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[NQV] Coming Out discussion (12)
(continued)
29 July, 1992
I have always been self-tortured with doubts and confusion
about my sexuality -- so much so that I've decided that it's
enough for me to bear. Until very recently, I used to have
a very unhappy attitude about everything -- because I have
been fundamentally unhappy with myself. I think I still do
to a certain degree, but less than before, for sure, and
thankfully so. Now, I try to tell myself that I don't care
what is is who I am, where I live, what I do, how people think,
whatever, as long as I can feel at peace and happy with myself.
I used to be tortured by the unknown, and indeed "unthinkable"
possibility of being gay or bi or what not, and I was mortified
to think about it. But now, I say the heck with everything,
since I have to live with myself anyway, why must I make myself
miserable in the first place -- so I no longer worry so much
"what" I might be, and I don't even care to have to "find out"
once and for all. I'll just try to be happy with myself,
whatever might come. The important thing is not to think that
I am unhappy with anything -- of course this is quite impossible
to do, but it is something that we should strive for. Otherwise
we can never be at peace and happy with anything.
Is it a bit sad and frightening to have to say that "I will
probably never let anyone I know [know] about my feelings." ?
That might well be true -- and I often feel that way for sure.
But isn't it a bit sad and frightening to have to shut people
out of your life, especially the people you most care to have
in your life?.... I continue to feel great sadness for something
missing -- for something I'd allow to be missing, against my will.
That's the most helpless and sad feeling to have, the feeling
that you can do nothing but accept the understanding that you
might not be understood, even by your closest family members
and friends -- and ironically, all the more so, because they
all thought that they have always understood you all along.
Yes, it is so much easier to talk to a complete stranger, isn't
it? And that's the tragedy of it all: we can only be closest to
strangers, and we can only be as close with anyone as we are
to strangers. We are all strangers to one another, and we will
forever remain so. That is the sadest thing that I have ever
felt, and that I am coming slowly to accept, not without some
bitterness. I think that I am too emotional, most of the time,
and I long too much for the kind of impossible love and friendship
that can overcome solitude, even though I have steadily become a
prisoner of my own fortified solitude. I feel helpless in my
solitude because I know there will be no one to break it for me,
because I have come slowly to accept that everyone, even the
closest ones, will forever be a stranger who can't help me
overcome that sense of solitude that is eating away at me.
I have grown too discouraged to even bother to ask if people
could ever be more than just strangers -- at best kind strangers
-- to one another. Ah, what a morbid thought. But no, it is no
longer morbid, because I don't expect anything less or more than
that. If it is what has to be, then let it be, and I'll just
have to try to be happy with myself caught in its grip. Am I
playing a losing game here?
(to be continued)
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