finally - letter to my mom

Dear Mom,

I’ve written you this letter because I have something very important to tell you and I don’t think I’d be able to do it justice if I were to attempt it in person. I ask that you read through this whole letter before you try to talk to me, and please come to me first after you’ve finished it. Thank you Mom, this means a lot to me.

I love you Mom, around the world infinity times to heaven and back infinity times. I never want to do something that would hurt you or lose your respect. I’m afraid though Mom. I’m afraid that what I need to tell you in this letter will do just that. I don’t want to harm you, but I can’t live with this hidden under wraps anymore. I have to tell you, and I have to deal with the consequences of it, no matter how great or small they may be.

The thing is Mom, I’m not going to be able to be your dream child. I’m not going to have the pretty future that you and Aunt Willow paint for me whenever we all get together. I’ll never find that perfect girl, the girl whose life I’d fill with happiness. I won’t because it simply can’t happen. It would be a lie, and because it’s a lie, neither of us could be happy. It’s a lie because I could never be able to be happy with her, I could never love her. It’s a lie because of what I am, and what I am is gay. It would be worse than awful for me to pretend that I could be happy with her. It could never happen and I would ruin both our lives trying.

This may be shocking to finally hear me say it, and I’m sorry if it is. But I have to say it. I have felt though over this break that you may know this about me already. The day that you brought up Annah in the car, I felt like you knew and were testing me. I answered your questions and comments with cold retorts, simply saying no to each. Each time I denied a possibility of Annah and I being a thing, I thought I read on you that you already knew this, that you were just testing the waters. The same goes for Sydney’s friend Alex. I couldn’t understand why you were talking with me about how she was cute. I was lost and felt bare. I thought you knew about me and that this was your way of prodding me into the open. Well it worked. Even if this wasn’t your intention, I’ve been planning to tell you sometime over break. I’ve chosen to tell you though, because I think that you can accept it, or at least do so over time. You know lots of other homosexuals, and I’ve seen you act nothing but pleasantly towards them, if not lovingly. GG’s caretakers in Florida, MJ, and possibly even Uncle Tim (sorry if I’m dead wrong on this one, but that’s the impression that I’ve always got) are all people in your life that I see you happy with. I trust that my telling you can come out for the better.

I’ve gone through a good portion of my life confused. It was in high school when I first started becoming aware of my interest in men. At the time, I was disgusted by it. I held the idea that homosexuality was a perversion and that people were homosexual because they were sexually crazed and couldn’t settle with the norm. It was an awful state of mind to have, and it helped to fuel a lot of self loathing. I grew out of that though and started to be more accepting and understanding of homosexuality. I was under the impression though that it was a choice, so I tried my hardest to choose being straight. I didn’t want to be gay so I tried to hide everything about me that may have suggested it. I also tried to have relationships with girls – to see if I could kick-start some sort of attraction. This lasted up till this past year and four girls late I started questioning my certainty in being bi.

I decided to write out why I was worried about my sexuality. What was I afraid of, why did I want to be straight, what would happen if I was gay? The biggest things out of all these were that I was afraid of being looked down upon, I wanted to have a child from the person I loved, but I knew that happiness for me was only waiting with another man. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about these and have reconciled with all of them. I would rather be hated for who I am, than loved for what I’m not. For a family, surrogacy allows for a lot of options and science is getting better every day, so in that there is hope. Also, happiness is my goal in live and I’d love to find it with the one I love.

I started my coming out process in November. At the time, I had another semi-closeted brother in the fraternity who was also going through the process. We’ve worked together on a lot of things and helped each other to get over the hard emotional road blocks that pop up here and there. Since then I have told my fraternity brothers, some of my friends from school, Baily, my friends from home and my exes, Hillary and Jessica. I’ve had a lot of help from an online support website which has been a wonderful part of my life, really helping to understand myself and my feelings better. They have tons of resources and know a lot about PFLAG too so if you want more info, just ask me for it. Basically, my coming out process has been amazing. I haven’t had problems coming out to people, but then again eventually it will happen and I just have to deal with it as best I can and accept it.

I want to remind you, Mom, that I love you. I want you to know this about me, and I hope you can be accepting. If that’s difficult for you though, I can understand. I still love you, and I’m still the same old Chaz. You just know a bit more about me now.

LYATWITTHABIT
Chaz
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Let me know of anything that strikes you as odd or wierd - I'm totally up for constructive criticism.

Here's my plan (also known as Operation: Blow Up Closet): I wait till I have time alone with her, give her a big hug, hand her the letter, disappear for a short while giving her time alone without distraction to read the letter, return with hot tea or coffee, give another big hug (hopefully), proceed to talk about this whole scenario and let crazy emotional chaos ensue...

 

thank you all for your support and help. I should be able to give her the new version as soon as I have her alone to myself. I couldn't figure out a way to make it not sound like a suicide letter, so I'm planning to just tell her outright that this is not one - that I had some people close to me look over this before hand and warn me that it could be construed that way.

Also, Taylor, feel absolutely free to use whatever you want from it. One of the reasons I put my letters up on EC is to give people more templates and examples to look at. I have used EC a lot for inspiration in writing my letters - so I feel it's only fair to return the favor.

So yah - maybe I can get her at lunch tomorrow???

 

oh, and here's the revised bit - overall it's still pretty similar...



Dear Mom,

I’ve written you this letter because I have something very important to tell you and I don’t think I’d be able to do it justice if I were to attempt it in person. I ask that you read through this whole letter before you try to talk to me, and please come to me first after you’ve finished it. Thank you Mom, this means a lot to me.

I love you Mom, around the world infinity times to heaven and back infinity times. I never want to do something that would hurt you or lose your respect. I’m afraid though. I’m afraid that what I need to tell you in this letter will do just that. I don’t want to harm you, but I can’t live with this hidden under wraps anymore. I have to tell you, and I have to deal with the consequences of it, no matter how great or small they may be.

The thing is, I’m not going to be able to be the dream child with the pretty future that you and Aunt Willow paint for me whenever we all get together. I’ll never find that perfect girl, the girl whose life I’d fill with happiness. I won’t because of what I am, and what I am is gay. A wife isn’t in my future for the sake of my own happiness and sanity. I hope though that you can still have dreams for me, pretty ones that now can have a hope of coming true. I still want to be your dream child too, but this aspect of me has to be something that’s taken into consideration. I want to achieve what you dream for me, but I can’t do that if it requires my lying to myself.

This may be shocking to finally hear me say it, and I’m sorry if it is. But I have to say it. I have felt though over this break that you may know this about me already. You’ve brought up conversations a few times that made me wonder at how much you knew or were guessing at. Sometimes it felt as if you were just testing the waters, seeing if I was ready to tell you the truth. It made me thing that you knew about me and that that was your way of encouraging me to come out. It’s worked. Even if this wasn’t your intention, I’ve wanted to tell you sometime over break. I thought you knew about me and that this was your way of prodding me into the open. Well it worked. Even if this wasn’t your intention, I’ve been planning to tell you sometime over break. I’ve chosen to tell you though, because I think that you can accept it, or at least do so over time. You know lots of other homosexuals, and I’ve seen you act nothing but pleasantly towards them, if not lovingly. GG’s caretakers in Florida, MJ, and possibly even Uncle Tim (sorry if I’m dead wrong on this one, but that’s the impression that I’ve always got) are all people in your life that I see you happy with. I trust that my telling you can come out for the better.

I’ve gone through a good portion of my life confused. It was in high school when I first started becoming aware of my interest in men. At the time, I was disgusted by it. I held the idea that homosexuality was a perversion and that people were homosexual because they were sexually crazed and couldn’t settle with the norm. It was an awful state of mind to have, and it helped to fuel a lot of self loathing. I grew out of that though and started to be more accepting and understanding of homosexuality. I was under the impression though that it was a choice, so I tried my hardest to choose being straight. I didn’t want to be gay so I tried to hide everything about me that may have suggested it. I also tried to have relationships with girls – to see if I could kick-start some sort of attraction. This lasted up till this past year and four girls later I started questioning my certainty in being bisexual.

I decided to write out why I was worried about my sexuality. What was I afraid of, why did I want to be straight, what would happen if I was gay? The biggest things out of all these were that I was afraid of being looked down upon, I wanted to have a child from the person I loved, but I knew that happiness for me was only waiting with another man. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about these and have reconciled with all of them. I would rather be hated for who I am, than loved for what I’m not. For a family, surrogacy allows for a lot of options and science is getting better every day, so in that there is hope. Also, happiness is my goal in life and I’d love to find it with the one I love.

I started my coming out process in November. At the time, I had another semi-closeted brother in the fraternity who was also going through the process. We’ve worked together on a lot of things and helped each other to get over the hard emotional road blocks that pop up here and there. Since then I have told my fraternity brothers, some of my friends from school, Baily, my friends from home and my exes, Hillary and Jessica. I’ve had a lot of help from an online support website which has been a wonderful part of my life, really helping to understand myself and my feelings better. They too have tons of resources and know a lot about PFLAG (a support group for parents of homosexual children) so if you want more info, just ask me for it. Basically, my coming out process has been amazing. I haven’t had problems coming out to people, but then again eventually it will happen and I just have to deal with it as best I can and accept it.

Mom, I love you. I want you to know this about me, and I hope you can be accepting. If that’s difficult for you though, I can understand. I still love you, and I’m still the same old Chaz. You just know a bit more about me now.

LYATWITTHABIT
Chaz

 

Altered:

Thank you all for the help! Chip and Mirko, I really appreciate it. Having the written example helps a lot. Oh, and JC you weren't the only one - one of my friends looked at it and thought it was a suicide not too, lol. Wait that's not funny.... um anywho, I just called my mom and arranged a lunch thingy for today at a quarter to 12. We're ordering out, so I'll lead her back to our house to eat it. Then, DUN DUN DUN! I'll give her the letter, high tail it for some coffee, then be back with a cupa joe for both of us while things get interesting... Thanks for the luck!