Several years ago, I started a WordPress site in the wee hours of the morning. I had spent the evening crying, alone in my apartment, and for the first time in years, I felt like I needed to write. I had recently begun deconstructing my faith, and that led to me being honest with myself about a lot of things I had kept hidden for decades. Today, I’m sharing the only writing I ever published on that site exactly as it was published in that moment. In spite of all of the edits I would like to make, I think it’s important to share it the way I wrote it that night, shaped by the fear, grief, and pain I was feeling so strongly in the moment.

Below the original text, I’ve shared a little snippet of some of the fiction that this experience has inspired. It’s a very rough draft, and it’s only a tiny piece of what I’ve written so far, but I am still excited to share it.

If you are reading this from the metaphorical closet, I understand a lot of what you are going through, and I hope reading this makes you feel a little less alone. Please keep going.

Reaching Out

After spending nearly 3 decades of my life oblivious to a huge part of my identity, I “found myself.”  Since I never went looking for myself, it was more like that self found me.  I spent most of my adolescence and early adulthood trying to find God and believing that it was selfish and worldly to focus on yourself.  In spite of my efforts to focus on God and others, I still managed to live a significantly self centered life.  I have often wondered what it’s like to find yourself on a backpacking trip to Europe, or after years of pouring yourself into journals.  Maybe I will experience something similar to this one day.  But until then, what I know for myself is that when the identity I never acknowledged clawed its way out of the shallow grave I didn’t remember digging and dragged its rotting corpse to my door, it was a lot more like The Walking Dead than Eat, Pray, Love.  “Life shattering” seems like the most accurate description.  I didn’t sleep.  I had nightmares (for the first time since I was a child) about hell.  I questioned just about everything I had ever once taken for granted as truth.  Not just the big questions about heaven, hell, God, and purpose, but the small stuff as well.  Did I really like Disney movies as much as I thought I did?  Had I ever been honest with anyone about anything?

Discovering you are gay after spending your life in a family, community, and part of the country where the majority considers homosexuality to be on the same level as murder and pedophilia is an experience I would not wish on anyone. On any given day, navigating this situation brings up emotions that run the gamut from rage and anxiety to elation and joy. There are times when I feel as though the rotting flesh of that buried truth has finally fallen off and revealed the vibrant, authentic self I never let myself know. In other moments, I find myself frantically digging new graves, bashing that truth of myself over the head and covering it with dirt.

5 years after this experience, I don’t really have any answers, and I am not even pretending to offer advice.  I am simply compelled to share my experience, because I know there are so many people in the same closeted gay boat as me.  If you spend your days binding and gagging your true self and locking it in your cellar, I hope you have at least figured out you are not alone in this world.

Supposed Assurance

Every time one of her friends said something like, “I just can’t wait to graduate! I want to travel and spend some time finding myself,” Ceri had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. 

Ceri knew exactly who she was. The Bible was clear about all of humanity, and Ceri—like every other soul on Earth—had been born into a sinful and broken world in need of God’s love and salvation. Seventeen’s personality quizzes couldn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know from scripture. Astrology was obviously a scam; she was nothing like the descriptions of Sagittarius she had read while browsing the shelves of Barnes and Noble. No, Ceri knew that the secret to life was nestled among the pages of the Bible she carried, and she felt pity for her friends who searched in vain for wisdom and guidance in the slick and shiny pages of materialistic magazines.

For years, Ceri chose her faith, and the certainty that came with it, over and over again. She praised God through her fears and worries, and she did her best to chase after God’s plan for her life. When the path she had chosen seemed to reach a roadblock, she would simply pivot, praying for God’s guidance. She didn’t hear the voice of God as clearly as some claimed to, but she read the scriptures, and she trusted that if she sought to honor God, she would make the right choices.

She didn’t finish college, but at 21, she did the next best thing and got married. She and her husband attended church as often as they could, serving in multiple ministries. Ceri’s family wasn’t totally sold on her husband of choice, but he was successful and responsible, and at least she was married. Though her family did their best to hide it, it was impossible to ignore the collective sigh of relief they let out when the engagement was announced. Her lack of enthusiasm for boys and dating had always been a little concerning, but that was a worry of the past.

Ceri’s marriage was a lot like her life leading up to it—she clung to the certainty her faith offered, constantly reminding herself she had nothing to fear as long as she remained committed to her Lord and Savior. But time had taken its toll, and something had begun to grow through the cracks of Ceri’s supposed assurance.