Some of us come out early on and some of us come out later on. No matter what the case, you're not really out until you're honest with the people that are closest to you. In my case, it only took me 27 years to come to complete terms with myself. There was no sudden explosion of self realisation; no one moment of clarity. It was a very gradual evolution that took many years to come to fruition. These last two years in Florida have seen me happier than I ever have been in my whole life. And it's not because I've found riches, found that "special" person, or caught my "big break". I'm happy simply because things make sense - my life just feels right. Two weeks ago, my mother asked the same question she always asks me while I'm visiting: "So... any nice girls in your life..." While my stock answer has been, "Err... ummm... no... too busy for that." This time, I asked: "Mom, have you heard me talk about ANY girls at all in the last 4 years??" And then the fragile soap-skin bubble that was my mother's vision of her only son popped. It popped with a loud bang that left her ears ringing and her head hurting. And then my friends, we flip through the pages of the highschool textbook on homosexuality and "coming out". We read of the reactions of parents: the fear, the hatred, the sadness, the offers for counseling, the suggestions to "just pretend not to be", etc.... So I won't bore you with that. Yesterday, was Father's day. Twice, I called my parents' house. Twice, I got a busy signal. And so, I didn't speak to my Father; I didn't wish him a "Happy Father's Day". It's just as well, because I don't know if it was a "happy" Father's day. Ironically, Happiness is the whole problem here. Happy is what my parents raised me to be. Happiness is what they taught me to seek out through years of hard work, through suffering, and through endurance of such things. I can't help but smile sometimes as I look out over the audience at work - jumping from instrument to instrument - playing and singing my heart out.... making other people happy. But my happiness is now keeping my parents up at nights crying - as they mourn the death of their only son. I keep thinking, how different the world looks to each of us. It brings me closer to understanding all the violence in the world right now. It's just a tiny piece of the puzzle, but where would the world be now, if a Father and a Son had not assumed that they understood each other?
