The Narnia Inside My Closet: Part 1

< Part 2  |  Part 3 >

When someone starts to openly tell other people that he or she is gay, it is typically said that they are “coming out of the closet”—or simply “coming out.” I have never liked this analogy. To me, it implies you were hiding something, as if you knew who you were all along.

But for me, it was not that simple. Telling other people I was gay was not a “coming out”; for me, it was a “coming-of-age.”

See, growing up I indeed always knew deep down where my heart truly was (really ever since junior high when I first realized that I would rather eye up the boys in my class than the girls), but I did not want to follow my heart. I did not want to believe it; I did not like the gay side of me, so I tried changing it.

I did everything I could to make it not true, aside from trying the whole dating thing (deep down I just knew that would never turn out well); I shoved it deep into my closet. Now, I did not shove it in the closet hoping that no one would ever see it, I shoved it in the closet hoping it would work like a cocoon and come out something else—something much more beautiful. And to make sure it worked, I prayed over it every night hoping that God would change it.

But all of that only works for so long; eventually you start to ask yourself: What am I doing wrong?

I was confused, but there was simply no one around who could have helped me to figure out who I was. I knew absolutely no one who was openly gay—and what made matters worse was the expectation of what I should be like coming from everyone else around. I was supposed to have a girlfriend; it was just the way of things.

What made it even more awkward was when a girl liked me, especially when we were both good friends. But I could not simply ignore her obvious feelings for me. So how do you tell a girl in middle school:

“I would rather not go out with you…not that you’re not beautiful or anything” (at least I don’t think the other guys in my class would have said that), "it’s just that I don’t want to.” Wait, but…what if I should? What if she actually is the most beautiful girl in school? What would they think if I didn’t go out with her?

This is just an utter failure waiting to happen. Invariably, her next question would be: “Why don’t you want to?” And that really placed me in a tight situation. How do you work yourself out of that one? How do you keep her/them from concluding you are gay? I just had to come up with something else to tell them.

“Well, since most high school relationships never work out in the end, I decided to just focus on my school work and not get involved in anything…at least, not until college.”

Can you believe that I once, very early on, used the excuse: “I’m sorry, it is just against my morals.” Really, how did that one fly by without requiring further investigation?! But believe it or not it did, and I was safe for another time.

All of junior high and high school was simply dodging one bullet after another (alright that was an exaggeration; I admit, I did not have girls clamoring over each other to go out with me). But the questions—now that is a different story.

Every move you make, every word you say, is a test to see if anyone else catches on—and you pray that they will not.

Thus, for me it was not necessarily a coming out as much as it was a coming-of-age. I had to accept myself for who I was before I could tell anyone else about it. And before I could accept myself, I had to take responsibility and face my fears: my faith.