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Coming Out

or years before I came out I
was sure that if and when I
e\ er did. friends and family

would retreat from me. forever. in
disgust. The sheer force of the
merit. I foresaw. would he suffi-
cient to blow the roof clean offof
our house. Neither happened. For
me coming out is as it has always
been: iiniicliintictic. une\pectedl_\
llllL'\ entful.

l:\er_\ openly gay man
knows that coining out isn‘t just a
one-tiiiie (>Lslll'l’CnL‘L‘. You ha\e to
do it (n er and o\ er again: every
tune you IHLC the prospect of a new
frlL'll(I\hl[1. change Jobs. encounter
a long-lost rel.'iti\e. tell ;i niece or
nephew “old enough to know or
ateoinpiiny your psinner to a ined-
ical .'ippointmeiit.

Ilut. y-lint is supposed to
happen \I. hen you tell someone
you're g.'i_\ '

The first faintly member
I confided iti was my older sister.
We were sitting at the kitchen
table She stiffened and paled diir-
ing the agoni/iiig length of time I

   

dercd somebody!"

I was amazed that my
sister thought me capable of mur-
der and equally amazed that my
disclosure had not fazed her in the
least. If she knew. or thought she
knew. why hadn‘t she ever said
anything to me.‘ I had squandered
months of adrenaline preparing to
unhurden my selfof my big. horri-
hle secret. but all the time she
knew:

What's supposed to hap-
pen xi hen you tell someone you're

what's supposed to happen
when you tell someone

took to prepare her. I-’iii.'illy. I hlun-
ed it out. Her hand llevs to her
chest; her hreaitliiiig resumed; \'oIor
returned to her cheeks. “Jesus
(‘l1ristl" she shrieked. “I thought
you were going to tell me you mur-

you're gay?

gay?

Months later I felt pre-
pared to tell my mother. We were
in the living room. I said. "Ma. I
have something to tell you: I'm
guy." The eo-author of my life
grew silent and got a far away look

out in the mountains

in her eyes.

“When I was a girl." she
began quietly. “I had a crush on
one of my teachers." I thought I
grasped her meaning but waited a
long time before asking cautiously.
"Was your teacher a female?"
“Yes.“ my mother replied. I was
dumbstruck. When I recovered I
asked. “So. what did you do?“ I
figured we were in for a very long
talk: but as the question was leav-
ing my lips she was out of her
chair and on her way to the
kitchen. She shrugged and said
over her shoulder. "I grew up and
married your father. Do you want a
cup of coffee?’

Whats supposed to hap-
pen when you tell someone you’re
28>“?

I recently attended a
new-teacher seminar at my school.
For an icebreaker participants were
asked to divide into groups and
share something we believed made
us unique from the others in our
group. Nobody in our foursome
seemed eager to go first so finally I
said. “All right. I‘ll go." These
days. I am committed to being out
at work. too. so once again I braced
myself and declared. “I live in a
small town with my same-sex pan-
ner and our dogs and cat.“ Then I
held my breath and waited.

“That's not unique." one
quick-thinking colleague shot back.
"I have a cat.“ V

Tom Ziniii is (1 special education
I(’(I(‘/l(’f. He lives in wexrerii MA
with his partner. Doug.

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