My Own Story
by Sharing My Story on 02/06/09 at 4:16 pm
On this site I’ve invited people to post their stories – or portions of them – with a limit of 250 words per post. Here’s mine.
Some people don’t know they’re gay until an incident blows open a door in mid life. Not me. I knew I was gay when I was twelve, although we didn’t use that word in those days. So did my parents, who sent me to a shrink to chase the demon away, without ever saying why I had to go and stare in silence at his Argyle socks while he questioned me about mum and dad. He concluded that I was not “disturbed”, to the relief of my mother and my own disappointment: I guess I hoped that someone, even so alien an inquisitor, might pierce my defences and speak the truth and make me feel less alone.
I married in a desperate attempt to be “normal”, only later learning that everyone – my former wife, her parents, her sister, my own parents, and I myself – knew and denied the truth of my sexuality. That was some strange wedding.
Two months before the marriage, I became a Catholic after God touched me one wet night in the little garden behind my student flat. The marriage collapsed and I lost my children – not irrevocably, my daughter and I are close now. But at the time it seemed irrevocable.
I’d quit the church in the last angry years of that marriage, blaming a silent God for all my troubles. He drew me back. I feel particularly blessed right now. I’ve been through a lot of tough times, lonely times, anxious times; I’ve known rejection and hurt by those I’ve loved most; but all that stuff, all that fuel for fury is way back in a past that I no longer need, and now, frequently, I experience a deep joy that certainly does not come from me, or from this world.
I live alone, and have no partner. I’m not sure I understand why that is, and I pray about it.
Some Hearts Close to Cracking: What Gay Catholics HAVE Done. | Queering the Church
Mar 20th, 2012
[...] on Gospel reflections. He shares my belief though, in the importance of sharing our stories. In his original post, Jeremiah tells of how he was driven away from the church, and then [...]
George
May 17th, 2012
I dearly love the opening line of your story. Frankly, though a door wasn’t exactly blown open for me at mid-life, it did take me that long to acknowledge that all those years of fantasy, of masturbatory episodes that found me perusing my then-wife’s Playgirl magazine, were a prelude to the joyous life of a gay man that I finally accepted.
I was in denial for years, telling myself that I was perfectly normal (i.e. not gay) and that my sexually-wandering mind was meaningless in my overall life.
When I finally accepted the reality of it all, I also finally came to learn how much love I have to share with the right man. It took me to my late 50s to admit to someone that I love him, but it’s been well worth the journey.
I remain in church, where I’m told that what I do is wrong and awful, etc. I love the rest of the Gospel and all my dear friends there, though, and won’t leave there despite the negative words I hear.