Excerpts from (lost)Found....
Somewhere inside, I have to believe that we are born with the ability to
love ourselves regardless of what our parents and teachers and friends and
religion and fashion magazines tell us. For most gay men I know, all those
things and the bathroom mirror changes us. Countless hours spent analyzing
ourselves and comparing our features to those deemed acceptable at that moment
deprive us of seeing ourselves.
When I started my coming out process in 1987, I thought very little about
learning to love myself as a result of my belief system. My first goal was to
rid my head and heart of the lies I had not only told myself, but everyone with
whom I had ever crossed paths. I knew it was important to come out and more
important to make sure people knew that I was gay. I assumed everyone was
assuming I was straight and that was not okay with me. Alright, maybe some
people knew I was homosexual since I wasn’t the butchest of boys when I was a
boy. But the majority of people I had come to know in my life were assuming I
was straight because that is what people do. And, I had spent years hiding and
doing everything I could to support their fantasy.
What I really wanted to do in coming out was make myself an honest person. I
thought that just telling people would help me as well. I was sure the emptiness
I had felt my entire life was a result of my dishonesty with myself and others.
It wasn’t.
.........
I don’t remember the moment when I realized that I needed to learn how to love
myself. And maybe that’s because there wasn’t a definitive time when the answers
came to me. I do know that I spent a month or so analyzing my life.
I would look in the mirror and not understand who it was in the reflection. The one thing that kept coming back to my mind was the deeply ingrained religious message of dying to me. I hadn’t been to church in a couple years but I had memorized so much of the Bible and digested so much fundamentalist Baptist Christian doctrine that it was always quickly retrieved.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the dying-to-self doctrine was the reason for my emptiness. Had I killed myself so perfectly that I was incapable of ever looking in the mirror and seeing myself? The self-love with which I was born couldn’t be gone forever, could it?
The more time I spent asking myself questions, the more I felt confused. So, I decided to stop asking the questions. The answers suddenly didn’t seem so important to me when I wasn’t thinking about the questions.
.......
On this most recent trip I felt some pangs of sadness as I watched her deal the
cards. Her hands looked very old to me and were covered with age spots and
bruise marks. She had mentioned that she seemed to be bruising very easy
whenever she would bump into things.
I could remember very clearly when her hands did not look so old and her fingers were straight and without any arthritis in her finger joints. As I looked up at her, our eyes met. It was almost like she knew what I was thinking. Her eyes got watery and she reached across the table and squeezed my hand very briefly.
When it was time to leave, she kissed me on the lips and hugged me.
”I love you so much,” she said.
I could feel her clinging to me. I realized that she was crying.
”Grandma loves you, always remember that,” she said.
”I love you too,” I replied. “We will see you in a couple months.”
She just looked at me with tears in her eyes and hugged me again.
The
previous excerpts are provided for promotional purposes only. Final edits to the
book may result in slightly altered copy. Before reproducing any portion of
these excerpts please obtain written permission from Window Books at
bookstore@meetmarcadams.com.
Copyright Marc Adams