(6/28/2006)

GROWING UP GAY

Okay, even in childhood, as a young boy, I knew I was different from the other boys...knew it, because I felt it. And this was way before I knew my penis could do other things than pee. My childhood behavior, actions and obsessions I'll leave out for now, that's a different post.

So, I knew I was "different." But the other boys seemed to "know" what that difference was. Was I too effeminate? Was it my not knowing how to relate to other boys? I grew up with four sisters and a mostly absent and dismissive father; I feel, as I look back, I didn't have a male role model, no one to teach me how to be a boy/man.

Fathers love their children. When a son is born, he has expectations about him that have nothing to do with that child. In complete innocence, I had no interest in sports. I was never the kind of boy who "flaunted" and found such broad humor in "bodily functions." Apparently, without my knowing, these are things that draw a father toward his son or at least mine.

One day, when I was still just a little boy, maybe 9 or 10, my father decided I needed to join the YMCA. Naturally, during those times of the 70s, saying "no" to your father was never even an option. The Saturday I was to go for my first time, just across the alley to the public elementary school (I actually attended the Catholic school a few blocks away), my father gave me the money to pay my dues, I guess that's what it was...LOL, was pouring down rain.

I never wanted to join; the boys scared me; the men in charge scared me. But he put the money in my hand and shoved me out the back door. I don't remember what he said to me then, just that I was out the door going to the YMCA.

I was young, vulnerable, and afraid. Not just afraid of what the YMCA group was like, but afraid of my father. I walked through our back yard, in the pouring rain and across the alley toward the school. Frightened, not just of what waited before me but was behind me if I didn't go.

About halfway across the field to the school, where the YMCA kids and counselors waited for the boys to arrive, something happened to me. I became overwhelmed with fear. In the pouring rain, in the puddlling water, I dropped and cried.

My older sister, 16 months older, happened to come by and see me. Not a word to me she said. But she went into the house, straight to my father and said, "He's out there sitting in the rain crying."

I sat there soaking wet, humiliated, ashamed, frightened. Crying in the rain. My father appeared and said to me, "Get up. Go home."

I think those were the kindest words my father spoke to me until I was an adult. After that, if he spoke to me at all, it was yelling at me, reprimanding me, insulting me, and tyrannizing me.

I learned early that I was NOT what my father thought his son, his ONLY son, should be. Maybe he expected a "little young him." I never was that. Once he realized this fact, as I did, he dismissed me.

He once asked if I wanted to go fishing. Personally, no I didn't; but a chance to spend time with Dad, just us, drove me downstairs to my fishing pole and tackle box. I ran back upstairs only for him to tell me, "The neighbor boys are waiting for you in the alley." He'd called them and asked them to take me fishing; they didn't want this younger kid with them anymore than I wanted to go fishing. There goes another personal disaster and humiliation.

I grew up knowing I was NOT "one of the beloved daughters" to my father. My mother was my haven, my support, my advocate, and my friend. No words of disappointment (aside from not taking out the garbage; not cleaning my room, etc.) ever left her mouth to me.

I remember one time in childhood, on a rainy day when all of us were forced to play inside. My sisters were playing Barbie’s. I was playing with them. My father came in and saw me playing with "Barbie-Dolls" and nearly lost it. I heard my mother say to him, "They are all he has to play with; am I supposed to make him sit alone while his sisters are playing?"

I know there are men who have wonderful relationships with their fathers. I envy that. Sad as it sounds, I dismissed my father the same way he dismissed me.

One day when I was 16 or 17, I was being punished. My father came into my bedroom, where I was sitting on the edge of my bed. He began his "lecture" as he always did. He explained to me what a waste I was; how disappointing I was to him; how he could not relate to me, understand me. Then, after giving my punishment, he held his hand out and said "Friends?"

Maybe there was too much "water under the bridge," too much resentment; I was a teenager and maybe after all, I was becoming a man; with or without him.

In that moment, I turned my back on him. Then he said something that not just surprised me, but shocked me. "I wish I had with you the relationship you have with your mother."

I thought to myself, "Me, too." But it was too late, at that time.