When I came out to my parents a few years ago, I expected that to be the end of it. I expected there to be this awful, earth-rendering day of reckoning between them and me. I came in guns drawn, eyes narrowed, saddles blazing. Battle ready. Mom and Dad really ended up surprising me, and while I didn't expect things to be easy or irrevocably damaged I did think there would be more of a fight. However, I also expected that to be "it," the worst thing I'd ever have to do, Judgement Day, and if I survived (and I always survive) I figured the rest would work itself out. In many ways it has. And just like any other process or event in any relationship we both made compromises. I made many because I wanted my parents to be on my side and I wanted to ease them into everything. We don't have to tell the family, everyone we know, talk about it all the time, basically you just know.
The funny thing about knowledge is that it's not made to just sit. Once you know something you have power, for good or bad, but power nonetheless. Over the last 3 years we have entered into this strange truce, where as long as we can joke and not make any sudden moves and say "I love you," then everything should be great. But it's not. All those concessions and deals came at a price. They inadvertently told Mom and Dad that I wasn't proud, that we could keep things private, and in a way still in the closet. Don't get me wrong, the closet is a great place, and it's a necessary place to keep whatever skeletons until they're ready to be found. The longer that dead body stays in there though, the more it starts to sink and the more the ghost comes out to haunt, and especially in the gay closet; there's in or out. Halfway will kill you, because only gods were made to straddle two worlds.
This anger is because of those compromises that I made when I saw coming out as the end of the line rather than the beginning. You see coming out never ends, because it happens everyday, especially once you're in a relationship. You come out at the restaurant, with the table for two, you come out at the store and you have to end up coming out again if you decide to bring that someone home. That's why so many people are either in or out, with no middle ground, the butch fag or the Nelly queen, because to be middle of the road, means you're constantly in danger of being run over. So here I am with someone (someone I'm rather fond of) and my family has no idea. Oh big deal, one might say, lots of parents don't know about their kids' love life. You'd be right if I was bringing home a girl, but me bringing home a boy and my sister bringing home a boy are two totally different things. Yes, in both instances the family is meeting someone who could potentially be the one, and that someone is meeting them. That is a big deal. Except for me my parents would expect that to be the one, and it opens up a Pandora's Box of worry for them. Is he being safe? What does it look like when they're together? Oh shit! It's not just a phase, and the like, at least that's what I imagine. So we just save each other and have instituted a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
So now, I'm sitting here with a relationship (with my parents) that I like. I feel loved and wanted and I know that they're proud of me (why wouldn't they be, I'm the only one of their children with gainful employment). Except that coming out didn't do what it should have. We can't talk about things, the real things. They have this perception that I must be so dreadfully unhappy because I tell them about what an uphill battle work is, or how high this bill was or that bill was. When they hear good things it's well I saved this, got to go here, got to do this. They have stopped asking "With who?". What kind of relationship is that? I'm angry at myself and angry at them, because they won't make it easy on me. You see part of the reason I'm mad is their fault, but I'm beginning to realize that a lot of it is mine, because coming out isn't winning the war. Coming out is the declaration, you have to fight to be free.
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