Awakenings

From little Kieran's diary.

January 1, 1980

I'm a little confused about my "sexuality." I am still debating whether I'm gay or not. I get very stimulated by guys and sometimes by girls. if anyone were to find this out I'd be very embarrassed. I wouldn't go proclaiming it, but I'd feel much more comfortable if I knew it, everyone else knew it, and just accepted it. If someone were to ask me if I were, and I could honestly trust them, I think I would tell them.

I wrote those words in my journal at 17, after a long period of soul-searching and agonizing debate. In reality I was never attracted to girls. In earlier journal entries I alluded to my same-sex attraction but was quick to find ways to refute it. Sometimes I even crossed out or whited out any reference to my same-sex attraction.

People close to me know that I've been keeping journals since the age of 13. I kept this particular journal after completing a 3-day retreat called a Christian Awakening. The purpose of the Christian Awakening, modeled after the adult version, Cursillo, is to encourage Catholics to lead a more Christ-like life, which is often made difficult by the pressures of the outside world. The 3 days symbolize the period between Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. At the end of the 3 days a "closing" is held in a church, at which you vow before your family and friends, to promise to lead a better life. The closing marks the start of The Fourth Day--essentially the rest of your life.

I doubt the founders of the Christian Awakening intended it to awaken my true identity, but that's exactly what it did.

I know my struggle for self-acceptance was not unique, but after meeting up with some old friends last night, it became clear to me how far we'd all come and how many obstacles we've had to overcome to get where we are now.

I met up with Joe, my high school speech team coach (who stumbled onto my blog accidentally), and James, a speech team and school mate, for drinks last night at Barrage. We hadn't seen each other in more than 20 years.

Joe was three years ahead of me in school, James two years ahead. Joe was something of a deity among his protégés, having won the National Catholic Forensic League's Grand National Tournament. I always knew that James and Joe were gay, at least in retrospect, and surely they thought the same of me, but at the time we were all clueless. They were campy and witty and even videotaped themselves doing parodies of variety shows and movies, including an all-male version of "All About Eve" (called "All About Steve"). How many 16-year-old straight guys do that sort of thing?

Like Janis Ian, I learned the truth at 17; Joe didn't come out until in his mid-20s and James was in his mid-30s.

Joe observed that his Catholic upbringing was an impediment not so much to achieving success as to feeling he deserved to achieve success. I couldn't agree more. The Church teaches you to, as the William DeVaughn song goes, "be thankful for what you've got."

Gay men of our generation are caught in a sort of limbo. We were post-Stonewall and starting to deal with self-acceptance when the AIDS epidemic struck. Coupled with my Catholic guilt, I think fear of AIDS was a big reason why I didn't have my first male sexual partner until my early 20s. When I later found out that he had died of complications from AIDS, I became even more skittish and reluctant about having sex with men. In the past 25 years I've had to unlearn a lot of hangups that were essentially scared into me at just the time when I needed the opposite to happen.

It seems now both amusing and sad that I would be "embarrassed" by my feelings. I guess I've been out so long and become so comfortable with myself I need to be reminded of the struggle. It's important that young people have positive role models, people who are not ashamed to be themselves. I didn't have such role models until well into my 20s.

The last time I saw Joe or James, I never could have predicted that 20 years later we'd all be sitting in a gay bar in Midtown having a blast as three openly gay men. It was a gratifying evening.