Being Gay Part 3

Moving Out to My Own Closet


So there are three different beliefs in the LGBTQIA+ community, though I have only personally seen it addressed for the LGB parts of the community. Side X is that everything is a sin. Side B is that everything “gay” is outside of God’s will, whether or not it’s in a committed marriage, and Side A, which is that God loves you as you are, and that a committed relationship pleasing to God. I hope I got that right. Please someone correct me if I am wrong.

For a long time after “struggling” I was Side B. That God would allow me to be in a marriage and have someone I could spend the rest of my life with, especially since I was a romantic seemed too good to be true for me. I went from being a romantic to being a cynic when I found out I was gay. I would gag at straight marriages and relationships because I was envious of what they had. I could never have the American dream, and churches always tried hooking up single people. They never had a space for celibate single people or people who were fine with being single for the time being, and I was sick of it. They certainly didn’t have room for a gay man in a Missouri church!

Skipping over lots of mistakes that I might come back to later, I ended up moving to Pennsylvania. A lot more mistakes later, I ended up meeting Paul, who lit up my life every time I saw him. I don’t know what it was about him, but my depression abated just a little bit every time he was around me. I talk about religion a lot because it highly influenced me, but by the time I met Paul, it was giving me PTSD vibes to try to enter a church again. There was a lot of hurt and manipulation that had happened to me in churches, and I wanted to stay as far away from that as possible, and I consciously made a choice that if it was between God or Paul, that I would gladly choose Paul. Paul didn’t have followers who were either condemning me to hell or worse yet I would spend the afterlife with. Paul helped me in the present. He helped me heal the past. He has been helping me draw out my voice and find my identity that was drowned out by so many people in my past. Through years of therapy and an understanding partner who wants to hear my opinion, I am trying to draw boundaries, find injustice in my past and right the wrongs, and remove the people I need to remove to create a less toxic environment.

I never officially moved from Side B to Side A. I’m still wanting to believe in a God that wants what is good for me and loves me for who I am and can forgive me for all my past mistakes, but that does sound too good to be true. But I am trying in small, healthy ways to connect with my inner self and with others first, and with a higher power. I know there is a higher power. I just seek positivity now.

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