Today Gabby will tell her story. When she was 15 she told her parents she was gay.
Here’s how the story goes.
“So, before coming out as gay, I had to find out I was. It’s something you have to discover, like change in the couch. Eventually after reaching around enough crevices, you find gold.
It’d be nice if they could tell you on your birth certificate, “this ones gonna like woman!”. And then again at bowling. Now, the two least attractive things to watch are eating, and bowling, so when I had these feelings it was pretty obvious to me what was up.
Now fast forward 3 months of breaking up with my boyfriend and watching “But I’m a Cheerleader” 100 times for comfort, and finally I feel like I can settle with the fact that this is just the way I am. Like hair color, or skin color, or eye color, or… well I can only think of color things but you get the point.
My family is sitting at the dinner, we’ve got mashed potatoes, refried beans, apple sauce, other varieties of gross mush. We just finished saying grace, and are now eating. She says it was good, and talks about how this one woman there named Cathy is a complete you-know-what and blah blah blah. Then my Mom asks how my Dad’s work was, and he says it was good despite the fact that his boss is a total you-know-what and blah blah blah. Sometimes I thought they had a script. Sometimes I crossed my fingers, hoping someone from behind an invisible camera would yell “cut!” and then they’d become more interesting after. It, uh, didn’t happen, I wasn’t Truman Burbank.
Then, they asked me how I’ve been, what’s new, how’s school, blah blah blah. I tell them I’m a lesbian. There’s a moment of silence. Then, they burst into laughter.
This made me feel like a you-know-what.
And I yelled about how serious I was. They laughed and laughed. Then they finished eating. I went to my room upset, and looked up at my Smashing Pumpkins calendar. Then it all made sense. The date was April 1st. It was April Fools.
So the next day I told them again, clarifying that I forgot it was April Fools. They said the joke was getting old. I said it wasn’t a joke, and then their faces changed. Now it looked like they were getting old.
Dad got quiet and walked away, he started to do dishes, most likely to distract himself and figure things out.She asked me how I knew, if it could change, would she still get grandchildren, was I still religious, what she would tell the other ladies in her tea club, and so on. I answered very eloquently with a shoulder shrug.
Dad finished washing dishes. Mom had cleaned the house earlier, so there wasn’t another distraction available in that department. In hindsight, maybe Mom would have appreciated it if I came out on a dirtier day.
Then he turned to me, and said, “we still love you”.
Mom’s confusions melted away, she looked to me and said, “yes, we still love you”. Then I said, “April Fools!”
Just kidding. I didn’t say that.
It went good, everything turned out okay. It was still hard on them to get used to, and I know that for a lot of other kids it could have went worse. They could’ve made me take shock therapy or made me stop playing soccer. We run around getting whistled at by another woman all day, while punishing a ball. Love it.
In fact, everything turned out so good that last week I got married to a woman. Both my parents happily attended. Oh, and neither of them thought it was a prank”.
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