Hello, everyone. My name is Kyle, and I'm writing this from southwest Michigan. For this, my first diary entry, I'd like to tell you all a bit about myself and some of my experiences dealing with being gay, coming out, and all that entails, both as a child and as a adult.
What prompted this entry was the speech Bush gave today regarding a national ban on gay marriage. I don't seriously think any such thing has a hope of passage, but it served as a stark reminder of just how badly looked-upon we gay people are to a segment of American society.
I had some early experience with that sort of treatment.
I remember, from very early on- as early as kindergarten, perhaps first grade- that I was different, somehow, from all the other people around me. I couldn't pin it down, and wouldn't for many years, but there was always 'something' that didn't seem quite right.
I was different, and I knew it.
My own family didn't help matters any. Complaining to them that I was getting picked on, made fun of, and generally targeted (even by those normally themselves targets of bullies and the like) got me one of two responses:
A) "Well, we don't know what to tell you..." followed by meaningless platitudes, or the far more personally demeaning
B) "If you're going to insist on being different, you're just going to have to deal with how other people treat you."
Note their use of the word 'insist'.
This left me with little choice but to try to figure things out on my own. Since I didn't know just how far I could go by way of response, or even what the "right" response to such treatment was, I tended to metaphorically curl into a ball and just avoid contact with anything even remotely threatening.
I was getting called 'fag' and 'queer' and so on on a regular basis through most of school. Eventually, I stopped telling anyone in authority that these things were going on; more often than not, in fact, it was an established authority figure joining in on the "fun". This only served to drive me further into my shell, and I ended up spending a great deal of my childhood thinking I was pretty much worthless and incapable of anything unique or special as a result. I spent an awful lot of time by myself, avoiding team sports and group activities, because for me there would surely be a price to pay in humiliation. Hiking and biking became favorite activites (as they remain today), at the time mostly because they took me away from the people I really didn't much want to be around in the first place.
I discovered I had musical talent in sixth grade. I chose oboe as my primary instrument, and went on to also spend 50% of the price for an upright piano, with my parents picking up the other half. I never did get piano lessons even after asking repeatedly; other things happened, such as my mom threatening to shut the lid on my fingers if I didn't stop playing during her soaps, which in retrospect I think I should have seen as a signal of sorts for what was to come.
Getting called a 'bandfag' was a double insult to me; I think by then I was starting to figure out how I was different from those around me, but it was never a conscious realization then: it was more along the lines of knowing why, precisely and exactly why, I didn't want to shower with the other guys after phys ed. Regardless, I persevered; my parents got me a nice, professional model oboe in my sophomore or junior year, I won several performance awards and seats in statewide ensembles, and was generally as active in our school's music department as I could get.
This went on for four years; by the end of my freshman year, I knew I wanted to teach high school band, and set out to learn and do as much as possible before I graduated high school. I wanted to be the very best musician I could be, and in fact both my choir and band directors each seperately told me I was the most accomplished student they had had during their time teaching in that district. Even getting denied piano lessons wasn't as harsh as it could have been; I taught myself, and by graduation was playing extracts from Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" piano reduction.
I was happy. I'd found my niche, the place in life from which I could accomplish the most I could, and truly take joy in doing so. I graduated with a 3.85 GPA, both National Honor Society cords, a batch of music awards, a (too small) oboe scholarship to Western Michigan University, a 27 on the ACT (as a musician, at the time taking the SAT was optional), and a lily-white criminal record to boot. I'd never gotten into real trouble, never broke the law, never even gotten so much as a speeding ticket, and never once received below a C in any class. Oh, the C? Al Gebra.
I came home from work on the evening of Oct. 9, 1994, to find each and every piece of gay-oriented material (read: porn etc) spread like a silent accusation over my bedroom floor. I suppose that was what it was, too. My mother had asked me (very angrily, I should note) several times if I was gay and, in fact, when I was fourteen told my sister and I that "the two things that would disappoint us as parents the most would be for you, (sister- I won't use her name here), to bring home a black boyfriend or for you, Kyle, to tell us you're gay." That's a hell of a note for a fourteen year old kid to get from his family, let me tell you, and I got a cold feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach when I heard her say it- and this, before I had even acknowledged it to myself.
So there it was, the hard evidence, one might say, strewn across the floor of my room. I knew immediately what it meant, of course, and started sadly putting it away. I'm sure my face was white as a sheet, and I know I was silently crying and shaking.
I don't clearly remember the next two hours. That scene- when I walked into my room- is etched into my memory like the results of an acid wash, but much of what happened next remains blank. Maybe, in a sense, that's a mercy; I can't remember the horrible things I'm sure I was told. The clearest memory I have next is of myself on my bike, sobbing in the driveway, wearing a backpack which held two changes of clothes, my oboe, and perhaps my toothbrush and such.
It was raining, and pitch black. Somewhere in the shadows, I think I heard a demon snicker.
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It's time to eat and I have laundry to do. I'll conclude this diary with a second part tomorrow.