Last night I showed up at Steve's house around 11:00. He was waiting for me, coming out to meet me in the driveway. I was greeted with a warm hug and escorted to the house. I said hello to his wife and kids, who were still up.
After a quick tour of the house, we grabbed a beer and a cigar and headed to his front porch. We talked about everything. I had not seen him in over 5 years and we reconnected as if we had never been apart. Our conversation was wide ranging and eventuality it was time for me to tell him my big gay secret.
"Steve, I don't know if you know already or now, but I've come out of the closet."
" Yeah, I heard". (The wife of my other friend who I had come out to a few months ago told him.)
"Oh. Okay." I said.
"Yeah. I have to say I wasn't all that surprised. The signs were there for a long time. "
He must have remembered that time in college when we were both drunk and I offered to go down on him. At the time, he politely declined and never mentioned the incident again.
"You are who you are and if people don't like you for it then who needs them anyway" Since he already knew I am gay and still invited me down, I took that to mean he still liked me.
We stayed up until 1:30am before finally going to bed.
This morning I got up around 8. Steve and his wife were already up. We sat at his kitchen table and talked until noon. In fact, we talked all day. At some point I realized that Steve and I have known each other for almost 35 years. That's a really long time. It also made me angry at myself. Why did I wait so long? Why didn't I trust that Steve would accept me for the who I am? I wasted a ton of time.
We all hung out and talked tonight until about 11, when we all just got too tired. I had a great day.It was nice to finally be myself with my old friend. I was able to freely talk about my partner. I showed him T's picture. I told him about T's family, his gardens, and how much we love each other. The only think that would have made it better would have been if T was there too.
I thought about T a lot today. I did not get a chance to call him tonight. I think that bothered him, and I feel badly about it.
Tomorrow morning I'm heading back home. Hopefully I will get to call him from the car.
6 comments:
Congratulations, I'm sure that was a wonderful day and a one stone less in your way. And congrats to such a great friend.
On days like that I think it's okay to not call. When my hubby is away and interacting with people it sometimes gets diffucult for him to call, too. That just interupts the flow and I understand and accepts that. It's the same the other way round. That doesn't mean we are not thinking of each other. ;)
Most of my coming out moments with friends were like this one: they already knew, or they really didn't care one way or the other. *I* had made my life a living hell over it, but they were fine with me being whoever I needed to be.
He'g gay.
You think everyone's gay.
I forgive you for the mistake you made in college... :)
Thank you for sharingg
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