Tonight was wonderful

I had an unforgettable, wonderful night tonight.

As background, I am bisexual, married, monogamous, and happy. I am coming out because it's who I am, I'm tired of the closet, and I want to be out and proud, volunteer, and be part of the LGBT community. My wife is fully supportive.

I had set Sept 23 as my goal date to be fully out (because I function better with concrete goals, and 9/23 is Celebrate Bisexuality Day). As many of you know, I came out to my band and local friends first (in May), then my sister.

I had the day off work today and I set a goal to come out to the rest of my family today. I also had a volunteer session scheduled at our LGBT Center for the evening. I called my 73 year old mom, but she wasn't home, so I left a message to call me back on her home phone. I didn't want to call her cellphone because I wanted her at home when I broke the news.

Mom didn't call back right away, so the time came for the volunteer session. I went to our LGBT Center, met a few new volunteers, then we all spent 2 hours assembling condom packages for the Center's disease prevention effort. We had a great conversation as we worked. Two condoms, two lube packets, in the small Ziploc bag, package after package, talking LGBT and local stuff the whole time. I love those volunteer sessions. The Center gets bulk packaged condoms and lube and bags, and they go through so many of them, the volunteer help is appreciated doing the assembly of the packages. So that was fun.

Mom had called and left a message while I was working there. When I got home, I called her back. I took a deep breath and came out to her. She was supportive and surprisingly unsurprised. We talked about how it was hard for me growing up, not being able to talk about it with anyone, the 80's AIDS situation, the Catholic church situation. It went better than I'd hoped. I still had a minor heart attack (jk, LOL) though. She was most concerned that nothing was changing with me and my wife (which it isn't).

Next I called my brother and came out to him. It was a lot easier with him, I knew he'd be accepting, and he was. That was a shorter, and easier conversation.

I thought I was done for the night and started eating dinner. My wife, however, dialed up my lesbian cousin and told me I needed to come out to her, too. She had gotten married to her wife 10 years ago, and I was one of her biggest allies at the time. I took the phone and came out to her, too. I apologized for not being fully truthful with her earlier, because I really wanted to confide in her but wasn't ready to be out. She was so happy she cried. Which of course made me cry, too. LOL. But it was awesome.

So... now I'm fully out to family and friends. YAY! Only work remains. It was a wonderful night. Thank you all for your support over these months. I'm not done coming out yet, but I'm mostly there, and it feels so awesome.

 

Yes, bi is not easy for some people to grasp, it does take some explaining. Even last night, as I was leaving the LGBT Center, I chatted with a volunteer who's involved because her daughter is lesbian, and it took her a little while to get it.

It does get easier each time, if that's any help.

Basically, I've decided that I'm out as bi, I'm going to explain if anyone is interested, otherwise I'm just going to try to be the best man that I can and be the bi friend in some straight people's lives. I like that, I've already seen it be a good thing.