Ex-Kalibur

At the end of grade school, I never really thought about my sexuality, but I was certain that in some way I was different than the others. Come high school, my grandparents sent me to an all-boys Catholic private school. The school was known, in part, for its athletics program, and I could in no way relate. It was at this time that I started to realize I was gay, as on a few occasions I developed crushes on a few classmates, but they dissipated shortly. I became hyper-aware of my mannerisms and speech, and did everything I could to act straight. Given my school environment, and their view on homosexuality, nothing scared me more than someone finding out. Over time, I felt that I was sent to this school in attempt to “fix something that was broken”, and I started to resent my family. I reasoned that the simplest way to avoid being outed was to avoid talking to people, or making friends. I continued this isolation until my final year.

It was then that I met one of my best friends at the time, and as luck would have it, I developed a crush on him. Knowing that this was not a good thing, I tried to forget it, and acted as if nothing happened. However, you can only bottle things up for so long. As the end of the year neared, I was getting extreme anxiety attacks that were becoming more and more self-destructive. I knew that I physically couldn’t not let this continue for much longer.

My friend noticed that not everything was fine with me, and I couldn’t muster the courage to tell him right there on the spot. So instead, I told him I would tell him in time. My senior year culminated in retreat where we could have one last moment of bonding before doing our separate ways. One of the days during the trip, my friend asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I knew this was as good a moment as any to tell him, so I agreed. After a little beating around the bush, I eventually told him I was gay, and that I liked him... a lot, but at the same time I understood that he was straight and so on. He said he was perfectly fine with that, and we hugged it out and everything was fine for awhile.

I don’t know why, but this was my brain completely stopped working. At the time, for some reason, I felt that he was ignoring me, but looking back I knew nothing had changed. For some reason, I felt betrayed. I had poured out my most personal, tightest-held secret, and he said nothing. Looking back at it now, it still doesn’t make sense. And then, just like that, high school was over and we have barely talked since.

I lost trust in people.

I became depressed as I started university in Engineering. I didn’t talk. At all. To anyone. I tried not to make friends because I "knew” I couldn’t trust them. Before long, my first year was over, and I realized I hated what I was studying, so I decided to transfer to Computer Science. Over time my feelings of “betrayal” faded, but I kept myself in forced isolation in attempt to never make friends, fall in love, and have to come out again.

Two and a half semesters later (a quarter through second year), I reflected on my coming out in high school, and I realized how melodramatic I was being. My friend had not betrayed me, in fact, he did exactly what I had originally hoped for; he didn’t change. It suddenly dawned on me just how destructive my behaviour was. I was wasting my time, letting countless experiences pass me by. It wasn’t until a group assignment forced me to venture out of my comfort zone--to trust people again--and make friends. This is how I met my current group of friends--five of simultaneously the most amazing and infuriating people I know, and I love them.

However, just as before, I ended up falling in love with one of them. Unlike before, this was no simple crush. I loved everything about him; his personality, we shared a lot of common interests (and he was pretty good looking as well). This time however, I knew how to keep my head level. I told myself endlessly to only do stuff with him cause I wanted to be friends, and if I felt that if I was doing something for any other reason, then I wouldn’t do it. We became almost inseparable. We sat together in class, worked together on homework and assignments, ate together during lunch/dinner, and bused together everyday. We spent nearly 80% of our time together (no exaggeration).

As we got to know each other he told me he had dyslexia, and unlike one of my other friends who thought this was extremely funny, I tried to be as supportive as I could. At his request, I would proofread his writing, and read things he couldn’t. I also learned that he was struggling with his parents’ divorce. I let him know that if he needs anything that he can rely on me for support, and that’s what I plan on doing.

As summer approached, we decided to put aside a few days each week to try to build ourselves a portfolio of apps we had programmed. In the end we didn’t get much done, but we did get pretty close. We even went to watch a couple of movies, which was definitely out of my comfort zone. All this time I started to get the feeling that he knew I was gay, but not in an awkward way. It was almost like he was saying “It’s okay, you can tell me anything”.

I trusted him more than anyone.

In the middle of the summer, my mother had her surgery. The short story is that she had two of her heart valves replaced due to a pre-existing condition. I was volunteered to take her place and look after the house (cooking, cleaning, and all). However, one day she had a TIA (transient ischemic attack) ie a mini stroke. She had forgotten almost all of the summer and had absolutely no short-term memory. She would ask a question, and we would answer, only for her to ask it again a moment later. I felt that this was going to be a precedent for the future.

I still had to look after the house, and I knew in this state I wouldn’t be able to do it alone. I told him what had happened, and he offered to be at my side as soon as he could. With his help, I managed to get done what I needed, and with a few hours of video games, and a really good heart-to-heart, things were almost back to normal. Soon after we learned that my mother’s TIA was just some sort of freak occurrence and should never happen again.

As classes geared up to start again, I started feeling the same anxiety I felt leading up to the first time I came out. 

Nothing scared me more than losing him as I had thought I lost my friend in high school. Not heights or falling, not spiders or sharks, not dying, but losing my closest friend because of something I can’t change--from being alone again.

As with the year before we continued to spend all our available time together. One weekend he told me his parents were out of the city, and invited me to stay and play some video games. Definitely out of my comfort zone, but as before something about him was telling me “Everything will be fine”. So I decided to go.

We played through the night and come dawn we were so tired we were almost delirious. So at 8am we ended up falling asleep together on his couch, and we thought nothing of it.

All this time, I was making a big deal about keeping this huge part of myself secret, hidden away from even my closest friends. So I thought to myself if I can trust my life with him, why can’t I trust him with this? So I decided right there that I would tell him.

Two days later, despite my best efforts I couldn’t tell him in person (I also felt that it would be too awkward for him), so I did it over Facebook. To my surprise, he was entirely supportive. In fact he said he was glad that I was comfortable enough around him to come out to him. He even joked that if circumstances were different we would probably be a couple. The only thing I have yet to figure out is if he feels like I’m smothering him.

Since then, we’re actually spending more time together than ever. I’ve started going to the gym with him, he’s started studying more with me, we’re going out for drinks more often, and we’ve started a volleyball team, and having tonnes of fun.

I’m completely happy with where our relationship is. I no longer desire being anything more than amazing friends that are always ready to support each other when we need it.

In the larger scope of things, I’m still not comfortable coming out to my family, but in time I’ll come out to the rest of my friends. I’ve learned that true friends will support you, and anyone else is not worth a second thought. I’ve learned that getting at least a little out of your comfort zone opens you up to experiencing a great many things. I learned that this one, small part of myself that I had devoted to much time to hiding was preventing me from growing up.

So lately, I’ve had a lot of things weighing down on me. But for the most part, they’ve been manageable.

The first has been happening pretty much in the background for the last 4 or so years, and is usually manageable. After a certain event near the end of Grade 12, I realized that being gay made making guy friends really hard. When I started University I pledged to not make friends to avoid what happened then. Come second year, I realized I couldn’t live that way, and I made friends with a great group of guys. Because our schedules were the same, we spent around 50h a week together. In the end, I formed a really close friendship with one of them, even now during summer break we spend lots of time together (unlike with the others) and you probably know where this is going. I don’t know if I should tell him and risk losing him as a friend, or not and live in a bubble. In the end, its tearing me apart--I don’t know what to do.

The other thing is by far the hardest, and is really breaking me at the moment--I’m currently completely non-functional. My mother just had a surgery that replaced two of her heart valves with titanium ones. Because of this, she’s on a blood-thinner. That in and of itself was a tough ordeal, but 11 days later, after showing signs of getting better, today I got terrible news from the doctors. They said that at some point last night, she woke up completely disoriented and confused, and didn’t know where she was. Ultimately, she had a minor stroke.

She had completely lost the last two weeks (since the day of the surgery), despite her being awake and aware the entire time, and the majority of the month of June. When I was talking with her, she would repeatedly ask when the surgery was (11 days ago), why was she in the hospital (heart valve replacement), what we were doing at home (she had delegated me to cook and clean, my brother to do dishes, and my dad to do laundry), what we were eating (we had prepared a tonne of food the week before with her). Then, 5 minutes later, she would ask the same questions all over again.

So far, she is almost completely unable to generate new memories, however this is only the first day. Hopefully it will get better, and this isn’t setting a precedent for things to come.