Movie Review: Make the Yuletide Gay

One of the local gay couple does a gay movie viewing once a month or so. Last night they showed Make The Yuletide Gay. It is the story of a very openly gay college student who goes home for Christmas but he is not out to his parents. His boyfriend who was supposed to go to his own home for Christmas suddenly has a change in plans and surprises the first guy by showing up unexpectedly and the hilarity ensues.

I liked the movie, the acting is kind of bad, I have to admit that the mom was a bit too over the edge and the euphemisms were all over the place, but overall it was a good show. The main actor says somewhere in there that he worked with a lot of LGBT kids and some very conservative parents were more than accepting of their gay kids while very liberal parents completely rejected their kids--all great points. His main worry is that his parents might cut him completely off from their lives.

How many of us have worried about parents and relatives or those close to us not being accepting? I don't really remember having that angst while I was in my late teens or early 20's because frankly, I hadn't even accepted the possibility that I was gay; but seeing how other friends were being treated even by the simple grapevine rumor that they were gay gave me lots to worry about. We had an informal discussion about the experiences of some of the guys who were attending. Some did talk about the horror stories from parents after attempting to come out at young ages and at other stages in life but some relatives (sometimes in unexpected places) were the most accepting, even within very conservative LDS circles.

I've mentioned in the past that I'm a slow learner and I should have probably learned my lessons in acceptance, self awareness and confidence earlier in life, but one of the advantages I had by waiting to come out much later was that I was very much prepared to deal with the fact that some of my family might not be as accepting and in essence developed somewhat of a thick skin. Needless to say I admire all the young ones who have had enough of that self-awareness and are comfortable enough to come out while young and have all the open possibilities of life. In reality most of my immediate family have been accepting---sure none of them have offered to carry rainbow flags at the next pride parade but have been very supportive and accepting nonetheless. I am also glad that being gay is way more mainstream than it was say even 10-20 years ago. I'm glad that at least the media has contributed in part with shows like Will & Grace, Glee, Brothers & Sisters and my latest favorite show Modern Family.

So if you're looking for a movie to put on your Netflix queue, I recommend it, maybe 2.5 thumbs up, but don't expect too much!! :-)

Coming out party

I got on the phone this morning to talk to some of my female relatives in another state to wish them happy mother's day. I talked to two of my sisters whom I had not come out to officially--I know they had heard about me, one of them denied it (she is probably the most straight-forward LDS faithful in the family)--but oh well. I still felt impressed to let them know about me, that I wasn't about to force anyone into accepting anything, just wanted them to know what's going on.

The responses were basically that nothing has changed, their love and respect remains the same. I then called the mother of my best friend growing up. Funny how I can go for months not talking to her and the minute I call her it is like we just chatted yesterday. She had only heard through the grapevine that I had separated and I also felt the need to give her the full story. She has a gay son so she started crying, told me that she felt bad because of the hard life I was going to be facing, but at the same time she also congratulated me on being brave enough to take this step.

By now all but one of my siblings know about me by me telling them directly. The only one missing is my oldest one (no answer, no voicemail option) but I know this one knows through my mother. Their overall responses have been of love. My very LDS sister--I had been meaning to talk to her forever about this, the words on the tip of my tongue but they just wouldn't come out, so I had to gather all my strength to just say it. She though about it for a second and then said that she was glad that being gay nowadays is not the ugly stigma that it used to be thanks to it being so much in the limelight and people are more and more used to it. I know she probably had lots of things racing through her mind, but I'm glad she probably bit her tongue and instead just voiced her unconditional love over and over. It felt great to finally get this out in the open with some of them.

I can't believe how emotionally charged I felt after this morning---lately seems that just about anything brings out the waterworks, so much for being Mr Control Freak, which is how I had always thought of myself, ha!

All in all, lots accomplished today, it was a good day!

Worlds collide

Last time I posted I wrote about trying to figure out how to bled my extreme opposite worlds together (ex & kids + boyfriend). I was starting to feel the pressure of the two coming together in a very uncomfortable way and I wasn't quite prepared for that to happen.

Well last night they did. My ex and kids know I'm dating someone now. Not very much more than that. It was high tension all around, it was kind of funny but it was also horrifying. It took me a while to calm down from this. I suppose there was no way for this to ever happen in a perfect way, with a spot-on speech as I pictured it, but I'm glad it is finally out in the open, the last thing I wanted when I came out as a Gay man was to live double lives and that was starting to really get heavy on me.

I know I have huge things to overcome, I can't just expect people to suddenly agree to have Sunday dinners, walks in the park and be--what's the term? "Facebook Official" ?!?!?? LOL

Still there's a sense of relief that this has happened, now I can move on from that stress. That's about the only way I can cope with it and look forward to the rest.

Oh the adventures!!!

Coming Out At Work

Don't worry, I didn't send a universal email announcing it to everyone :-)

I had written before about talking two of the 'family' that I had been affraid to come out in the past. I had talked to one of them after running into him at the gay bar, his response was very positive and supportive, nothing unexpected. The other one is a peer (we do the same job) and he had been transferred out to another office, but was working in the same building last week. I asked him for some 1 on 1 time and then went on to explain what is going on. I had possibly suspected that one of the people that I had already told may have talked to him, but to my surprise none of them had (which is great to count on people like that, rather than worry about grapevine rumors--even if they are true--being spread all around).

So after I came out to this peer he told me that he had suspected it in the past, but since I was married and had children and all, didn't honestly give it too much thought. He went on to tell me that he was there to support, help and do whatever he could to make things easier for me, that my personal business were not that of the entire office/organization and that he would maintain the same level of respect. Not bad, not bad at all.

So turns out that the ones I was affraid to talk to: I had nothing to fear...

The workers in my team did tell me about one of their suspicions, though: They see me texting someone and smiling at times and they all think I have a girfriend they think I'm dating; I told them I'm pleading the 5th on that one...if they only knew!!! :-)