Wow, I turned 36 this year . . . you may have read about that a month or so ago. And it so happens that I am the oldest of my generation in our family. My cousin Joe is next then my other cousin Brad. The list of cousins and siblings continues but I am going to focus on us three for this one. We were the three amigos growing up. Always hanging out and getting into trouble. You know typical boy stuff like finding a plant, that turned out to be poison ivy, and rolling around in it. Or even more iconic of boyish youth was building the tree forts. My family is a pretty close-knit group. So the three of us always found time to hang out whenever everyone got together. Between Brad and myself we were always getting into things and building things and getting dirty and we drag poor Joe through everything.
Now what I am about to say is from my experiences and my views as a child and due to my issues over the last few years these memories are cloudy and could be distorted. So typically I was the one who decided where and what we would do. My leadership traits started early, I guess. but I was the oldest so I was the one to make the decisions. Joe was always the tag along it seemed. This, with news I got the other day, makes perfect sense now. Back then though . . . I felt sorry for him. He was never “in” to the things that Brad and I were. Joe always was in to the arts, he loved to draw and play music. I liked to as well but not to the extent he did. So I think he always felt left out. I never really got along with his mom, my aunt, and so I blamed his strange behaviour on her. I think it affected my thoughts and feelings toward my Aunt for decades since. I was the fortunate one to be part of the communal family, Joe’s Dad, Uncle Larry, is the oldest of his generation in our family and we share many similarities. As my Mom was a single Mom I got passed around a lot as a kid so I was a part of my family in a way that not many other members of my family can fully understand. It was this communal style of growing up that allowed me to spend so much time with my cousins.
I was concerned for Joe at a young age and it was then that my trait of helping people began to emerge. I asked my Grandma about him on one occasion as I was worried that my Aunt, his Mom, was doing something wrong. She looked at me and sat me down and said” now Billie, why would you say that?” Well, I explained to her all the things that he didn’t like to do and that he didn’t like play fighting or getting dirty etc . . . she listened patiently while I divulged my evidence of my Aunts wrongs against Joe. She then said that I was too young to be this smart. Well I was told that my Aunt was not doing anything at all wrong and that Joe just didn’t like those things. She told me that he was unique and was more sensitive to things than Brad and I were. So I trusted my grandmother with all of my heart and left it at that Joe was sensitive. I was 6 or 8 at the time; meaning we were in the early 80′s at this point. Sensitive was not a good word for a young boy to be saddled with. From then on I never bugged Joe or made him do things he hated.
A little later in life I moved to Calgary. I was about 13 when I met my first openly Gay man. Wes I believe his name was, but that part is fuzzy so don’t quote me on that. Anyway this was the first man I had ever met that was openly gay. He was slight of build and smoked cigarettes and other than that he seemed pretty normal to me. We used to hang out and play video games on the computer and try to outdo each other at making weird funky computer programs. He was a good friend of mom’s out west here and we hung out a lot. He started getting sick though and his story ended a few years later as he died from AIDS. So my first experience confirmed a stereotype that had been floating around for years. Gay was unhealthy and it would kill you. I have always been above average in my ability to reason things out though so I never entertained the idea that all gays had AIDS or that being gay meant you would get AIDS. My experiences with the gay community since have been frequent and friendly. I count several members of that community as some of my closest friends today.
I won’t get into a breakdown of psychological, religious, or philosophical dogma surrounding the word gay. But I will say this, it is who they are. There is neither choice involved nor a decision to make. Being gay is just that, a part of their being. I am not gay, but that doesn’t make me a hater or lover of the lifestyle they lead. I look at someone who is gay with the same judgement and analysis that I do someone who is hetero. I would say that I am a pretty excepting and open guy about it. I am comfortable enough in myself that it doesn’t threaten me, I openly admit that I have looked and analyzed my role in the world in this regard and I have found myself not having the same attraction to men as I do to women. So I know I am not gay. This process though allowed me to better understand how it feels to have that primal attraction to someone. You know that desire that starts to burn inside you when you look upon someone you are attracted to. It is an involuntary pull. You have no control over it, initially, and you have to rein it in before you get smacked for gocking by your wife 
That is a whole different story LOL I gock at her way more than I do other women That is why I married her. So anyway back to my story. As I was saying I have a better understanding of that primal drive in humans now. As such I have nothing against a person for being gay.
It is a wonderful feeling being so sure of your feelings. So wonderful in fact that I celebrate when anyone can come to grips with it. That self-awareness opens up so many doors to understanding others. But it saddens me as well though as so many people are denied that experience due to pressure from society and other influences. I wish people would just see themselves and understand what they themselves feel so when they encounter those feelings being displayed by the gay community they don’t project their confusion and hatred on to them. I think it is the denial of those innermost secrets and desires that drive people to hate.
“That was my secret time with my friend behind the bush”
“We were just young and still learning about ourselves and what it did”
“I secretly think that Brad Pitt is a god among men”
That last one is mine, no but really it’s not much of a secret, that guy is who I want to be! But these will most probably be something that is going through a haters mind. Society or better yet religion is what makes us believe that these thoughts are impure and we grow to hate that we have these thoughts and then those thoughts start to spread to members of the community that openly display these selfsame thoughts so they then transfer their hate to them. It is much easier to hate someone you don’t know then yourself. But these thoughts are as natural as masturbation or measuring your penis. All boys do it at some point in time, it doesn’t make you gay. It makes you curious and that my friend is a sign of a healthy mind. Now if you get fixated on these well . . . that is not so healthy. That still doesn’t make you gay just in need of some help.
So I am writing all this because after 35 years of oppressing his inner sensitivity Joe has “come out of the closet”. Really who comes up with these terms? I know of stalkers that hide in closets but gay men and women? Anyway back to Joe. I am so proud that he has found the courage to embrace this. It confirms to me that being gay is either a part of who you are or if not then you’re not gay. I feel bad that it took him 35 years to realize it fully. He has a hard road ahead of him though. He seems genuinely happy and relieved that he now knows who he is.
So Joe, I wish you the best and hope that you find solace in your new self-discovery and I caution you to hold on to that feeling of freedom because you will encounter those not yet ready to accept that part of themselves reflected in you.
So until next time we meet . . .
