A Second Coming
Coming out - again
A couple of years ago, after much agonising, I decided to “come out”.
At the time I said:
“I know many of you have had your doubts about me; that you sense something else in my life influences the way I act, think, and write. I know that many of you, despite your best intentions, think the worse of me for the suspicions you may have unconsciously harboured. You may have thought the worse of me for the way you suspect I really am, or you may have thought the worse of me for trying to hide the way I am - either way, the burden has been great and I feel as if I've been living a lie. My close friends and family have long had suspicions, but I have been deceiving even them - my nearest and dearest. And although confessing all may damage my most cherished relationships, I feel as though I need to rebuild relationships anew, without a fault line of deceit running through - a fault line that could crack at any moment and split my life wide open for all to see in circumstances over which I might have no control whatsoever. At least, by owning up now, I am able, to some extent, to choose those circumstances.”
“As you reflect back on the lengths to which I have been going in an effort to hide the unpalatable truth, and perhaps recoil in horror that the person you thought you knew so well could be so duplicitous, I can only ask for your forgiveness and, perhaps, the generous grace of one more chance to be, with you, the person I really am, without any of the baggage associated with living this lie.”
Now, some years later, although many voices spoke out in support then, I find I have simply generated a comfort zone, a supportive community out of which I rarely venture. In a sense I feel I have abandoned a wider community of individuals still afraid to name the beast; to come out themselves.
So may I please, again, offer my profoundest apologies to all my friends and associates, especially my family, for all those years of deceit and subterfuge. May I now again own up, fully and completely and unreservedly, and lay bare the incontestable (and probably genetic, who knows) and no longer secrete-able fact that, yes, I am - a lazy bastard.
And for those of you yet to make the leap; yet to own up to the incontestable; yet to come out yourselves, I would like to welcome you to and encourage you to join and contribute to the supportive community I have found. Please see the link below.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/324418017664031/