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?