Coming out sucks. It's really hard. I'm in the middle of it still, having taken the summer off from school and just now being surrounded again by my classmates and friends. I told my family in early May, which was, surprisingly, almost a non-event. They took it extremely well. Better than I'd expected, for sure. My parents raised me more or less an evangelical. My brother fell away, so I expected he'd be fine. But they had all grown quite attached to my wife, so I was really surprised that they didn't argue with me more or attempt to convince me to stick with the ex-gay stuff.
Of course, I only see them a few times per year. Now, there's telling the folks I see every day. How I wish I'd done this earlier in life! As hard as it would have been to tell folks I'm gay, it would have been so much easier to deal with this at a simpler point in time. Now, it's not only telling them I'm gay, but explaining ex-gay and the marriage and putting up with questions that get at very strong emotions that I'm not wholly sure how to deal with.
I've told some folks, who have been supportive. I have to tell a couple of folks, Christian guys, who I know are going to be upset. Then there's just the whole mass of other people. People that ask me about my wife, that ask when I'm having kids, the people who just have no idea that a massive shift has taken place that puts me in an entirely different category. While, of course, remaining the same person.
So I'm thinking about an email. The thought makes me cringe. But it's quick, efficient, and allows me to really hone my message through several drafts. The problem? It's forward-able.
To whom might the email be forwarded? Well, my ex, for one. She has a rather different take on the whole thing. My story goes something like "I'm gay. I made a bunch of mistakes about that, and submitted to a whole variety of religious programs to attempt to change that fact, but they didn't work. I'm gay, woohoo, let's move on with life." That sounds a bit cold, but any simplistic statement is going to sound cold. Her story would go something like this: "My husband is making very bad decisions, partially caused by abuse and confusion in his childhood relationship with his parents." The whole abuse/confusion thing is part and parcel of the ex-gay movement. So, I'd really hate to start an email back and forth on the subject with her in front of some of my friends.
Another option would be the classic forward-super-personal-things-to-Above the Law-trick. The preeminent legal tabloid loves nothing more than to blog about salacious news items from top law schools. Mine usually doesn't make the blog, thankfully because our students are pretty well-behaved. And this isn't something so salacious as to be blog-worthy. But I can imagine my email being forwarded around, creating a bit of a controversial back and forth on the topic, which itself becomes blog-worthy. And me, the lonely originator, will be drug in as well.
These two barriers seem almost insurmountable, but I'm not sure they are. We'll see. Regardless, this coming out thing needs to get a move on. I can't handle being in the closet to anyone much longer.
