journal no. 004
I remember the day that I came out to my family so vividly.
It was a sunny day in August of 2012—a few days before my birthday—I had woken up early and slipped a letter on the kitchen counter for my mom to find as she headed out the door for work. In that letter were words an almost 20-year old me couldn’t yet say aloud: “I’m gay.”
While I had waited for her to come home from work, my sister and I watched the London 2012 Summer Olympics. When Tom Daley came on screen I decided to test the waters with my sister and said “OMG Tom Daley is so cute” and it completely caught her off guard. Her puzzled face didn’t deter me as I began sending texts out to my closest friends at the time, sharing a secret I had struggled with for so long. The replies were all encouraging, even if there were a couple “I always knew” claims thrown in.
My mom was elated, her only gripe being that she wished I had told her sooner. My whole family was accepting, it was something I didn’t even have to question or worry about—which made all that anxiety and fear that I had built up in my head melt away.
On my 20th birthday, I published a photo of myself with “love is love” written on my hand and a cheesy declaration to the world (or at least several hundred Facebook friends) that I was gay. The response was equally as positive and encouraging as I had hoped. After that Facebook post, the news had spread like wildfire. When I had stepped back onto Gonzaga’s campus later that month, it felt like everything had cosmically shifted. I was so much more confident in myself and what I could accomplish because I could finally be the truest version of myself.
It’s crazy to look back at that time in my life and realize how everything seemed to snap right into place. Of course I’ve had “what if” questions enter my mind over the years (“What if I had come out even sooner?”), but I think I had come out at the right time for me given the situation I was in.
What I’ve recognized over these short nine years is that coming out is an every day experience. Whether it’s what clothes I choose to wear, what words I decide to use or even what non-verbal cues I choose to display, each of those seemingly unconscious decisions reveals my identity. There are times, albeit few and far between, where I’ll revert to what I learned growing up and assimilate to the societal expectations of what a cisgender male “should be” out of fear or judgement from those around me. Every LGBTQIA+ person feels this way even after they’ve come out, that is why it’s so important to live as colorfully and authentically as we can to further normalize our existence in society.
Pride month serves as a great opportunity to remind myself of all that I’ve accomplished along my journey of self-discovery. I know that someday when I start a family of my own, I’ll share all the love and acceptance with them that my family and friends have shared with me.
