In honor of national coming out day.. I decided to share with all of you.. my coming out story.
Growing up in an Italian Catholic conservative family, there were certain things that you just did to make your family happy. It was an assumed thing that I would marry a nice boy, move out of the house, have babies, and live a perfect little life with my husband. I tried that. I tried really hard. And it just didn’t work. Everyday it just was a struggle, and I slowly just became closed off and felt so uncomfortable in my own house, that I would find reasons to never be home. As nice as a guy as he was, and as much as my family didn’t know or couldn’t understand what I was going through and tried to “help me” fix my unhappiness, they just couldn’t. I would cry at night and hope that I’d wake up feeling better the next morning. That was my reality.
One day I decided I was tired, I was tired of living a lie, I was tired of pretending to be somebody and something I was not. Seeing (my now wife) Jen live her truth everyday without reservation was so clear to me that that’s what I wanted. I wanted to be me. Be happy. Be authentic. I’ve always been very lucky to like people for people, not for their gender, it never mattered to me. But as I got older, and had more adult interactions with people, I realized that my scale tipped more one direction, so severely, that I couldn’t deny it anymore.
So one day, after many many months of preparing for this, talking to friends, asking for advice, crying, going through every scenario in my head I could come up with as to how this would all go, I crawled into my Moms bed while she was still sleeping, bawling my eyes out, I finally choked out the words “I’m gay”.
I didn’t know how she was going to react, (although I knew she loved me unconditionally) I didn’t even know how I would feel about saying those words out loud, and yet it was freeing. She told me to stop crying, it was ok, and gave me a big hug. While she wasn’t exactly thrilled that I waited so long to tell her, as any mother would be, she told me she loved me and she was here for me. My Dad, and my Brothers the same. Even when I told my then husband, he was supportive as well.
I’m so lucky.
I’m so lucky to have such a supportive family, and friends that love me unconditionally.
I’m not going to lie and say it was an easy transition because it wasn’t. Not everyone along the way is going to be supportive. There are still some very close minded people who will try to bring you down, especially in the scary world we live in today. I’ve had people tell me I’m a “waste to men” and that “something went wrong somewhere along the line” and many other things. It still hurts, but you have to remind yourself that you’re living for YOU not other people.
I’m not perfect in any stretch of the imagination, but I’m perfectly me. And that’s all that matters. 🏳️🌈
