if I feel held back because I’m afraid of who I am

quick note: I wrote this back in 2018. I still love it. If you’ve found it here on my website, I honestly would LOVE to hear from you if you read it!

I was sitting in the passenger seat as my Dad drove me to my best friend’s house. We used to have these wild, co-ed sleepovers at Maddy’s. We’d all sleep in the basement, a dog pile of adolescent hormones tangled up in sheets and the spring awakenings of sexual desire. The girls would encourage me to fondle their breasts. I’m not really sure why they did, or why I did it, but I did, and it was fun. I felt special. By this time, they were all in on the secret that was no longer much of a secret. I was gay. Out, and seemingly proud.

But my parents—they still “didn’t know.” As Dad was driving me down the impossibly winding road to Maddy’s, the bare trees of the suburban wintered woods swayed, their tall darkness looming over, peering into, my most protected secret. 

A week before, on another car ride, I had asked my parents if I could get an earring on top of my left ear. I pinched the top of it, as I looked into the rearview from the backseat, my palms sweating faintly, my chest locked in its consistently overeager upward lift. My mom was firm. “When you’re 18, you can do whatever you want.” I bit my tongue, crossed my arms, and sank into the seat. I knew there was no compromise on this one. 

But as the week drove on, I couldn’t let it go. On the way to Maddy’s with my dad, I asked why. My dad fumbles over his words. To this day, he stutters notably when he gets uncomfortable. 

“Well, when—I mean, when I was in my 20s, on tour, there was this, this guy, on a bus. He came up to me and said,” he raised his voice and lisped, “‘Hey honey, you’re kinda cute. Can I sit here?’” He crinkled his nose like he just smelt a heap of trash. “I don’t know, it just—it skeeved me out.”

He dropped me off in the culdesac. As he drove away, I looked up. The trees were bigger now, their gaze from atop their mighty, tangled sway was taunting me. Mocking me.
 

...

12 years later. 

70 and sunny. Walking down Magazine street in New Orleans, I was thrifting with Lillian. We go back to those sloppy basement nights in the cul de sac, and had just come down to surprise Maddy; she created a theatre company, produced, and just starred in its first play. The two of them recently ended six and nine year relationships, I was single (as is usually the case), and we were finding solace in the deep friendship the three of us share. We’re like family. Lilian and I were traipsing down the street under a blue sky, inspired by Maddy’s absurd display of bravery. I was grounded and clear.

I’ve been saying I want to dress differently for a while. More specifically, more queer. There’s something that feels undone, unsaid. A fire is burning I haven’t quite let roar. There’s an expression of me that I’ve felt, somehow, clamped down on.

I’d mentioned wanting a piercing a couple of times. Lillian turned to me. She has this softly conniving, ethereally inspiring way to her.

“Why don’t you get that piercing now?"
“Like, right now?”
“Yeah. Like, now. I’ll find us a shop.”

She googled, I yelped. There was a parlor 2 blocks down, and the reviews seemed decent enough. 

As I opened the door to the shop, I let out a squeal. My heart was racing, my chest was tight. I had this half-grin half-grimace plastered onto my face. That night in the car was flashing in front of everything I saw. Those words, that skeeved look. My dad not seeing me for me. Not accepting me. My dad, consciously or not, denying who I was.

I walked up to the piercing table, sat, and confidently spewed, “this is my first piercing and I’m very nervous.” Lillian snickered. She admires my honesty. It’s always been my favorite quality about myself. My ability to look someone straight in the eye, and speak what’s on my mind with clarity and openness. My unwitting desire to find out who I am, and shout it from the treetops.

There was a sharp poke. The hoop, finally in, sparkled. I left the shop half-singing, half-crying, hugging Lillian as we walked down the street. I took a video of myself for Instagram, and as I spoke, the pieces of the past continued to pour in; mostly though, those woods… those unforgiving trees. They saw everything, they knew it all. Their silence urged me, their edges egged me on: be fierce in your convictions. 
 

***

When Lillian turned to me and said, “why not?” I realized I was holding back, hiding, afraid of who I was. I realized it was time to jump under the fucking gun and get the damn piercing. 

I’ve been working for years to peel back the layers of shame. Years in therapy, hour upon painstaking hour of sitting on meditation cushions, going home for arguments with Dad, tears alone, tears in community, ecstatic self-discovery excursions across Europe, in Tel Aviv, California, Fire Island, New York… 

This isn’t the end of the process. This is yet another layer of shame peeled away. This is me, unabashedly claiming who I am. Again. And I will need to do this, again and again. I’m sure it mellows with time, but I know it never ends.

And that’s why I’m looking at you. That’s why I’m writing this. 

Because wherever you are on your path, however many years you’ve spent sifting, working through your shit, those trees, those naked, omnipresent trees, are watching you. They know. They’re asking you to climb up onto that piercing table, again. Their leafless branches are whispering: 

there’s another piece of jewelry,
a triumphant proclamation of who you are,
waiting to be fastened to your ear. 

Go.

Put on
your badge

of honor.