Cleaning House (Childhood Through High School)

[masterde]

So, the details of my life before I was 18 (other than when I was 14) is mostly a mystery to all of you. You may know little bits of stuff but I'm doing a whole house cleaning thing with my life. The things I felt and did and why. This'll probably be a series of posts. There's too much to write in one post and I'm sure I'll run out of emotional steam well before then.

I was born on May 22nd, 1980 in Wharton, TX at a hospital that is now a mental health facility. The same group of 6 counties who've banded together that is government funded that I get my mental healthcare from. When I was a kid, I had a best friend named Meg. She was the only other kid in the neighborhood and her father and my father worked at the same chemical plant. Not that they had any reason or ever did interact with each other at work or in their private life. Meg was a tomboy through and through. We spent most of our lives outdoors playing on a trampoline or hide and go seek or what have you. We stayed friends until we started school. She went to the Catholic run school in Bay City and I went to public school. We just drifted apart.

That's when I started to play by myself in the house. I played with Transformers and Legos mostly. I watched cartoons on TV. I can remember one cartoon that was a Tom & Jerry cartoon that would illicit a different response from me than any other cartoon. Every day, from the ages of 3-10, I would hope that it would be on TV. Long story short, it was first indication that I was different from others but I didn't know why. It was a sexually arousing cartoon episode to me. Now, I also liked to play a lot like I was a dog. Which, isn't uncommon for kids to pretend to be an animal that they really like. I knew I took it further than other kids did but I was too embarrassed to talk about it. So between the cartoon foreshadowing that I am gay and kinky and the puppy play foreshadowing my puppy play (kinky version) as an adult, I just knew I wasn't like other kids.

I never asked for toys unless my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas. I thought that if I asked for something at any other time of the year that I wouldn't get it. We went school shopping a few weeks before school and whatever shirts my mom picked out and shoes I picked out was all I got for the year. I thought if I asked if anything more that Mom or Dad would get mad at me and think I was selfish. So instead of be disappointed because they thought less of me, I chose instead to be disappointed because I didn't ask for things I would have really liked to have had. I just thought I wasn't worth spending money on because I was stupid and worthless and useless and a disappointment.

My father, as many of you know, wasn't a great parent. He was an excellent provider but that's all he's ever been to me. Someone who pays for things. He never played with my siblings or myself. As a child, he would go to work before I got up for the day or for school, he'd get home in the evening, go sit in his chair, turn on the TV, fall asleep very quickly, Mom would wake him for dinner, we'd eat as a family at the dinner table, he'd go back to his chair and fall back asleep, then Mom would wake him up to go to bed. Stellar father, right? As I said, he was just someone who paid for things. He has never been special to me in my life. He's always been a supporting character in the play that is my life. He's never been a leading character. We're distant and don't speak to each other very often, even now. Now, when I got older, he ended up traveling every week for work. He never missed a band or choir concert and he was at every football game that my brother and then I performed at as part of the marching band. He said "I love you" once in my life before I graduated from high school. He said "I'm proud of you" on the day that I graduated from high school. That's been it. That's been the extent of his showing affection to me. Whenever I brought home a report card in junior high or high school my father would ask why I went down 1 point in a specific class and what I was going to do to bring that grade up. Nevermind that I'd gone up 3+ points in my other classes. That didn't matter to him. So this just reinforced that I was a failure and worthless and a disappointment. So, by my Sophomore year of high school I stopped bringing my report card to my Dad and he stopped asking after the first few times I gave him an excuse.

My mom has always been part of the foundation of my life (except for the 3 years I was in LA). She cleaned the house, top to bottom, every day. Before I started to go to school, she made me take a nap after lunch. This was when she watched soap operas on TV. I'd often get out of bed and sneak across the hallway, where part of it was exposed to the living room where Mom was watching TV but she'd also be cross-stitching so she didn't often see me cross the gap that led from the living room to the hallway between my brother and my shared bedroom and my sister's bedroom. I was fascinated by her panties. (Foreshadowing anyone?) I liked how they felt on my skin and how they were, and I didn't know this is what I thought at the time but I figured it out around puberty, sexy. Sure, sometimes Mom caught me in my sister's room, going through her underwear drawer, but she just told me not to do it again and to go back and take my nap. My Mom tried to make me think it was wrong of me to do, and I did feel wrong doing it, but at the same time, it felt right to me. When I was in, probably 2nd or 3rd grade, my Mom made the choice to go to work at childcare center she still works at. At the time she was doing half-day (mornings) 2 year old classes as a teacher. She went all out, too. There have been many teenagers who were about to go off to college who've contacted her to tell her that she was the reason they had a solid foundation for school and was their favorite teacher. She even taught both of the children of my social worker. Now, this next part is child logic so keep that in mind, but when she told me that she was going to start working and that she'd be teaching 2 year olds I felt so betrayed and hurt and sad. She had been a stay at home mom my whole life. She had been for my sister's childhood. She had been for my brother's childhood (well, he was 11 so he was still pretty young). I felt like I wasn't good enough of a child and so she felt like she needed to take care of other people's children. (Thus began the lifelong battle I've had with feelings of worthlessness and being a disappointment.) Now, she was home every day and had a snack ready for me before I got home. So it's not like I saw less of her, I just felt like I wasn't enough for her. As I got older, around 11, she would work at the childcare center in the morning and at the Hallmark store during the afternoons/evenings. By this time, my sister had moved out and my brother had taken up residence in her old bedroom so I had a room to myself.

My sister is 9 years older than me. She and I didn't have anything in common growing up. There was a rule in our house; if you failed even one class, you were grounded for the next 6 weeks (Our public school have six 6 week periods. You've given a grade every 6 weeks that's the average what you got on your classwork and quizzes and exams. Then at the end of the year, all 6 of those averages are averaged together and you get your final grade. So you can fail a 6 weeks and still pass the class.) and you're ungrounded only if you're passing ALL your classes, not just the one you failed the last 6 weeks. Well, my sister didn't care about school. So she failed at least one class every 6 weeks for years. I'll be honest, I didn't really think about the fact that I had a sister or even remember that I have a sister most of the time. I saw her for 20-30 minutes a day at the dinner table. That was it. My sister got married when I was 13 or 14, I think. She's divorced with 2 kids now. I refer to her as The Queen of Poor Life Choices. She hasn't been single in all the years since the divorce for more than a few months at a time. She's just a mess and needs to stop chasing down a man and getting into relationships. Not long ago, she embezzled $18000 and my parents paid $32000 back in what she took plus interest and penalties to keep her from going to prison for 4+ years. Hell, she's 42 now and her boyfriend is 21. Now, you tell me exactly what in the hell they have in common and how my sister thinks this is a relationship that's going anywhere or going to last!? He's 21. There's no way he's done sowing his wild oats (partying and sleeping around). But she's an adult and so is he. So if they want to do whatever it is that they're doing, that's their business. My sister has always been someone who's not thought about the future, consequences, and always just done whatever she wants. It's never mattered to her how it effects others. And she is a pathological liar. It's one of the top 5 bad behaviors of someone from a broken/dysfunctional home. She lies about shit that doesn't even matter. She lies about little shit, like that she went to the grocery store, left her phone in her purse, left her purse in her car, and just took her wallet in, and that's why she didn't answer her phone over a 4 hour period. She was with her boyfriend and probably drinking, which... it's her life and she can do whatever the hell she wants... why lie? She could just say she was busy. But no, she has to make up an elaborate story about things. She tells us all these wild stories about her boss and what she's doing (which are against labor laws). And every day it's something new. She can't live without being a drama queen. We've all just learned that we have to take everything she says to us with a grain of salt (be skeptical or non-trusting).

My brother has always been a very difficult person to deal with. When we were kids, he'd always want me to play with him and, being that he's 4 years older, he was always smarter and physically bigger than me. So I'd lose a lot. At which point he'd tell me how stupid I was and how much of a loser I was (And this is part of the continuation of the lifelong battle I've had with feelings of worthlessness and being a disappointment.) Now, in the cases where I learned how the game worked and was able to win, he'd get very angry. So angry that he'd beat me up... and then tell me what a stupid I was and how much of a loser I was. Bruises were common. Bleeding happened from time to time. So he wasn't a good winner or a good loser. So I starting to stop trying and just let him win because if he won, he'd still make me feel bad, but at least he wouldn't beat me up. Then he caught on to the fact that I wasn't trying my hardest to beat him. Then he told me that if he ever caught me letting him win that he'd beat the shit out of me. So I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't.

Now, he always anxiety issues, not that we knew what anxiety issues were or any other psychological issues were. All during elementary school, when Mom would let him out at school he started crying. One year, he got so emotionally upset and hysterical that Mom had to take up to school and go to the office and get a copy of his locker combination, before school started back up after Winter Break, because he was afraid he'd have forgotten his locker combination and then he wouldn't be able to get his books and then he'd get in trouble for not bringing his books to class and he wouldn't be able to do his homework. Now, could he have just gone up to the office and gotten a copy of the combination himself? Yes. But he didn't want to disappoint anyone. Another of the top 5 bad behaviors of a child of a broken/dysfunctional family is that we are very understanding when someone else does something bad or that hurts us but if we do the same thing then we ruthlessly judge ourselves as a horrible, bad person who doesn't deserve to exist and we punish ourselves in ways that we know will make us feel the worst. He still does this. I still do this.

Then he went off to university at UT Austin for Chemical Engineering (which is what our father is, which is why my brother chose that major, trying to make Dad proud of him.) He didn't go to class as often as he should have. (anxiety) He went more than half the time but there were some classes that he showed up on the day of the review for a test and then for the day of the test. He'd make a 40 on the test and he didn't make his first B until his Junior year of high school. Why is that relevant? Well, he almost had a nervous breakdown when he got a B on his report card in high school. He'd already had one nervous breakdown and had to be institutionalized. Seriously. But at university level, in some majors or just in certain classes, they grade on a curve. So if he made a 40 on the test and the person who made the highest grade made a 46 then that 46 became a 100 and my brother's 40 became a 94. And this would happen on every test. Which, they're passing people who don't know the material and sending them out into the world to jobs where they're working with dangerous chemicals? Really!?

Now, after his 2nd year of university, Mom and Dad got him his own apartment off campus and gave him Dad's old pick-up truck to drive to and from campus in. My brother made no friends at university in 4 years. None. He never went to social events. He was never involved in student activities on campus. He began to eat nothing but cheap frozen pizzas and pizza pockets and burritos. So he gained a lot of weight, which he still has, only he has more now than back then. He also spent the majority of his time playing his Playstation. Thus began his major coping technique when it comes to dealing with stress, anxiety, feelings, etc. He just escaped into a fantasy world where he was a very important person who could do amazing things and shaped events of the world single-handedly. Basically, the person he really wished he could be. He still does this. He had 1 girlfriend in high school, Lark, who was a Mormon and broke up with him near the end of their Senior year because she thought that someone only ever falls in love once and since my brother wasn't a Mormon that she couldn't really be in love with him and couldn't let herself develop stronger feelings for him. Broke his heart. He saw one girl at University. I say saw, not girlfriend, because it didn't last very long and she was... well, crazy. I only know her as Psycho Hose Beast. That's all he's ever called her. She was one of those who wanted to make her entire life about him and for him to make his entire life about her. She didn't want him to meet her sister because she thought that her sister was so beautiful that my brother would leave her for her sister if he saw her. This girl had issues.

Then from the ages of 22 until 36, he didn't date. Not even once. He worked, came home, made unhealthy food, watched TV, played games on a console or computer, went to bed, got up the next morning, and started that cycle. Now, he ended up working for a company that made software for chemical plants. Then, when the tech bubble burst, he lost that job. He decided to get his Alternative Teacher's Training Certificate. Which would allow him to teach. So he ended up getting a job a smaller town than Bay City at their high school as a math, physics, and chemistry AP. But he let himself get too close to the lives of his students. So he ended up leaving there after 7 years because he couldn't deal with it anymore. During this time he was finally diagnosed as Bipolar and got on meds. He ended up moving back to Bay City and going to work for a high school in a city not far away. Basically teaching the same things. He had been on E-Harmony for 2 years and had met someone who lived about 5 hours away but he went on dates with her and stayed at her parent's house on their couch. They got married after about a year.

This is when he went back to university, The University of Houston or U of H, and got his Masters of Arts in Math. Now, his job paid for the degree and he wouldn't have to pay them back if he worked there for at least 2 years after he got his Masters. Which he did, but for those 2 years, he taught 2 AP (Advanced Placement) classes of his own, and then spent his time at the Alternative School (for kids who have behavioral problems, got caught with drugs or alcohol on the regular school campus, and people who just weren't good at school and needed to know just the basics to take care of themselves in the real world but weren't going to do anything but work fast food or retail). Which, why they had someone with a Masters in Math teaching the kids who were problems or dumb seemed like a waste of his degree. He should have been teaching more math classes. But whatever. Right about then the woman that he had been dating for a few years and he got married and moved in together. All she could find was a long-term substitute teaching position (she's a math teacher, but for junior high school, not high school). So they moved about 45 minutes away to a bigger city where they both found jobs. He took over teaching a few overflow classes at the local college. They were math classes that are called "Developmental Math" classes. These are classes that teach students who didn't pay attention in high school or had been out of school for so long that they'd forgotten a lot of the math that wasn't your basic, everyday math. So he was teaching high school math to adults at a college.

Then last year he decided that he wanted to teach at the college level and leave high school teaching behind. He wasn't happy with having to deal with Helicopter Parents (parents who were too involved in their kids lives and hovered around them like a helicopter and if their child didn't get a good grade then the parent would descend upon him and ask why he wasn't teaching his class in a way that their child could understand and thought their child was just so intelligent and could do no wrong and basically robbed their child of any chance to learn to be responsible for themselves and their actions). They moved from SE Texas to N Texas and now have a 2 month old child. He's teaching developmental math at a college and she's been on maternity leave since the beginning of school and will start back in when the next 6 weeks starts. Now, he has Bipolar Disorder. Which explains his mood swings as a kid and the high levels of anxiety (along with the child of a dysfunctional home issues).

To continue with me. I reached high school and that 8 months happened when I was 14-15 years old. Which really fucked me up, but I repressed it very quickly. I couldn't deal with the reality of it so my mind did the only thing it could do, which was block access to those memories and give me some vague false memories of that time. I never really took school very seriously. I mean, my brother was just this super smart person and I would never be able to do as well as him so I didn't even try. Besides, I was damaged, I was "different," worthless, and such. So I never tried in school to excel. I did what I needed to in order to pass. I never studied. I still got A's and B's, but I never thought of myself as anything special. Quite to the contrary. I was ordinary and nerdy and into computers. I didn't want to be noticed but I found it very easy to manipulate my friends.

I got away with saying horrible things to them because they didn't know how to respond to someone who would say something like that to them. One of my friends was in the dance corp at our high school. She was 4'10", if that. She had stubby little fingers. She had very strong and pronounced thigh muscles from dancing. She was very beautiful. She said one day, to me, that she was fat. She was anything but fat. She was very fit. So I said, "Yes. Yes, you are," and then mooed at her like a cow. Every time after that I wouldn't say "Hi" or "Hello" to her when I greeted her. I would moo at her. What an asshole thing to do, right!? She had a boyfriend our senior year who was a year younger than us and he was very tall and lanky and his ears kinda had a slightly elven point to them. I was in pre-calculus with him and he sat in front of me. I gave him the nickname of "Keebler" as in the cartoon Keebler Elves who live in a tree and make delicious cookies that you can buy at the grocery store. I thought it was cleaver and it was meant to be something affectionate. I never gave anyone a nickname before then! I found out years later, that he really hated that nickname and was very upset and unhappy with me for it. He never gave me any indication that he didn't like it. But again, I was being an asshole. Unintentionally, but still an asshole.

I started smoking when I was 14. That didn't stop until I was 24. I started out with just having one on the weekends when I was hanging around friends, when I wasn't being tortured by those senior boys. Then, when I hit 18, and was legally able to smoke and buy cigarettes, it was one of the first things I did on my 18th birthday. That's part of how I dealt with my anxiety.

Sidebar: About this time, (age 12-16) two things happened at once.

Star Trek: The Next Generation first appeared on TV and I just happened to be watching the right channel at the right time to catch it. I loved it! I didn't like the original Star Trek. But ST: TNG... that was a whole different creature. I became a Trekkie at that moment. I watched all the ones to follow from Deep Space 9 (ST: DS9) to Voyager (ST: V). I even started watching Enterprise, the one where they took it back to before the time of the original Star Trek. It flagged early on and while it did rally and end up being a rather good, if not mostly overlooked and dismissed. I stopped watching it part way the first season but I did just happen to be watching during the last season of it and it was really good. Star Trek: TNG was set in a time where poverty and hunger and homelessness and money had been eliminated on Earth and many of the inhabited worlds in The United Federation of Planets, started and based in San Francisco, Earth. There were other empires and such that were just as big or bigger but they pretty much contained only species of people. In the Federation, anyone who was born on a member world or in a member world's ship in space could apply to be in Star Fleet and was made up of hundreds of different races. Do you know what that said to me? That said to me that the future will be better, everyone will be included no matter where you're from or your differences, and there will be fighting and war between nations/empires but there will be a place where everyone belongs. This was around the time that I was hitting puberty, perhaps a bit before, but I knew I was different and I wanted to belong and be normal just like everyone else. These people told me that no matter what or who you are, you will find acceptance. I needed to hear that message and understand it as it pertained to me being gay as the series progressed.

The second thing that happened was that my father cheated on my mom with a co-worker during a business trip. What could be more awkward? My parents and woman and her husband all go to the same church and had known each other for over a decade. What could be even more awkward? The husband of the woman my father cheated with... he was the Sunday School teacher that told me that if you're gay that you're an abomination and that you are going Hell. Want even more awkward? I was in High School with both of their daughters. The crowing moment? My mom kicked my dad out and he came back to the house when she was at work and asked me if I would support him in reconsiling. I was still young and he used me as leverage against my mother.

One daughter was one year older than me and a Senior when I was a Freshman. She was in the dance corp and popular. It's not like we were in the same circles but I felt like I had to say something to her. So I caught her coming out of the one class I knew she had and when and asked if I could talk to her privately for a moment. Now, I had a bad haircut and big glasses and had not come into my looks. There was no reason for her talk to me or even acknowledge me. But she told her friends to go on without her and that she'd catch up with them. I thanked her for taking the time to listen and said, "I know that there's bad things and weird things going on between our parents. I don't know what's going on in your house but my mother has kicked my father out. This isn't our mistake but it does effect us both because it's our parents that did something they shouldn't have. I just don't want you think I condone what my father did. You can judge your mother however you want, I don't know enough about that end of the situation to judge her. I don't want us to pass each other in the halls and do our best to avoid each other's eyes or get a bad feeling our stomach when we see each other because of our parents mistakes. I'm sorry this happened... to all of us... and I hope that you can move past whatever bad feelings you have because it wasn't our faults." She agreed and said thank you for being brave enough to approach her and then she hugged me and walked away.

The younger daughter I was in band with for my last two year of band. By the time I had met her, it had been 2 or 3 years since our parents cheated with each other. I just walked up to her and asked her if she knew who I was. She nodded her head, but like me, she had a guarded expression. I said, "What happened in the past between our two families is in the past. Neither of us had anything to do with what our parents did. I don't expect us to become friends or anything like that. I just want you to know I don't hold any grudges against any of us and I hope you can do the same." She said that she understood and thanked me.

Main Story: I played off being very confident. And in certain arenas of my life I was very confident. Band and Choir were where I shined. I started band in junior high school and I continued on through high school. We had the best band director ever. She was a hard ass, Jewish, Lesbian, and didn't take shit from anyone. As one would imagine, she didn't play political games very well. So the band budget was never what it should have been for the awards and contests we won and the places around the country that we were invited to perform. But my Junior year, she was replaced. I decided to give the new guy a chance. Well, he sucked. So I didn't do band my Senior year. When I was a Freshman, the band director came in one morning (band was always the first class of the day) about 2 weeks into the school year and pointed at 4 of us males and said, "You're in choir, too now. They need more men. They do an after school practice every Wednesday at 5 PM. You'll show up to those practices. Do ya'll understand?" She was intimidating and respected by those who had been in band with her for more than a year so we all agreed to do it. My Senior year, since I wasn't in band, I took up choir as a class, which was the last class of the day. So when I got my Letterman's Jacket I double lettered in Band and Choir. All I needed was to have lettered in drama and I would have had the gay triad!

After my Freshman year, I drifted away from the friends I had made my Freshman year and started hanging out with 1 Senior bisexual girl and 2 Junior straight girls. It wasn't until my Senior year that I got reacquainted with my Freshmen year friends. Now, I had mood swings, but it was just chalked up to teenage hormones. I also had a few visual hallucinations. I kept that to myself. My Junior year, I was in my room, the one my sister used to have and the one my brother moved to during high school and then I moved to during high school, my parents called it "The Room That Eats Children." None of us really came out of that room, except for dinner or to go to school or, once we were of driving age, to go hang out with friends. So our parents saw very little of us. Tangent, sorry.

Junior year and Senior year, I had gotten into the habit of taking my dinner into my bedroom and waiting until my parents had gone to bed and then dump the food in the big garbage bin in the garage, where it would be so little compared to the size of bin that it wouldn't be noticed. My Junior year, I ate off campus with my 2 remaining female Senior friends. My Senior year, I would go home for lunch and eat a hand full of doritos and drink a glass of water and that's all I'd have all day long. Certainly not enough to keep a growing teenager going. That went on for about 3 months. I became anorexic.

I was in my bedroom one evening, as usual, and I took off my shirt because I was going to change into a nicer one because I was going out and my mom walked into my room without knocking. She took one look at my chest and gasped. She said, "Justin! I can see every one of your ribs!" Then she came up and started to feel on my upper torso. She said, "I can feel every one of your ribs! You have no fat on you at all! What's wrong?! Are you sick?!" I said I was fine but she insisted that I go to my pediatrician. My mother made an appointment for me on that Friday after school and she, my father, and I were sitting in an exam room with my pediatrician. He was probably a 70 year old man. He said I was dangerously underweight and he thought that if I had gone any more than 2 more weeks like I had been going that I would have collapsed at school. He prescribed me an anti-depressant, Wellbutrin (which was brand new then), something for the acid reflux, Prevacid (which was also brand new then and only available by prescription), told my mother to start making me drink a protein shake for breakfast (you know the kind with, like, 3000 calories in them and taste horrible), and told me that he wanted to see me again in 3 days.

It was during the middle of the school day, so I left school without signing myself out because I wasn't old enough to sign myself out anyway, and went to my pediatricians office. When he got me into an exam room he said that he knew that I was a teenager and that there were some things that I might not want my parents to know so he had scheduled this appointment when he knew my mother and father wouldn't be able to be there. He said that he knew that there was something wrong and that I could tell him because he couldn't help me unless I talked to him. After crying for a few minutes I dried my eyes and told him that I was gay. He let out a big breath and said the almost absolute worst things he could have said. Which was, "Well, you're going to graduate from high school this year and you'll go off to college. Focus on getting your degree and once you've got a job then you can explore whether or not you really are gay." WFT!? Obviously it was killing me now! How on Earth he thought I could go another 4-5 years living like that without committing suicide by starvation or more immediate means is beyond me!

A few weeks later I went around to each of my friends separately and told them. I started with the 2 female friends I had gotten to know again since dropping them after Freshman year. One said that she wasn't surprised but that she didn't have a problem with it. The other one said that they all knew and had discussed it. I asked her, if they had known, why didn't they tell me, because that would have saved me a lot of pain and suffering. She just said they were waiting for me to come to them and tell them.

Sidebar: Now, one friend I'd had for a very long time. He and his parents when to my parent's church. I did at the time I met him. I met him in Sunday School but we never became friends in the years we had seen each other. Then his mother died suddenly from a blood clot getting into her brain while he was in the living room with her. She was alive and then the next moment she was dead. We were about 8 years old and my parents told me that I was going to invite him over to play. I didn't want to because I didn't know him and he was weird. I had no idea it was because his mom had died and my parents were trying to make sure he had a friend to talk to. He didn't tell what had happened until we were about 11. Then, after I had hit puberty I knew I was gay but I wasn't ready to admit it to myself. That year at church the Sunday School teacher, for the time, brought up the topic of homosexuality. It was a short, "Homosexuality is an abomination unto God and they're going to Hell." That's when I decided that Christianity wasn't for me. This male friend from church and I didn't talk after that, until Freshman year.

Back to the main story: I went to the male friend that I had made Freshman year and told him and he took it pretty well. He said that he wasn't comfortable with the idea but he wasn't going to treat me differently. Finally I had just my one last male friend, the friend I'd known the longest, to tell. I went over to his house and his dad was still at work. His dad was a hardcore Right-wing Republican Christian. I knew that my friend had a very strong faith and I was afraid of how it was going to go. I sat down with him and told him that I was gay and he looked at me and said, "I'm mad at you." I immediately went to get up because I thought that it was just going to go downhill from there and that was a train wreak that I'd just as soon avoid. He got up and grabbed me by the shoulder and jerked me around and said, "I'm mad at you, but not because you're gay and didn't tell me the moment that you knew. I'm mad at you because I'm the last one you told. We've known each other for 10 years. I told you all about my mom dying and how that made me feel and you wait until you've told all our other friends before you tell me!" I was floored. This was not what I had expected. I said, "So you're okay with me being gay?" He said, "Well, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. I know what I was brought up to believe but I also know that I've known you for a long time, and you've been gay the whole time, so why should I think you're different now when it's been the same you this whole time. Give me some time but it'll be okay." I only talked to him one other time. That was to use him as an alibi for when I spent the night with my boyfriend.

Then I went to tell my Mom. I knew that this wasn't going to go well. So I told I was bisexual because that way she could still think that I could meet a nice girl would I'd marry. But you she asked me point blank, "Are you just saying your bisexual to spare my feelings or are you really gay?" I told her I was really gay. She cried. She told me she was afraid of the world I was stepping into. There were people who would kill me rather than let someone gay live. Now, she had never had any interaction with anyone who was gay, that she knew of. She thought it was all queeny young men who slept around or older gay men who had bushy mustaches and who tricked young men into their beds or who wore leather and beat young men that they confused into taking their abuse and certainly that men couldn't fall in love like straight people did and she was sad that I'd never know what love was like.

I told her that I didn't want her to tell Dad. I wasn't ready for him to know. In fact my father and I were in an epic battle of wills. He had been telling me since I was 16 and could drive to go and do this or go and get this. I finally told him, "If you'd like me to do something then you ask me to do it. I may or may not do it but I will not take orders anymore." He, of course, didn't listen and it took him 5 times in a row of telling me to go do/get something and me telling him no before he started yelling at me. At that point I said, "I know you're trying to intimidate me into doing what you want by yelling at me but I'm not getting into yelling matches with you. In fact, any time you start yelling, I'm going to walk away from you and go into my bedroom and don't follow me because the conversation is over." I'm surprised the top of his head didn't come off. His face was redder than I'd ever seen it. After a few moments he got his feet back under him and started yelling again. I said, "What did I say would happen if you started yelling at me? I'm out." I walked into my bedroom and shut the door. Now, any rational parent would understand that their child just asserted their individuality and that their relationship needed to change. He did start asking me if I'd do things and when he did I'd smile and say, "Sure." That didn't last too long and he reverted back to telling me what he wanted me to do/get. I started telling him "no" again. Made him mad every time. Made him start yelling every time. And I walked away from him while he ranted and would go into my room every time.

My father did change tactics. He started telling other people that I would do things for them. This was his way of getting me to do what he said to do without it being said by him. So people would call up, adult people, and say, "Your father said that you'd be willing to help me do some roof repair. I need to get it done this weekend. My address is [insert address here]. How about you be here at 7 AM?" I was honestly stumped because here were people who were strangers that were expecting and relying on my help. I felt like I couldn't tell them no. I would have felt like a heel. I told him that he needed to stop volunteering me for things. He did not stop. Eventually I put a stop to that one summer.

One year he signed me up to work at the county museum with kids during the summer. He had told me that he had volunteered me and that I was to be there at 7 AM and it would go on for 2 weeks. I just said, "Okay." So, the next day came and I was getting dressed to go visit with my friends and the phone rings. My parents were at work so I pick up the phone. A woman on the other end of the line said, "Umm, this is [insert name here] from the Matagorda County Museum. Your father said that you'd be helping us with the child's program this summer." I said very calmly and smoothly, "Yeah, my dad keeps volunteering me for things and I told him that he needed to stop doing that. I'm sorry that my dad doesn't listen and made you think that I had consented to offer my help this summer but he didn't. I'm sure this puts you in a bind and I'm sorry about that but my dad has to learn that he can't keep doing things like this. Good luck with your summer program." And I hung up the phone.

Then I left to go hang out with friends and when I got home my dad was there all red and angry and shouting about how I made him look bad and like a liar. I just calmly said, "No, dad. You made yourself look bad and like a liar. I told you to stop volunteering me for things without asking if it's something I'm willing to do. You have no one to blame but yourself." I then walked past him and into my bedroom and closed the door. Within 15 seconds the door flew open and slammed against the wall beside it and dad came in and grabbed my shirt collar and started poking me, repeated, in the chest ranting about being lazy and ungrateful, and how I was going to do what he said from now on. I smiled at him and said, "I hope that you've left a bruise with that finger poking because then I'll have something to show CPS (Children's Protective Services) when they show up." His mouth dropped open, looked like a deer in the headlights, and he almost ran out of my room.

Funny sidebar: About 10 minutes later Mom came into my room and told me that Dad was upset and she wanted me to come with her so she could understand what was going on and talk about what needed to be done. I was 16 or 17 years old and this was the first time my mother had ever gotten in the middle of anything. So I follow her into my parent's bedroom and perch my ass up against her dresser and mirror thingy and crossed my arms and looked disinterested. She looked at Dad and said, "Now what happened?" I shit you not, funniest thing I've EVER seen in my life, my dad stomped his foot and whined, like a 5 year old, "Janet, he told me 'no.'" I just started laughing. I said, "Are you serious with this? Who's the adult here? Because you're behaving like a child who isn't getting his way. You want me to take you seriously but you whine and pout when things don't go exactly the way you want them to. I'm going to give you the same advice you've given me all my life: 'Suck it up. Be a man.'" And then I walked out and went back into my bedroom.

So, that's why I didn't want her to tell Dad. We didn't have a good relationship and I could only see him using it as ammo against me. But, of course, she did tell him. Now, by this point I had moved back into my childhood bedroom because my Senior year, I had talked my parents into buying me a computer and getting dial-up internet. You know, to help me do homework. *eyeroll* The computer didn't fit in the room I was in so I moved back into the old bedroom. I got into IM'ing on ICQ and made gay friends. He came into the room and he sat on my bed while I was chatting with a few people and cleared his throat and when I didn't look at him he decided to go ahead and say his peace anyway. He said, "You're mom told me that you're gay. I want you to know that it doesn't change anything. You're still my son. I still love you."

I stopped typing and turned around in my chair and looked at him considering things for a few moments and said, "You know what Dad, I wasn't ready to tell you. Mom decided to ignore my wishes. So, this is all I can think to say to you now. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. You've never taken an interest in my life. You bark orders at me like I'm a child and I should just get up and do whatever it is your whim tells you that you want done. When that stopped working, you started volunteering me without asking so that I couldn't say no without looking like I'm an asshole. Never once have you asked me how my day is going. You only criticize my grades or my life. You never give any praise. You've never once said that are proud of me. You've only said that you love me twice, including just now. That's not love. You've never shown me that you love me. But you want to come in here and sit down and tell me that it's okay with you that I'm gay, like I need your permission for anything. No. I'm not having it. I can honestly say, Dad, I don't love you."

This is the one time I've seen my father show an extreme emotion other than anger. I watched coldly as he curled up on my bed, in the fetal position, and he started whaling and sobbing. After a few minutes, he crawled off my bed and left my bedroom still crying. A few moments later Mom walked into the room and said, "What happened? What did you say? You're dad's crying so hard that he can't tell me what's going on." I looked at her, shrugged my shoulders, and told her, "I told him the truth." Then I turned back around and continued chatting. Years later I told Mom what I said.

During the latter half of my Senior year, I had a "boyfriend." I only put that in quotes because, really, it was sex. He was the only other person out of the closet at the high school. He happened to be a Freshmen. He was 14 and I was 17. Which means that the sex was legal because I wasn't 18+ years old. It would have been illegal, with me be 17 and him being 14, if I had been in a position of authority (his work boss) or had any control over his life. But I didn't so it was all kosher. I had seen him during the first half of my Senior year in SAC (no idea what it stands for but it's where they send the kids who misbehave or are a disruption in the classroom for the day or a few days). I thought he was was very cute but I wasn't out yet and I didn't know exactly how to talk to him when he was in trouble. I was in SAC as the SAC Student Aid. Which, really, the job consisted of me sitting at a small desk with a big dot matrix printout of all the info of every in the high school. What I did with this big ass binder was to use it to look up student's name and their address, hand address an envelope for each person who was in SAC that day, that I got from a list from the SAC Monitor/Teacher, and put a piece of paper in the envelope that had the student's name on it and said that they were in SAC that day, for what reason, and what day they would return to their normal classes. That would take, maybe, 15 minutes. Then I'd put my head down on the desk and rest until the bell rang for me to go to my next class.

Once I hit the second half of my Senior year, I talked the Choir teacher into letting me be her Student Aid. So I was there for the shitty choir practice (next to last class period) and run off copies of sheet music and sit around doing a lot of nothing and then stay there for the good choir practice (last class period). So that was kinda nice. The latter half of my school day was English IV and then goofing off. Pretty sweet deal. It was about a month or so into the second semester and one of the girls in the crappy choir class, who was so white trash that it was just sad had taken to making friends with me. She just thought it was so cool that a Senior guy would talk to her. She flirted, which I didn't encourage. One day I was sitting in the middle of the choir room and I looked up when I heard the door open and people coming in and I saw this white trash girl walk in and then someone grab her arm. Then that kid from SAC walked in and looked at me briefly and passed the white trash girl a folded piece of paper. You know how you folded things in high school. All pretty and shit. She walked up to me and she looked nervous and then all at once she thrust the folded paper at me and said, "I'm so sorry that I'm giving this but my friend asked me to and I totally don't think you are but please don't be mad at me or my friend." I just took the paper and smiled at her and said, "Okay," and put the paper in my back pocket. Then class started so I sang the bass or baritone part of the music so that the class (nothing but girls) would know what the song would sound like if there were guys singing. I went home and I had totally forgotten about the folded piece of paper until I took my wallet out of my back pocket to set on my dresser. When I did, I saw something white drop to the floor. I picked it up. I told myself that he could have no idea that I was gay, too, and even if he did, he couldn't do anything to my reputation. He was a known troublemaker and I had never once been to the office ever in my school career.

I opened it and it told me that that he'd seen me in the SAC room before and when I wasn't there for the second semester he wondered what had happened to me. Then his friend (white trash girl) had been talking about this dreamy Senior guy who was the Choir Aid and he realized that she was describing me to him. That he had wondered for a few days if he should take a chance and get a note to me. He said that he didn't want me to be offended but he thought I was really attractive and I had never given him a dirty look or a look that made him feel like he was worthless or bad and he appreciated it. That if I treated white trash girl even half as nicely as she claimed that I did that she was lucky to know me and he wished that he did, too. I had to figure out how to talk to him without being overt at school. What if I didn't approach him at school? I made my plan and set it into motion.

I told the choir teacher the next day that if she didn't have anything important for me to do that I'd like and go spend the day as the SAC Student Aid because I knew that I had left the SAC Monitor/Teacher with only one SAC Aid and they didn't always have time to get all the envelopes addressed. I knew this because the SAC Monitor/Teacher had seen me and told me that he missed having me around because I was so efficient and easy to work with So the choir teacher said that was fine. I went to the SAC room and asked if the SAC Monitor/Teacher if he could use my help for the day. He smiled and said that he did and that they were at least one day behind on sending letters to parents. So I sat down and started working on the envelopes. I remembered his name because he had signed the bottom of the letter and I'd seen his name often enough to have remembered it anyway. While I was writing address on envelopes I took a moment to take a piece of paper out of my backpack, look up his address, put the paper away in my backpack, and checked to make sure I wasn't seen.

So after school, I went home and stayed around until after dinner. Then I got into The Vampiric Mini-Van of Undeath (my name for my van) and drove over to his place and knocked on the door that was closest to the dirt and gravel driveway. I didn't know what I was going to say to his parents if they answered the door but I hoped that he'd open it... and he did. He had a look of shock and utter disbelief on his face. I gave him an award winning smile and said, "Mind if I come in?" He backed up and didn't speak. The door lead into his bedroom where he had a water bed and a computer and not much else. A door led from that room into another bedroom which was his grandmother's. On another wall there was another wall that led into the house proper. That's where his great-grandparents lived. So for his grandmother to get from her bedroom to the main house she had to go thought his room. Not perfect but I could work with that. I said, "I'd noticed you, too, and had been wondering how I was going to get to know you better if I had no way of getting you in private. It's not like we hang in the same social circles or are in the same class, so we wouldn't have any classes in common or even typically be in the same part of the building as each other while at school. So I decided that I'd go into the SAC room and look up your address and I'm come here in person." He said, "Yo... you noticed me!?" I said, "Sure I did. You're really cute! How could I not notice?" He blushed such a pretty pink/red color. That just made me smile. Which in turn flustered him even more and he didn't know what to do or say. I asked him if he minded if I sat on the edge of his bed. He didn't say anything so I smiled at him and sat down. He made a face like he was having an inner monologue where he was telling himself that he was being such a little kid and he needed to snap out of it. I laughed and patted the bed next to me and he sat down.

I put my hand on top of his and he looked up at me with a goofy, sweet smile. I started talking about random shit and trying to put him at ease. What I really wanted to do was kiss him but I had never kissed another guy before and only kissed one girl before that! So finally I said, "You know, I'm pretty smart. I could help you with your homework if you need it." He didn't say anything and I took my hand off of his and he said, "Yea! I'm not so good at math! You could help me with that." I was feeling very bold. I told him that was my specialty. He got his textbook and homework out and I moved to the center of his bed. When he turned around and saw where I was sitting his eyes got bigger but he didn't show any other sign of anxiousness or surprise. He joined me and he sat down very close to me. The water bed moved in such a way as to knock us into each other. I was 6'0" tall and he was probably 5'6"-5'7". He was very slim and I wasn't exactly muscular, but I let my body go a little loose and let gravity do it's work. I "accidentally" fell onto him. I leaned down and kissed him. I told you I was feeling very bold. And I was so excited because he kissed me back! It was a nice tender first kiss. When I pulled back he was smiling and so was I. I gave him a quick peck on the lips and sat myself up and said, "Okay, so what about this math don't you understand?" He sat up and I saw him adjust himself and then look at the paper and start to explain what confused him.

I helped him with his math and then we talked a little while longer. Then I told him that it was getting late and I had to get back home. He looked sad and said, very dejectedly, "Okay." I smiled at him and said, "I'll be back tomorrow... if you want?" He perked up and bounced in place a moment and told that that would be great and he looked forward to it and... could he have another kiss? I rolled my eyes and grinned. I put my hands on his waist and he put his hands on my shoulders and I leaned down and kissed him again. When I pulled away he followed for a moment and then opened his eyes. I told him not to be greedy, that there were plenty more where that came from, and that I'd see him tomorrow at the same time. He said okay. I left, got in my van, drove home, and was just so very entirely too pleased with myself!

Things went on like that for a while and I got to know more about him and meet his grandmother. Turns out his grandmother was his legal guardian. His mother and father had both been drug addicts and his father had left his mother when she got pregnant with him and she got clean while she was pregnant with him, but not too long after he was 1 year old, his mother was using again. He talked about how there were times that his mother and his new boyfriend would leave for weeks at a time and they wouldn't leave behind any food in the fridge. So his sister would have to go out to the barn to get horse oats to feed herself, him, and their younger step-brother. He told me about the time where the left during the winter months and a blizzard had hit and his parents hadn't paid the electricity bill so they didn't have any heat. So his sister turned the oven on, taped a blanket to the oven, and they all curled up under it, only leaving to use the restroom or to get more horse oats to eat. He told me that his sister and he had both gotten into drug use, that his sister still used, but she was an adult so she could do whatever she wanted. He told me that he didn't use drugs anymore. Not since CPS had taken him and his sister from her mother and boyfriend's home and his grandmother had taken them both in but when his sister wouldn't quit using, his grandmother had thrown her out.

Eventually I told my parents that I was staying at the old church friend's house for the night, I went to the friend's house, told him what I told my parents, told him that if my parents called to tell them I was in the shower, then I gave him a phone number to call if they did call so that I could call them back, and I went to my "boyfriends" house. We slept in the water bed together and his grandmother said she was fine with me sleeping over but that wasn't an open invitation to be fooling around. So that time we just talked late into the night, made out, and went to sleep. I went home the next morning and my parents were none the wiser.

His grandmother had convinced him to move into the spare bedroom in the house proper and turn the room he was using now as a place to hang out with his friends. He had to get rid of his water bed and he didn't like that but he agreed to it. He said he would have more privacy.

Then he was supposed to have a sleep over at white trash girl's house. Her parents knew he was gay and were okay with him staying in the same room with their daughter. I was at white trash girl's house once. Very white trash. Disgusting. Her parent's dog had just had puppies a few weeks ago and they just let the puppies poop wherever they wanted to in the house and didn't try to keep it in any one room or clean it up. They just said that their momma-dog would eat it, sniff her puppies butts, and that's how she'd know if her and which ones of her puppies were healthy or sick. Well, I drove him over there late one night and all the lights were off in her house. I took him back to his place but he'd forgotten his keys inside and the door was locked. He said that his grandmother slept like the dead and his great-grandparents were bedridden so he had no way to get back in. So I did the only thing I could. I took him home with me. We slept in the same bed but I set an alarm for 5 AM so that he'd be able to move to the floor with a pillow and my comforter, so that if my parents walked into my room before we woke up and found him that I could claim that he'd slept on the floor all night and that I didn't have any other choice but to bring him home with me. So we did that and around 6AM my father came into my dark bedroom and shined a flashlight onto where my "boyfriend" was sleeping. He had the comforter over his head so I'm not sure if my dad made out body shape under the comforter or not. He never said anything to me about it one way or the other in all these years. So I still have no idea. When I heard my mom leave for work (dad would have left before her), I got us up. It was a little earlier than I would normally get up for school but I told him that we could go get the spare key from white trash girl's house, take him home, he could shower and change, and I'd take him to school.

Then a few days later I found I couldn't sleep without him. I had gotten a taste of someone sleeping in bed with me and I wanted more. I told him that one afternoon, at his house. And he said he'd been having the same problem. He hadn't slept well since that night. So I told him I'd be spending part of my nights with him, every night. He asked me how I planned on doing that. I told him to leave that to me but to be ready to show up at 11 PM that night. He said he'd be waiting and to just knock on the door. I went home and got a box cutter. When my father finally went to bed at 10:30 PM (predictably, as Mom had gone to be at 8:00 PM), I waited another 5 minutes. Now this was still when I lived in The Room That Eats Children. I hadn't come out to anyone, yet. In fact, I didn't move back into my childhood bedroom until after I graduated High School. So The Room has a big short ledge bay window. I took a page from my sister's old sneaking out playbook. I cut two side of the mesh screen open so that I could easily hop out the window. It's a little bit of a drop but I was young and my knees could easily absorb shock. lol I got into my van and put it in neutral and pushed it to the end of the road and then got in and started it up away from the house, so even if my father did hear a car engine start, he wouldn't hear it start in front of the house.

I go to my "boyfriend's" place and I knocked on the door and he opened up and he was just standing in his underwear. Which, I'd seen him in before, when I had slept at his place that one night and when he had slept in my room that one night but... he was showing off and I knew it. He closes the door and starts to make out with me, hot and heavy. I'm still a virgin at this point, in every sense of the word, and I knew that he wasn't a virgin. He told me to wait in the bedroom and left for a minute and when he returned he had a package of condoms and a small tub of Vaseline Jelly I knew I was about to be a virgin no more. He and I got undressed and into bed. I told him that I didn't know what I was doing so he'd have to tell me what to do. So he handed me the condom and I put it on, which was fitting a bit too snuggly (now, I'd heard that they made things feel less sensitive, I assumed that's how it worked, it wasn't until after First John that I learned that regular size condoms are... too small. NOW YOU KNOW IT! YOU CAN'T UNKNOW IT!). So he prepared himself and then reached back for me. He just said, "Whoa... okay... hmm... just go slow." So I go slowly but soon he told me to go faster. When I was in, it was... well, you've all had sex at this point. It was awesome! Never in all the times that we had sex did he ever get off. It bothered me but he told that he really enjoyed it so not to worry. So I quit worrying about it, mostly.

Then we went to sleep and we both slept so well! He had a CD Player alarm clock that would play some song to wake him up every morning. He set it to go off at 4 AM every morning. We would wake up and I would get up and get dressed and go home. I turned off the lights to the van before I pulled it up to the curb at home, parked it in the same spot, went to the side of the house where the bay window was closed but unlocked, I opened the window, put one foot on top of the outside portion of the Central A/C unit (which was a bit offset from the window opening), then did a pull up and got my waist onto the ledge, and then I rolled through window and straight down onto my bed. This is what I did every day up until May 21, 1998.

Here comes the douche bag move: I told him that I couldn't see with him anymore before I was turning 18 tomorrow and then it'd be statutory rape. Nevermind that we could have remained friends. No; I couldn't have sex with him anymore so he wasn't worth messing with. I dropped him like a hot potato and I never spoke to him again.

7 days later I graduated from High School. I had eaten food that I had left in a hot car for 2 hours before putting it in the fridge. So, it was none so fresh. It didn't smell bad on Graduation Day, so I ate some of it. Sick from food poisoning and I'm sitting in the hot weather, in a hot ass cap and gown, in the middle of the football field, hoping that I don't throw up. So I finally am able to walk across the stage and take my fake diploma (just a rolled up piece of blank paper, you had to wait until it was over and go into the school and pick up your actual diploma). This was told to us as we were waiting to start our procession out of the school and onto the football field but there was a donation being taken up.

Earlier that year 2 of the girls in my class were in the back seat of a car, with 2 boys who didn't go to our high school in the front seats. Well, there had been drinking, the one guy driving was going too fast, it was the dead of night on a FM (Farm to Market) road so there's no lights out there but the headlights of cars. Well, he comes up upon a curve in the road and was going to fast and he lost control of the car. The two guys escaped with minor injuries. One of the girls in the back ended up in traction for a while, then a month later was able to come back to school (I had one class with her) but she still had both legs and one arm in a cast and was in a wheelchair, then a few months later she was out of casts, but she had to still use crutches because he muscles had atrophied since she hadn't used them in so long. Her legs were too weak to hold her up on their own. The other girl did not survive the crash. The only fatality. Now both of these girls I went to school with were in the preppy crowd. That was not my crowd. So I didn't know the girl who died personally. I'd had a couple of classes with her over the years and I knew her name (I still remember it) and what she looked like but I didn't really know her.

The impromptu collection that was being taken up was to go fund a non-profit group that talked in high schools about drinking and driving and high school kids. So one of the teachers (gay guy) was waiting off stage, (he was very, very well liked) where you had to pass to get back to the rows of chairs to sit back down and wait for every one else to go through the motions of graduation (and my last name starts with "H"... it took forever!), he shook everyone's hand and congratulated them. That was the point at which you palmed money from your hand into his and he put it in his other hand and waited for the next person shake hands with. We raised a decent amount of money that night just from us graduating teenagers.