My Gay Life

Over the last couple of months I have done a lot of reading and talked to a lot of people that have forced me to start doing some soul searching. Soul searching around questions like why have I not come out to my family yet, why did I move to Colorado and away from all of my family, and what do I wish things would have been like. Over the next several weeks I will be putting my thoughts to paper and posting most of them. I feel that there is a lot that can be learned by sharing my story, both for other gay men and for parents.

I don’t really know where to start so the stories I tell and the conclusions I come to will likely be jumbled and seem not to support each other. I could start with the first things I can remember but starting there will not allow me to come to the conclusions I need to come to. I could start with when I first realized I was gay but starting there omits many important stories. I could start at present and work backward, but that just does not make sense. Instead I think I am going to organize somewhat by theme hopping throughout time with no chronological order of the stories I tell.

I wrote those first two paragraphs hoping that it would provide me inspiration with where to start, but it is still lacking. I think I will start with some information about me that will help you understand how I grew up. You can probably glean this information from other posts on this site, but for those who do not have time to read every post here goes.

I was raised a Catholic in an entirely Catholic family. I do not think I even knew that there was something different than Catholicism until I was in the 3rd grade. I led a very sheltered life being the first child with parents who were afraid that something was going to happen to me. I cannot remember any neighborhood friends before I was in the 2nd grade. All of my friends from school lived in different neighborhoods. I only saw them at school and baseball and soccer.

I was not raised in the best area of town, but in my early years it was not a bad neighborhood. As I grew up the neighborhood gradually declined, but fortunately we moved before it got too bad. When I started 7th grade we moved to a very nice house that was on the edges of the country leaving all of my neighborhood friends behind. They were moving also so even if we stayed they would have been gone. However, in the new neighborhood, or a street really with 10 houses there was no one my age. Therefore through Middle School and High School I was limited to meeting friends at school and begging my parents to let me hang out with them.

I was in Boy Scouts and ran cross country. Both were great opportunities to hang out with other boys, although that is not the real reason I did them. I enjoyed the activities more than sights. When I started both I did not really understand myself.

Upon graduating High School I insisted on getting out of town for school and went to college 2.5 hours away. Far enough that family would not visit at the drop of a hat, but close enough that I could still get a ride home when I wanted. Upon graduating I found a job, spent a year close to home but dreaming about moving to Colorado the entire time. A little over a year after I graduated I picked up roots again and moved to Colorado Springs where I have been ever since. There are times I consider moving again; however, I just bought a house.

I am single but looking. Have not found anyone yet. I have realized I need to come out of my shell. But I have been comfortable in my shell for 26 years so leaving its safety is harder than I would like.