It wasn't always so.

Over a period of fifteen years, I wasted reams of paper with incredibly obscure notes, stories and fragments of diaries that were never finished because I couldn't bring myself to write anything down that would hint that I was gay, and almost nothing made sense with that part left out.

I have at least eight drafts of letters to my parents that say to them "I'm gay," and I never sent any of them.

But if you want to take the real measure of how long and hard it has been to get here, let me tell you about the point from which I started up.

In 1968 I was eighteen years old and I had just met Jim. I came home for the holidays after my first three months at college and I spent Christmas, surrounded by my family, absolutely miserable and no one knew it. Christmas Eve I lay in bed, cold and clammy, thinking again and again: "I am in love with Jim."

I should have been exhilarated, being in love. I wasn't. I couldn't talk about it with anyone and it was the most important thing in my life. That was the hardest part. As far as the world I lived in acknowledged, what I felt didn't exist.

I didn't even know if Jim was gay.

I thought: "What if he is gay? It doesn't really change anything. I can't love another guy.

Besides he probably isn't

And what about later on?

Am I going to spend the rest of my life falling in love and knowing the person I love will never feel the same way about me that I feel about him?"

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