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Childhood Friends -- for those who really are later in life

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by DesertTortoise, Sep 3, 2013.

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  1. DesertTortoise

    DesertTortoise
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    I thought I had come out to everyone. That was certaily my intention. I posted on FB, and on my blog--which pretty much covers everyone who knows me. And wrote to my sons and the few family members I have left.

    It was all remarkably easy. And no one was surprised (though I've yet to hear from my son's what their mother's reaction was. I strongly suspect, they would be LEAST surprized! ).

    The hole in this picture was really where it all began. I spent all of my summers with my grandparents on a wooded lake, from earliest childhood till after HS graduation. So this was the place of my sexual awakening. There were the usual early adolescent masturbation experiments together--but nothing more. It was in the winter, with my school friends (a whole different set... so much so, that it was like living two different lives)... that I pushed the experiments over the normal stuff... until I approached the wrong kid, got beat up and terrorized, and turned it all off for me). But it was one of my summer friends--who I also knew from my winter home before my family moved to another city, that brought home to me what I had been denying. It was in hearing news of his death that all came tumbling down... realizing, that I had been in love with him. really really in love... which explained so much (how jealous i was when he would choose to hang out with other kinds)...
    Cut to the chase here... this opened a 4 month crisis that forced my hand, made me admit what I was. What I wanted.
    I got the news from a woman (one of our summer gang), who had been his girlfriend when they were like... 13 or 14. They both went different ways, but in their 50's, got back together again. I real life amazing love story!
    This has been naggin at me... that I was never able to tell my friend how I felt. At a 60th birthday party, we got together--and he told me about someone else we had known--and how much he liked and respected him, how sad he was at his death. He was gay. Looking back... I couldn't help but wonder if he was, consciously or not, leaving the gates open for me--just to share the knowlege. That if I had--if I had been ready then, it would have been ok... and breaks me up when think of this... writing about it here. I would so like for him to have know, because we were very close for so many years.
    Well, I sent an email to the woman he had found again -- his childhood love, and one of our summer gang. And I told her. That I needed that ... for closure.
    This was the one that really has tested me... I haven't heard from her (only two days).. .but have been so tense. OMG, did I do the right thing? Why can't I keep some of this stuff to myself!?!
    A long post... I'm a compulsive journaler. A poet. I write to find myself, and find my way out of these knots... the very ones I've tied myself into ... by writing!
    Thank you for being there.
    Hugs!
     
    #1 DesertTortoise, Sep 3, 2013
  2. Dragonbait

    Dragonbait Guest

    I'm starting to wonder if I may be getting an inkling to the choosing of your screen name. You sir, are a gentleman, and a romantic, and I suspect an endangered species. And when you feel the compulsion to write, I hope you will always post your thoughts here, because I love reading them.

    I too, write to make sense of the swirling chaos in my brain and even if the mere act of writing helps me to organize it, it somehow lacks validity, or permanence, unless I put it out to the universe. Stacks of scribbles, compulsively hidden from those I least want to discover, electronic files buried under layers and layers of false names and folders, but somehow, until it's been seen by another set of eyes, they're barely more than a dream and what goes on in my head is screaming to be made real.

    And this is why I bless this place. Because here I can share all that enthralls me, here is a safe place, where I don't have to fear the wrong set of eyes laying claim to my words, here are people that will welcome and understand, or at the very least accept. Isn't it a wondrous place?

    So write and write and write - we will all be better people for reading what you have to share and in exchange we will bear witness to your heart. Thank you for offering us this beautiful glimpse.
     
    #2 Dragonbait, Sep 3, 2013
  3. DesertTortoise

    DesertTortoise
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    I too, have enjoyed your posts, Dragonbait. and I love how easily you migrate without losing your own place between the gender label posters. I'm not trans, and comfortably male and a lover of males, but also a resister of imposed indentities... which is probably why and how I drifted into the circle of Radical Faeries several years before I saw where it was i was going.

    I saw that I'd misspelled identities... a typo, but I kinda like the neologisms... IN-DENT -ities, yes. An indentation imposed by a blow from without, rather than an efflorenscence .... is that a word? that blossems from within.

    ---------- Post added 3rd Sep 2013 at 06:40 PM ----------

    the screen name... I had a job driving a friend's worldly stash in a truck with a car in tow to Santa Fe. Had a dream about a desert tortoise. Googled to learn what they were... thought, if I have a spirit animal... this is it. and I got a tattoo in Santa Fe before I left... of a desert tortoise.
    Back on the tread.. what i had in mind, was to ask if others have had the occasion to come out to those long in their past, not present acquaintences, but important to them in other ways. And what was this like? Kinda the most anxiety invoking part of my announcing myself to the world. Maybe cause they can't see me... my tattoo, my cantab earrings and found trash accesories--the whole anti-normativity personae I've taken on. How would they get it--if that wasn't part of it? If the only thing in their ... her... mind, was... so, he likes having sex with men now. When it's so much more...even if the 'more' is rooted in the sexual, in the direction of my desire...
    You are good soul buddy... I feel it. :slight_smile:
    Thanks!

    ---------- Post added 3rd Sep 2013 at 06:53 PM ----------

    a poem on what I've been writing about..

    Leaning over the rail of the City of Flint
    black bellyfull of freight cars
    automobiles that no longer ... high
    lake side dunes visible in the distance
    girls whose bodies we
    hand over hand t othe highest branches
    of the Scotch pine at the top of the hill
    our boy bodies erect
    in the sunset
    waiting for life to begin.
     
    #3 DesertTortoise, Sep 3, 2013
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2013
  4. DesertTortoise

    DesertTortoise
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    The City of Flint was Lake Michigan car ferry. Carried freight cars and autos across the lake. This almost gets too specific! I get that staying anon here is way important to keeping this a safe place.
     
    #4 DesertTortoise, Sep 3, 2013
  5. Dragonbait

    Dragonbait Guest

    Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. :kiss:

    [​IMG]
     
    #5 Dragonbait, Sep 3, 2013
  6. Californiacoast

    Californiacoast
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    Don't you just love Santa Fe? And Taos and the whole enchanted circle? Northern New Mexico has been the place of my spirit renewal every fall for many years! The wild mustangs, green chilis, lightning strikes, Sangre De Christos.

    But back to topic. Yes. The boys of my youth have special meaning to me. Whether we explored the outdoors together, played football, or sang in choir, there were a few guys that I experimented with in puberty and years later wanted to come out to. Only one have I done so. It went well. Several of those guys married. Some divorced. I have always wondered who might have been gay, bi?
     
    #6 Californiacoast, Sep 4, 2013
  7. BiDad3

    BiDad3
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    Wow, what an aewesome thread to come across on a pretty normal Wednesday!

    I read a series of books last year dealing with the topic of compassion, and the idea that the witnessing of our true selves is an immense source of solace and comfort, freeing in a way nothing else is, and the posts above really brought that all back to me.

    Thank you all for being a witness of my true self, even though you have never met or seen me. And for allowing me that same privilege!
     
    #7 BiDad3, Sep 4, 2013
  8. Feijoa

    Feijoa
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    Hey DesertTortoise,

    I just thought I would chime in that whilst it has only been a couple if days, try not to despair too much at there being no reply. With the long weekend it could be very possible that your friend hasn't caught up to or had access to emails. I suspect all will be received well though :wink:
     
    #8 Feijoa, Sep 4, 2013
  9. DesertTortoise

    DesertTortoise
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    I fell in love with New Mexico, though I wasn't able to spend much time and had no car. Chiles Rellenos at the Pantry would have been enough to make me fall in love all by itself!
     
    #9 DesertTortoise, Sep 4, 2013
  10. Tightrope

    Tightrope
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    Here's what I think. Childhood friends are your friends with no ulterior motives whatsoever. It's not about who you know, how much money you have, or a lot of that stuff that "matters" later in life. As for retaining these friends, aside from the ones you might have experimented with, the others probably sensed that you weren't a Kinsey 0 and were ok with it, either because they liked you as a person, they weren't a Kinsey 0 either, or a little of both. The deal is that those are probably the best friends you'll ever have, if they hung on into adulthood.
     
    #10 Tightrope, Sep 4, 2013
  11. ormanout

    ormanout
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    One of the lessons I've learned is that in my memory, my childhood friends are still young, full of exuberance and mystery. I was raised in the heartland where being gay can get you killed. The truth is that just like me, they have been misled, lied to and bought into myths about masculinity and sexuality. As hard as I'm working to dump that lifetime of misinformation and lies, I doubt that many of them are doing the same thing. Perhaps one or two of them, but for the most part, they are the majority of men who are choosing to oppress gay and lesbian people like me. In my fantasies, I can dream of what we were all like at 13 or 14....but reality has taught me that today, they are mostly balding, over-weight and oppressive in their beliefs. I have learned that for me, it is best to leave them in my mind where we are all young and curious forever.
     
    #11 ormanout, Sep 4, 2013
  12. Tightrope

    Tightrope
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    I can see this. This would be the situation where contact has been broken and strong regional cultural codes are in place. In a situation where contact has not been broken, it might be more like what I wrote about. If contact has been broken, then the situation is, as you say, best left alone. The situation wasn't exactly amicable in big urban areas either. While violence was rarely an instrument, sarcasm and other negative ways of expressing disapproval were still in evidence.
     
    #12 Tightrope, Sep 4, 2013
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