Last week I read a post in the gay bloggernacle that haunted me. It was written with love, eloquence and sincerity and reflected the complexity and depth of human relationships. As I read it, I felt fear. I felt fear I might become a lonely old gay man, alienated from his former wife and children and longing for the comfort of home and family.
I think it is probably impossible for a gay Mormon man not to struggle with fear of this sort. We hear from church leaders and fellow saints that true happiness if found only by following a straight and narrow path, and it is abundantly clear for Latter-day Saints that a homosexual life lies outside of that path. We are often told that the "lifestyle" is hedonistic and selfish. We hear this even from other gay Mormons, who convince themselves that living a gay life would be merely giving in to physical desires and temptations. Even now, I will admit, thoughts similar to these creep into my head from time to time, especially now as my wife and I continue the process of separation.
Which is why I am using this space on my blog to declare that my destiny need not be unhappiness or misery or alienation from my family even if I chose a gay life, a life more authentic for me, a homosexual man. It need not be what others tell me it might or should be. I need not look to the experiences of other gay married men and think that it is directly applicable to me. My destiny is mine to create. My role as a father--and, God willing, a grandfather--is mine to fulfill. For me and my family, what has made all the difference is honesty and understanding. I do not make the choices I make in a vacuum without consideration of needs and wants of my family, including my wife.
This is not an easy path. For many, it may well be the wrong path. But I am in control of my life, and am in the best position to know what will bring happiness to me and my family. I choose to accept myself, proudly and happily, as gay and to start life anew as a gay man. And how blessed I am to have two children who will remain the central focus of my life and a wife who has supported me on this journey and accepted the new possibilities it has opened up for her and our family.
3 comments:
Reminds me of Henley's Invictus:
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I admire what you are doing with your life, hurricane. I wonder, though, whether your expectations for your future relationships with your children, for example, are not higher than realistic considering that such relationships require effort by two parties and are therefore outside your complete control. Not to be a naysayer, but something your post provoked in my mind.
L,
I can only control my part in this, you're right. But I am determined to do everything I can to do right by those I love. If that makes me naieve or unrealistic, I can live with that. Better than the alternative.
I wonder where your wife's destiny will lead her? You are already calling her your "former" wife or WINO. To be called former would be excruciatingly painful to me. Almost like "used up, yesterday's news." It is clear that you love her, but I don't hear either of you affirming that her future is uncertain and that it was YOU who threw her into that whirling dervish. Maybe you have and I just haven't seen it. But, although I am not a woman or a wife, I know how I feel just reading about her. It is clear the love you have for her, but have you acknowledged, truly acknowledged, what all of this has done to HER soul? How this may have changed her, practicaly down to her DNA? I hope, and I think you would, that if the situation were reversed that you would uphold her the way she has upheld you. We men, gay and straight, could learn a lot from the quiet strength of women. KK is a goddess. She may as well enjoy that earthly title now, as her choices have precluded such for her eternity.
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