The Biggest Can of Worms (Part 1)

Every out-gay guy has one...a coming out story. I wrote mine over two posts, this post (Part 1), tells what happened last night (Sept. 24th) and Part 2 tells today’s (Sept. 25th) follow-up.

Honestly, the days leading up to last night, the 24th of September, were just absolute hell. I don’t think there’s ever been a time in my life where thoughts of suicide were ever stronger. Here’s a list of problems (which I owe to myself to delve into deeper later) that compounded into a depression that made me feel alone, angry, sad and everything in between:

- Lack of communication between The Guys
- Lack of communication between my dad
- General lack of communication (seeing a trend here...)
- My educational and career future
- Kenny’s moving away
- Ill grandparents
- And of course, the big secret.

I just couldn’t stand it anymore, so I called the only person I thought I ask to go for coffee and get some of the burden off my chest. Lindsay was pretty busy with other things, but I was pretty pushy and desperate, so she accepted anyway. We started talking about the usual stuff, school, and then work. That lead to me venting my feelings about what’s going on with my job and me returning to school, and Lindsay quickly picked up that there was a reason why I was so pushy and insistent about going for coffee. So she listened, comforted me and offered advice as I vented about each of the problems above (except for the big one of course), referring to each as “a can of worms”.

I never thought I would be coming out last night, but halfway through venting, I realized I could trust her with all these problems, so maybe I could even trust her with the biggest secret of them all. We were discussing my general lack of communication when Lindsay suggested “maybe there’s something in your past, something that you haven’t addressed that’s making you stay so private.”

I nearly blurt out the “biggest can of worms” right then and there, but it didn’t feel right to do in the middle of a Tim Hortons. I decided to wait till we got back to her place to do it, but before I did, I wanted to see what influence her church had on her stance on homosexuality, and whether if that might affect her reaction. So I baited her, telling her my story about Angela, and she immediately went for it. She told me that even though as a Christian, she probably shouldn’t promote homosexuality, but she was too liberal minded and had too many gay friends to do that. That was good enough for me, and after that we headed back to her place.

My legs and hands were shaking the entire drive back to Lindsay’s, I didn’t even pay attention to what she was saying the entire way. We pulled up in front of her place, and as she began to get out of the car, I told her I had one more “can of worms” to open. She plopped back down in the seat and listened. I asked her to repeat what she had said about me not having addressed something that was to blame for my lack of communicating, and she obliged. “I know what it is.” I told her. She raised an eyebrow, and asked what it was. Surprised, I asked “You really don’t know?”

“No, what is it?”

“Well...It’s because...” I stuttered, and in the small voice possible “...I’m kinda attracted to guys.” “WHAT?!” she said loudly. Once we both settled down a bit, we went through all the usual questions, how long I knew, the suicidal thoughts and I explained how the compulsive lying, among other things.

And part way through, she started to cry, and I didn’t understand why. She tried to explain, but I think I was so in shock that I told her and so relieved that I missed her reasoning. Instead of explaining it further, she just kept reinforcing that she accepted me for who I was and that she would always be there for me. It was also weird, she didn’t want me to come into her place either, explaining that that was her sanctuary, her getaway from all the problems in her life, and she wanted to deal with this out in the car rather than bring it inside and that she was sorry for that. But in the end, she told me that she still loved me for who I am, and that she would always be there for me. I told her that’s all I needed to hear and thanked her.

By the time she got out of the car, it was 12:30, more than two hours than I originally promised I would keep her out. We agreed that we needed to talk more about everything, so we agreed to meet up today (Sept. 25th). Since I kept her out so late, I offered to drive her to school for a first aid class this morning and meet up afterwards. And that opened a whole other can of worms...