Let's Start from the Very Beginning

Let's start at the very beginning. Julie Andrews tells us it's a very good place to start.

I'm a fairly average, basic person in a lot of ways. I’m a middle aged software engineer living in the Midwestern United States in a town that’s not too big and not too small. I have a basic 3 bedroom house that’s not too big and not too small, a car, and a dog. I work from 8am to 5pm on Monday through Friday. I pay my bills and my taxes. All things that are fairly normal. Only, I’ve never really felt normal.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, there’s this scene where a character is described as having a half life. In a large sense, that’s how I’ve always felt. I kind of hit the milestones you’re supposed to hit. I have friends. I graduated high school, went to college, got my first job, bought my first house. But, then there’s this huge hole in my adolescent and adult life where the boyfriends and the husband and the babies were supposed to go. And I knew fairly early on those things weren’t likely to happen, but I couldn’t quite identify why.  I had dated a little in high school and early on in college and was underwhelmed by the experience. When I was 21 years old, I learned I have a genetic condition that tells me I have a cards that range from annoying to devastating to pass on to a child, so I knew I didn’t want to physically have kids at that point just because it wouldn't be fair to the kid. It hurt.  A lot at the time (and sometimes now when unintentional comments get made). But it felt like the right decision.  And for some reason, beyond that issue, I knew marrying a man was likely to be unfair to the man and decided to give up on the idea of dating, much less marriage completely. There was something I knew I couldn't give or be for that hypothetical "him".  But, I couldn’t quite say what it was or why. Until now.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt like there was this thing (this horrible, shameful thing) that made me not like everyone else around me. Since I was a child, I was always vaguely aware of it. It was as if it were always on the tip of my tongue or in the corner of my eye. Sometimes I was frustrated that I couldn’t quite see it. Sometimes, if it threatened to come into full view, the sense of revulsion caused me to turn my head as if avoiding watching a violent death on screen in a film. But, I never could (or never would) see it straight on. Until now.

So, what do you do with yourself when you’re not participating in this thing that’s all consuming for virtually everyone else and you don’t feel normal? Well, as a teenager, when I felt the most scared, I normalled as hard as I could possibly normal. I normalled for all I was worth. I was going to be an average weight. I was going to wear nondescript clothes. I was going to be quiet and not stand out. I didn’t just graduate high school with honors. I graduated with highest honors. I wasn’t just a musician. I was an All-state/Honor Band of America musician. I didn’t just go to church on Sunday morning. Oh no. I went on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night visitation, Wednesday night, a lot of Friday nights and Saturdays, I was in the choir, the softball team, the nursery rotation, I helped teach vacation Bible school. I churched hard. And I did all this partly because people don’t ask a lot of questions when you’re an honor student who’s at church every time the door is open. And if someone figured out and exposed this unnamable, unspeakable something about me, I was going to be for damn sure I was otherwise above reproach. It worked.

Marching band was the best magic trick ever in high school and college both. You’re invisible. Don’t believe me? In what other activity can you stand on a grass field, circled by 70,000 people with a very loud instrument in your hand and not really be seen? You literally move and dress in a way to make you indistinguishable from the 300 other people you’re surrounded with. With the exception of the occasional 15 second nondescript solo nobody in the audience will remember 5 minutes later, the only way to stand out is to screw up. For the aspiring normalist blendy person, it’s fantastic!

In college, when the high school strategy proved unsustainable and no longer necessary, I discovered video games and later playing my instrument were fantastic opiates. With music, part of practicing is to pick small passages that are difficult for you and then play them over and over and over slow and and then a little faster and then a little faster until you can play the passage at the correct speed cleanly. And then any time you hear a flaw, you slow it back down until you can work out that flaw and then speed back up. Then you move on to another one and repeat for hours at a time. It was mind-numbing which made it perfect when you don’t want to think about your actual, genuine problems. It wasn’t the best use of time as an engineering student, but it was cheaper than drugs or alcohol, less bad for my health, legal, and it made the band directors and later church worship team leaders happy so there’s that.

For blending, I discovered in college and early adulthood that gaining 40-60 lbs and wearing baggy jeans and graphic t-shirts is a great way to be invisible.  All the better if you never make eye contact so you can't see any contempt that might be there.  In adulthood, I could go to a grocery store, navigate the entire store, buy a week's worth of groceries, and never once look someone in the eye or really see anyone's face, including the cashier.  It made me feel safe.  It created it's own cycle.  I gained the weight because I hated myself.  I hated myself because I had gained the weight.  And I never understood quite why I did it.  Why I needed to hide.  I just had to.  Until now.

Video games and work became my opiates of choice in college and later in my 20's and 30's as I burned out on playing my instrument.  With work, early in my career, I could stay into the night or read a technical manual cover to cover over the course of a weekend because what else did I have to do?  The games were similarly an easy way to focus on something for hours at a time after work and not think about anything real. The longer the games, the better. That trilogy of games takes 80 hours to complete? Great! I might just play it twice! It was a great way to hide from this unspeakable something that made me slightly sad for reasons I couldn’t explain. Until now.

The original Mass Effect series was a trilogy of games that took you through one giant, epic, story arc. The game had a “choose your own” adventure component to it. You could choose your character’s gender, their personality, and who they fell in love with in the game and influence how that story played out depending on how you played the game. The series is fairly modern and it’s aimed at adults, so some of the romantic scenes could get a bit steamy. Well, on my last play through of this trilogy, I had chosen for my character to be a woman. And, after doing some reading, I discovered that one of the better romance storylines to trigger was with another character that presents as a woman. It was the one romance that you could carry through all 3 games. I was really quite captivated by that storyline. I wanted to watch parts of it again, but I didn’t want to have to play back through the entire game to do that. So, I found youtube videos that showed the scenes I was interested in. But, youtube had versions of these scenes with both male and female versions of the main characters. The scenery was the same. The lighting was the same. The music was the same. The performance for the romantic interest was exactly the same. The only variable was whether the main character was a man or a woman. I adored the performance with two women. I was bored and almost annoyed with the performance with a man and a woman.

And then my head turned just slightly and this thing that had been in the corner of my eye since childhood was now in plainly in focus.  Oh shit.  I’m gay.