50 Days 'Til 50 Day 36--Disappearing Act

50 Days 'Til 50Day 36Disappearing ActI’ve written in this “50” series a few times about how exhilarating, scary, and challenging this has been for me. It has now been almost a week since my last post and although I'm totally ok with this; I entered into a bit of my natural ebb and flow of my life and disappeared for a bit. Of course the usual things in life that happen, having to work, spending some time with new and old friends, locked into the US Open and some insane hours of watch time has definitely chewed into my spare time that I was allocating to write. And lastly for the first time since I started this blog, I actually went back and reread the whole thing from start to finish. Mainly because I didn’t want to repeat the same stories again, forgetting what I’ve already written, and curious to see how this whole process has evolved for me and if anything has drastically changed since turning 50. Well, it hasn’t. I just can’t check the 46-49 year old boxes anymore. Let’s continue.Again, Facebook has connected me with some people from my past and it’s opening up a whole new block of my life that I had quite frankly just disappeared from. This time it’s with a group of students I had attended school with and befriended in Keene, NH. As usual with Facebook, once you’ve befriended one, whole slews of them join on and reappear as if it was just yesterday and not almost 40 years ago. As excited as these cyber reunions make me, this was a pretty sucky time in my life. I'm struggling a bit to put the factual memories together but the feelings are easy to remember so let me see if I can get to those quickly here. We all have a story and my stories are similar to some and completely foreign to others but when that’s all stripped away, it’s the feelings, and how other people made me feel and I them that is what’s most important.Once the hotel had sold when I was about 11, my Mom got a job in Keene, NH. It was only about 40 miles away from Fitzwilliam, but it could have been China for all I was concerned. We all were still a bit stunned from the death of my Father, but she somehow managed to pack us all up in the station wagon and go. She found a house to buy in a good neighborhood that was within walking distance to the schools so both my sister and I could walk and it wouldn’t be that far from her new job. I said goodbye to my charmed life I had known and entered into this strange world of new people, new schools, new surroundings, and a new way of life. I learned pretty early on that I didn’t like change very much. It stresses me out and although my life has been nothing but a series of change, it still stresses me out. Many days it took every bit of courage I had just to get my clothes on and out the door to school. The dreaded new school. It was the end of 5th grade. Most of these kids had started their school journey together from nursery school so entering into junior high school with them as a stranger, would prove to be extremely difficult. I was already disappearing a bit. Turning inward was my escape from life, dreaming, wandering off on my own, just unable to cope and deal with my reality was never an easy thing for me. Now even more unsure of myself and any of these new kids, I struggled to find my way in. I went from a class size of probably 25 to a class size of over 200. I was a stranger in a strange land and it would evolve to get even stranger. Something else was also happening as well…puberty. AGGGHHHH!!! On top of everything else I was now going through my passage into teen-hood. My higher voice had dropped to an almost unrecognizable bass level, hair was growing on all parts of my body where it had never been before, and I started to grow taller. I was always a small, skinny kid. Shrimp I think is what they called me. I also grew over 4 inches in height during this time. Never really a jock or a brain or a popular I didn’t seem to fit in many places. Like most kids of this age I see now, it wasn’t easy for any of us. It always seemed to me to be so much easier for all of them, but I now know it wasn’t. Everyone had his or her strengths and weaknesses. Everyone cringed when it was time to go to gym class, and we all surely had no idea of what life was really like, still shielded by our parents who still bore much of our weight in addition to their own. Having never been a parent but having many friends that are and have been, this is the age they all tell me is the hardest. This coming of age era when our personalities are set, the babies are gone, and the beasts are coming out. My coming of age would also take on new meaning.I now lived with three women. My Mother, her friend Marion, and my sister. Panty hose and bras hanging in the shower were the norm and there wasn’t much “guy” stuff around. I was desperate for the father figure I had recently lost. I would fantasize about having a Dad again. For now at this point in my life I longed for someone to show me how to throw a baseball, and catch it, toughen me up a little, show me how to defend myself. I would go on to blame my Mother for this until the time came when I was given the grace to realize that she did the best she could with what she had to work with. That it wouldn’t have mattered if there were 10 men in my life, I was going to be the way I was no matter what. We had a “gay uncle” of the family who we all knew from Fitzwilliam and who took his winters in Palm Springs, CA. It’s amusing I would be living here now after all these years. My Mom, who intuitively knew from the time I put on her high heels and danced around in them that I wasn’t going to be your normal boy. We didn’t really talk about it much but it was becoming apparent as I slammed into puberty that maybe a gay male figure in my life would do me some good. I couldn’t talk to my Mom about how I was feeling. I always thought this would be the worst thing ever. I thought she would be ashamed of me, hating me even more than I hated myself right then. I couldn’t bear to tell her of some of the things that happened to me during my school days let alone tell her I thought I was starting to become attracted to men. Keene, NH was most definitely not the place to be gay either. Although I barely knew what being gay meant or was for me, just being different was a death sentence. Every day I would have to take the onslaught of abuse at school from the bullies. The name-calling was the easiest part. It was the physical abuse that shook me to my core the most. Just walking down the hallway and getting punched in the head for no reason was probably one of the worst. I would scale the hallways ducking into a room if I saw one of my tormentors coming my way. I would have to duck walking into the school as these bullies would fling their lit cigarette butts at me, always seeming to make contact with my face or clothing, burning me. One night I was in the downtown part of Keene at a pizza place with one of my few friends and this group of guys ended up chasing me, knives in their hands, almost 2 miles away to the back of my house. I would have to sit in the bushes crying for an hour before I could even breath normally and walk into my house and face my Mom. Like most Moms’ she knew something was up. She loaded me onto a plane one Christmas break and off I went to California to stay with my “uncle”. It was amazing. He took me to amusement parks, to his favorite places in Hollywood, introduced me to his much older gay friends. Even though I was only 14 I didn’t want to leave. I saw for the first time that there were people out there who felt as I did. They didn’t judge me or want to burn me with cigarettes just for fun. They were so loving toward me and it was at this moment I knew. I knew that I was a gay man and that it was ok. I mustered up all the courage I had to tell my uncle that I thought I might be gay. We spoke for hours and all he did was be himself. He didn’t have any sage words of advice but just to tell me that it was ok, that I wasn’t alone, and that it would all work out for me.His phone call to my Mom beat my plane ride home so naturally when she picked me up at the airport she grabbed me, looked me in the eyes, tears down her face and told me, “Josh, I don’t care what or who you are, just be yourself, be honest and know I will always love you.” Of course I could hear her telling me this but I was still so afraid, still so terrified to tell her of my attackers that it seemed to just flow in one ear and out the next. I couldn’t stand the thought of telling my parent that I couldn’t defend or knew how to defend myself. Of course it was amazing to have a parent that would say those things to their child, but I still wanted to disappear. I still would have to go face the attacks every day at school and I would still have to try and find my voice somewhere in all this chaos. I was alone and I felt it. The pain was bad, the pain was real, and not having anyone to talk to you about it was excruciating. I never thought of suicide and being a dreamer probably saved me from that. I had more the dreams of revenge, of burning the school down or blowing up their cars while they were in it. Then I saw the movie “Heathers” and I was glad I didn’t choose that route either. This would continue on for a few years until a miracle happened one day. My Mom’s current relationship was coming to an end, she was desperate to find deliverance for me, and she had met someone that would change our lives forever. She met her life partner, Katherine. She would have to tell you exactly how they met but none of us would have any idea of what this woman would become to us in our lives, let alone my own salvation. It was quickly decided that we would move. To this day I'm not 100% sure if we moved for me or for my Mom. I think it was a bit of both. This angel of a woman took us into her house in Durham NH, home to the University of New Hampshire. It was a small town but extremely liberal due to the University. Although I was already off like a thief in the night and breaking every rule there was to break and then breaking them again, I felt free. Yes I had to take the heat of being the new kid in school again and the new gay kid at that, but I tell you, I was only in school with these men and women for 2 years and it was as if I had known them all for my entire 12 years. I was still on my path to out of control land, but I was free, I didn’t want to disappear as much anymore, I didn’t look over my shoulder anymore when I walked down the street. I wasn’t completely out of the closet yet, but I had one foot out and that was enough for me.So I still want to disappear sometimes. I still get overwhelmed by life on life’s terms. I just don’t do it for as long anymore. For I learn each day more and more about myself through all of you. I learn what works for me in my life by observing what I see working for you in yours. I guess I'm still that impressionable little boy I have always been. You have taught me how to parent myself. You’ve taught me how to be tougher, not to sweat the small stuff, and surround myself with people who get me, love and support me, and show me the way. I need you in my life whether I tell you each day or not. You are my lifeline, all of you. When people disappear out of your life, go find them. Call us out when we’ve been in hiding too long. You don’t know how many times a little pop up message on my computer, a text, or a smile from you whether you’re on my street or across the country have helped me. We need each other in this life I trust. Yes, its not always pretty and tied up with a attractive little bow but I think that’s what makes most of us interesting. Our different similarities. Our willingness to share openly and honestly with each other. Nobody in my life today knows what’s happening inside my head unless I share it with them. None of my friends (ok, except for one) in this lifetime have been a mind reader. I have to be willing to open up and share what’s on my mind. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The next time someone disappears out of your life, look him or her up, be a pain in their ass, and call them out of hiding. The next time you just happen to come across someone on Facebook you haven’t heard from in 25 years, say hello. Take a minute to tell them how wonderful it is to see and hear from them. For this one random, out of the blue person may end up being your salvation...and you just might be theirs.jf