natural" ones restored. I said yes. It's what I had been praying for for so long. Without result. So, he prayed with me. For God's healing. 

But as he prayed, I realized that I didn't want that.

It suddenly didn't make sense. Why would I trade one kind of lust for another?

It felt really weird to pray for lust. To "restore" normal desires. I had never really wanted to be attracted to women. I had never felt that. I didn't know what it was. I certainly never wanted to be like the men who, amongst themselves, made crass remarks about women and sex. I just didn't want the feelings of attraction I experienced for shirtless men in films or magazines, or the deep admiration for some of the real men in my life.**

What was the difference between struggling with a desire for men and struggling with a desire for women? Aren't both lust? And aren't both bad?

I realized during that prayer that it was a silly thing to ask for. I realized that God wasn't going to change me. Why would he now, after all this time, just because a preacher was praying with me? I had wanted it for so long, but now...it didn't seem like it mattered.

But I was still so far from accepting myself. So far from it gets better. But it was another step in the right direction. As painful as that experience was, it was an important step forward. I left that prayer feeling let down. And I still didn't want to let myself be gay. It took another year to let go of that. All the times I thought I needed to "let go and let God,"--as they say--I thought I needed to let go of my dreams of writing and costuming, but really, I needed to let go of my fear of being me.

These things were agonizing. Facing myself. Facing God. It felt like things would never be better.

How can you see that agony is part of the healing when you're in it?

You can't. But it does get better. As trite as that sounds.

You just have to let go. There's a Bible verse about trials burning away the dross and leaving the gold pure. I guess that's actually true. But the fire fucking hurts. And it's not always coming from the furnace you think it is. But I guess God works in mysterious ways.

* I was in a weird place where I couldn't condemn other gay people anymore. But I condemned myself for it. Which is still shitty at large, let me be clear. Saying 'I don't condemn you, but I have to be better' is still more or less a condemnation. "We're all sinners, but I have Jesus" still means you're better. You have something they don't. Even though Christianity says that you don't earn your salvation, the fact that you have to accept Jesus--humble yourself--etc. implies that you did something that others didn't--you were humble, when they weren't. You let him in and they didn't. They need to subdue their pride, which you have already done. By the grace of God alone you are saved. But why won't these other people give up their wickedness and accept that gift? There is great pride in such humility.

** This footnote got too long and will have to be a separate post about arousal and attraction. For the purposes of this footnote: ask yourself how arousal plays into attraction? Are they always hand in hand? Or does arousal follow attraction at a distance, waiting for an invitation?  Men frequently joke about having to hide boners...this wasn't an issue for me. I could go to a beach full of shirtless men, and even if I liked what I saw, I didn't have to worry about my shorts. Was it my sexual repression? Am I odd? Or do straight men exaggerate their own horniness to soothe some insecurity in their own sexuality? 

Regarding Writing

 

I've had conversations with a friend who doesn't write anymore. At least not for now. And we kind of agreed that we both wrote laregly for escapism. Various traumas kept us from wanting to really be present for our lives. We went somewhere else for validation and safety.

She said something about living. Being fully present for our lives. Living and being invested in ourselves, rather than the escapist fantasies we'd fled to.

Living is, in my writing mentor's words, grist for the writer's mill.

My imagination will always dream and fantasize and spin tales. But I wonder if I'm in a transition. Is this lull, this frustrating 'dead' spot, actually a threshold? A period of growth, rather than stagnation?

Am I now going into a place where my experiences can inform my writing? It's the richness of experiences that really fuels good writing.

In my youth, I think my writing was the explosive force of my angst, burning holes through me. I think it was escapsim, too. I didn't want the mundane. I wanted magic. But it was also my self expression, trying to find its voice--to scream itself into existence.

Re-reading my space opera for the audiobook really shows the loneliness and the struggle that I was having at the time. The novel is an exploration of alienation. I didn't fully understand or accept why I felt that way--but I did, and intensely. writing fiction was the only real way I had to even try to process something I was desperately trying to hide from myself.

Now, I've faced the trauma that is growing up queer and in the closet. Has my use for writing run out? Now that I no longer need lies?

I don't think so. I am still drawn to stories. To creation.

I think I just need to figure out my new relationship with it. How do I use it for love and pure joy instead of survival?

Maybe I just need more life. To live more. And the stories will write themselves again. 

They say pain makes art. Suffering is the artist's lot. Without which, truly good art can't exist.

I have been the most inspired by agony. There is a beauty in suffering. But I don't think that's all. There's still pain stored in these bones, enough to draw upon for sweet magic making. But I grow weary of such masochistic composition. I can draw upon that power later. Let me heal now.

I must let me. This is but the quiet valley after the war, and great abundance lurks ahead. More pain, mayhap. More storm. But life and art, too.

And at least I understand that now.

Unknown Longing

In a small town in a river valley, there was born a boy who listened.

He listened to the wind and the whispers of the secrets they bore. He listened to the hearts beating around him and the murmurs of the pain they held. He listened to the secret chime of an unknown bell.

And he dreamed. Dreaming of a secret place where he was home. A perfect place where the chiming bell rang out and the wind whisked the pollen in sparkling dances and the hearts beat around him with only joy.

Such a place must exist, he thought. It was as if the whispering wind bore its messages to him across the glittering river and the mountains high. It was out there somewhere, calling him.

He longed for it.

A place he'd never known. Never smelled its tranquil dust and woody stillness. Never felt the calm serenity. Never seen the mystery. A goodly place. A wondrous place.

It called to him.

And so one day he left his town and friends and family...the aching hearts. And he set out along the dusty roads, through baking fields of grain and rustling corn stalks. Along winding streams and across verdant meadows. Through towns and into forests thick and deep with mossy murk.

Earthy places, quiet and redolent.

And in the silence, he heard still the whispering wind, calling him on, and the secret chiming.

And though there was no one else about, he heard also the murmuring pain of a human heart.

He plunged on through the twisting trees and lichen covered rocks. Away, away from the quiet agony that stalked him. Away from pain and people, deep into the mountains, following the mysterious call of the secret chime.

Over the mountains, through the crisp snow. Fresh and bright. Sparkling and glittering in a static dance.

Howling wind drew him onward. Shivers wracked him and still the chime rang on and the pain followed him, tugging gently at his sleeve.

Would he ever escape it and find that mythic place he dreamed of?

Down the mountains, into new and exciting valleys, filled with unfamiliar trees and  strange animals.

New towns and New faces.

Across marshes, brimming with exotic scents and murmurs.

Through a barren plain, dotted with dry cacti and bedraggled birds.

And to a city, humming with noise and choked with smoke and hundreds of sweaty people, bustling, ever bustling.

And on from there, dogged by the murmuring heart pain and drawn on by the secret.

It must exist, it must!

Across grassland and into hills alive with steaming geysers.

Mystical and bubbling with possibility.

A canyon of holy magma. A quiet place.

Not the place.

Not his dream.

Tears stung his eyes and he knew at last that the heart pain was his own.

The hot salt poured down his face and the chiming pulled at him and his heart cried out for that place he had never known.

And a bird sat upon his arm and whispered to him.

It does exist.

It does.

But you will not find it by running and searching the world for distractions to mask your pain. Your heart is broken from being ignored and your soul is dry from not being watered.

The secret. It lies within.

The hidden place was deep inside him. Buried beneath cares and lies and the falsehoods he had believed as a child.

But it chimed on from within and called to him. It longed to ease the heart pain and heal him.

It is real. It is here.

The home you long for but have never seen, it is you. If you will embrace yourself. As you are and not as the world has made you out to be.

Shed the shadows and let the light shine out of you.