Origins...
May. 21st, 2006 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quentincoyote"There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."
-The Book of G'Quon
And now I will tell you a story that, once upon a time... was my story...
Curiously, I have never once told this particular story in the entire life of my journal. Curiously - considering how, for the longest time, it was the only story I ever had to tell.
That time is gone now. It's chains at last broken. But others have lived it, too. Somewhere out there, others are still living it, even now. I am now free. But... I do remember. I must stand upon the rock and reach back... reach back to help those who are still lost at last come into the light. And so I will, one last time... reach back... reach back into...
***
My name is Quentin. I am seventeen years old. I live in a small rural town in NJ, with my parents, my only immediate family. I have lived here now, for about five years, after a life spent moving around constantly with my family while growing up. I am considered intelligent and friendly by most adults, and I have a fair assortment of good friends here now in this place, the longest single stretch hitherto now where we have stayed put in the same place. For being somewhat sensitive, nerdly, and more intellectual than most of my peers, I am one of those kids who one would call 'the outcasts'. I am not popular. I am picked on fairly regularly in fact by that aforementioned crowd, and bullied by all the jocks and the rougher sorts. I have not particularly liked school for most of these past several years, for it is there I must go and be subjected to these sorts of things, at random, unpredictably, so that I am always nervous about it, as I never know when or from where it will come, other than to know that yes, it will come.
Though I am bright, my schoolwork is not the best, for I am constantly distracted from it with thoughts such as the above. I often don't do my homework. For, I prefer just to kind of get through the day as best as I can, and then I'm free. Free to go play and hang out with my several good friends. Free to immerse myself in my video games and science fiction or fantasy books that I love to read, and generally live in the rich fantasy world I have constructed in my mind. A world, wherein I am a light saber wielding super hero, in a place filled with talking animals, and chivalry, and space exploration... I believe that I had elements drawn in there from, let's see... Star Wars, Battle of the Planets, Spell Singer, Leo the Lion, Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and others, The Last Starfighter, Tron, The Yellow Submarine, and of course, pick any given Disney movie out by that time. I had golden eagle wings, could fly, and in addition to superstrength and agility, I had all psi powers, and could shapeshift.
In this world, I was not popular... I was beloved. Adored. I was a hero, a champion of justice and goodness. All evil and injustice in the universe would be swept away by my hand, and the downtrodden would rejoice, and join with us, and become stronger, and our glorious Federation would spread boldly forth into the cosmos.
Why live in the world where there was school and bullies, when I could live in that one, instead? One other thing I had in that world as well - love. Love, in a way that I never had in this, the 'real' world, for, another thing about me, I am gay.
I have known this fact clearly, consciously, since I was twelve years old. When it dawned, when that first realization hit, back then, at twelve, I used to stand in front of the mirror, and mouth the words, looking at myself as I did so. "I am gay. I am a ho-mo-sex-ual". Trying them out, trying to examine their flavor. Pondering what exactly the hell that was supposed to import, anyway. I read that in a book somewhere. The previously quoted phrase, I mean. One that I had managed to steal from the library one day, so that no one could ever know I had checked it out. It was also about a young gay kid, and what he went through in this same kind of discovery. He did that. I started doing it too.
But I'm me. I'm Quentin. So? You're gay. Gay gay gay. You are a ho-mo-sex-ual. Yeah, but so what? What does that mean? How does that make me any different than I was yesterday, before I knew that? When I thought I was straight, whatever the hell that means, just because that's what we're told we are, and what we'll do with our lives? I mean, I don't feel any different. Yes, I know that. But... You're gay. You like other boys. And the world says that changes everything.
Funnily enough, despite what the world said about it, I was still actually very quickly okay with this, ironically thanks to my racist grandmother on my mother's side. (This part of this story, I have told before, and so I will not belabor it here again now.) But, suffice to say that, I knew I was gay, knew that that was okay, but also knew that the world did not, and I could not tell another soul because of what would proably happen to me. And, I also knew that I was very likely the only gay kid around who knew all of these things yet, and who also had the serendipity of experience to be able to possibly handle all this.
At twelve years old, these are the motherfucking thoughts that I have to have rattling around in my head, simply because I have no choice not to. It would be understatement to say that, I had to grow up very quickly...
...
But... Now I am seventeen. All of the above was, and is, true. But, I have made it here thus far, relatively okay. There is a very subtle, but constant, pain in the back of my throat. It is with me, always. Day after day, never ending, never easing, 24/7 for years. Much of the time, I don't notice it and forget about it, because there is never any absence of it to compare anything too. But it is still there. It is the pain of loneliness, from all of that, and also, from all of the bullying. The pain of world-weariness. It is the pain of tears, drawn inward. Drawn back and held close inside of me. So that the world will not know. So that they cannot betray my secrets.
By this time, I have come out to my parents when I was sixteen. A story in it's own right, which could or should be told, but that is not the focus here. I have also come out to my two best friends, Jeff and Michele, a boyfriend-girlfriend couple, who I usually spend most of my time with.
But, even so, despite it all, if you can possibly believe it after all that... I am still, somehow, paradoxically, a happy, more or less, and upbeat person. I can make almost anyone laugh, with a smile, my own booming laugh and one of my jokes.
And now... the stage is set, all of the pieces are in place...
***
It is Senior year. And surprisingly, amazingly, most of this one, and the last, have actually been comparatively good. I started "cooling out" a little bit, somehow. Raising up a bit in that wonderful high school pecking order we all know and love so well. A number of people who have been mean to me for years and years, have actually started talking to me a bit now, and finding me to be an okay guy after all. The throat pain, though not gone, has still relaxed a bit more than it ever has in quite some time. I'm starting to look into and apply to colleges. I'm nervous, but also rather excited by the impending life change, and all the potential possibility.
Health Class rolls around for my turn in it's unit this year. We have one period of gym each day, but, for a couple of months, everyone is rotated around in turns into this, instead. The teacher is Mr. Brown, also one of the regular gym teachers. Last year, it was Driver's Ed. This year, it just so happens to be Sex Education.
Things proceed here uneventfully enough for awhile, though I of course know and am annoyed by the fact that pretty much all of it is not for and is completely useless to me. But whatever, at least I don't have to be in gym. That's where the bullies always have their biggest heydays. My friend Jeff is with me in the class, and sits at the desk next to me.
And then, one day... they get to the part in the book about sexual orientation, or, as you may colloquially know them, gay people. This section is exactly all of one paragraph, in its entirety, from beginning to end. And it states thus: "If you're a boy, just because you may feel attractions for other boys [etc etc. same thing for girls], that does not necessarily mean that you are homosexual.
That's it.
Did you miss it?
Here, go back and read that again, I'll wai... Oh... You're done already.
I am, of course, rather pissed off at this for any number of reasons that I'm sure I do not have to enumerate here, starting with "Okay, if that's so, then how come you don't also say that, if you're a boy that sometimes feels attractions for girls, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're straight," and working on up the gamut from there.
At the same time however, I'm angrily grateful for it being so short, cause I just want them to get off the fucking subject and move on, so that I will pass out of danger of all the snickering and remarks that are sure to come, making me have to clamp down on myself, and not betray anything, which is already growing more and more difficult because of my anger of the whole situation being this way in the first place, and just feeding itself in a vicious cycle from hell.
Mr. Brown pontificates upon the above aforementioned paragraph.
And then, all of a sudden, from the back of the class, one of the resident jock shouts out:
"Yeah? Well I think all gays should be shot!"
Snickers and murmurs off approval filter up from throughout the class.
And then... Mr. Brown says:
"Well... I'm the teacher... So, I'm not really supposed to give any opinion on this... But, I agree."
...
...
...
Clamp.
Clamp down HARD!
DO IT NOW!!!!
I am a stone. An expressionless, motionless, trembling hell star of pain and rage. I do not speak. I cannot think. All I am aware of is the sound of my own blood frothing and boiling in my face and ears. If brain waves were made manifest, Mr. Brown would be a smoldering ash layer of elemental particles.
Jeff of course instantly intuits my state, and subtly reaches over to squeeze my arm and hold on to me.
I don't remember much of the day after that. Somehow I made it home and safe, without anything happening. Whereupon I exploded into tears and yelling and screaming and raging to Jeff and Michele, accompanied by tears of their own, for me.
That evening... when I was alone... and after the crying and the shaking had finally abated... focus and clarity came. Calm. Determination.
I sat down in front of the word processor in our study, and I began to compose a letter. A letter to Mr. Brown. In it, I recapped what had happened that day, and stated that I was a gay student, right there in his class. I did it anonymously, I did not identify myself. I wrote that he had known me and I had been a student of his for years. And I started by asking, if he had a gun in his desk, would he pick it up tomorrow and shoot me? And... everything just went on from there... flowing, gushing out of me... on and on I typed. For six whole pages. I wrote about the gay teen suicide rate, as compared to straight ones, and asked how many kids are gonna go home now, and, tomorrow, or next week, or ten years from now, blow their brains out with a fucking bullet because of him, and people like him, standing up there sanctioning these things. How many will have their heads beaten in in a dark alley, because of others who are encouraged by him. I brought up my own commentary from above on the paragraph in the sex ed book. I asked how many families, how many children's lives will be ruined and torn apart, because of men who tried to lie to themselves, suppress themselves, and try to pretend to be something they are not, until at long last it just will not bear anymore. All because of him. Well, I am NOT going to kill myself! I know myself, and I am good, and I am stronger than that. You cannot make me. But... how many others will?
And I was yelling in the letter, and I was raging! But, I was not just cursing him out... I was making points! And arguments, and reason, and my adrenaline was flowing, and all of the torment, and late night introspections of the past five years, all flowed through my hands, out of me, and onto the screen. By the end, I felt exhilarated.
I printed it out, sealed it in an envelope, and waited...
***
The next morning came. When I got to school, I went straight into the office, and slipped my letter into Mr. Brown's mailbox. I was fairly bursting at the seems with nervous energy and anticipation. Finished with Homeroom. The bell for first period class rang, Health class, and there I went.
It just so happened that, on this day, Mr. Brown had already planned to show a video to the class, instead of teach. So, he set up the tv, got the video started, turned out the lights and, while the whole rest of the class was focused on the video, sat down at his desk to read his mail. I, of course though, had eyes only for him. Like lasers, burning into his flesh. A barely held back snarl on my face. Predatory. Watching his every little movement and mannerism.
I saw him go through his mail. Saw my envelope there, in his hand. Finally gets to it and opens it, completely unaware. He unfolds it, and begins to read...
And reads... I am watching him read... watching his eyes flickering left and right over the text, scrolling down line by line. I am reciting the letter in my head back to myself as he does so. And I watch is face...
And...
It sinks...
lower...
lower...
lower...
Tears start running down from his eyes... First the left, then the right... I watch them travel, slowly down his face. He is beet red... and he is shaking a little bit. He looks like he is about to start sobbing openly now, any second. Suddenly, he gets up, and quickly excuses himself from the room. No one else seems to have noticed anything.
Good... Good. That's right... you mother... fucking... son... of... a... bitch. Feel it. You feel what we feel...
I can see a tiny bit of teardrop that has fallen, glinting on his desk. I know, sitting there in the front row, from ten feet away, that it is delicious...
Eventually he returns. The bell rings for next period. I get up, and collect my books. I do not look at him as I calmly walk out of the room.
***
The next day comes, and we are back in class once again. I am strangely giddy, nervous, and chipper, all at the same time. Mr Brown is there. The class sits down and settles in. I wonder what's going to happen.
Mr. Brown gets up, and stands before the class alone. He has a bible in his hand. I feel my eyebrow arch, quizzically, uncertainly. I wonder where this is going. But, I wait...
Mr. Brown speaks. And he reads a passage from the bible. A passage on the importance of teachers and their duties.
And then, I hear... "I am a teacher. And, I have failed you in my duties. Something was said here two days ago, that was very, very wrong. It should never have happened. But, worse than all of that... was me. I should have taught you what was right. I have failed you. And, I am... deeply sorry. I hope that you will forgive me."
O.O;
It's like a dream. I practically cannot believe that I am seeing what I'm seeing. And I did it... It was all because of me! I feel almost lost in a sea of astonished wonderment. My heart is singing, and it's practically all I can do to contain myself, this time in a good way. Once again, I do not remember much else for the rest of the day, but this time it is a polar opposite feeling.
I did this...
I can actually do things...
I stood up and fought for us... And I won!!! WOO HOOO!!! :) :) :)
I am on cloud nine for days afterwards.
A few days later, the new issue of Blaspheme came out (this was an underground news paper started by some of the students, simply because they wanted to have something like that that was entirely not controlled in any way by the school. Every now and then, they'd print up a new issue and pass them around everyone. The school didn't encourage it, but they tolerated it) Anyway, they always had a little bulletpoint blurb section of various happenings around the school. In this issue, one of the top bullet points was, "On such-and-such-day, Mr. Brown said he thought all gays should be shot." And, they way they'd done it pointed it out to be a negative thing.
"Wow... this is really awesome!" I thought. Hmm... maybe one of these days, I should think about writing my own article for this thing. Life was feeling pretty good.
***
And that's how they stayed actually, for a time, anyway... Several months passed without further incident. My highschool star was still rising, as it were. Christmas and New Years came, with me throwing my big New Years party at my house, for all of my friends. Another semester started, and auditions got held for the school musical, this time The Sound of Music. I was cast in a fairly leading role, once again, as I had been for the previous three years as well. Certain classes changed over. I was back in gym now again, but oh well, not too much longer till it's done forever.
One of these classes was a certain type of Humanities class. I forget what it was actually called, cause we did have one other class also, that was explicitly called Humanities. This one instead more ran along the lines of civics and politics.
So one day, this one student Neal (who coincidentally, was also the founder and editor of Blaspheme. And, for that matter, was also in that same health class with me from the beginning of the year), brought in an audio cassette tape of some speaker or other giving a public speech on civil rights in general. The teacher, a woman this time, agreed to play the tape. So, there we all were, our desks arranged in a circle, all kind of forum like, listening to this guy give his speech.
Now... as I said, he was just speaking upon civil rights generically - not about any particular given group. But, the fact of the matter is, his voice did happen to be, for lack of a better term, stereotypically flamey and gay sounding.
So... there we are listening to the tape, and all of a sudden, this teacher out of nowhere suddenly up and says, "What is this guy, some kind of faggot??"
...
...
...
No.
NO!
NOT AGAIN! YOU WILL NOT FUCKING DO THIS AGAIN, YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!!!!
The rage came again. But also the determination again along with it. This time, I had a game plan. I knew instantly what I needed to do.
When I got home, I got back on the word processor again, and started another letter. This time, I addressed it more widely. This time, I started to write that article I'd had in mind to do, all that time ago, but till now just had never gotten around to. Again, it was fairly multi pages long. I said, that I was a gay person. And here, now, among you. Going to classes with you. Possibly your friend. I have been here all along, growing up with you. That gay people are not just some... thing that spontaneously generates onto this earth, fully formed in their thirties or whatever. We are here now. You know us, you have always known us. And we are taught about civil rights, and history in our classes. About the holocaust. About slavery. About the pain and suffering of the struggle for equality. And yet, that these same teacher who teach us, in their next breath, then turn around and commit the very same atrocities that they purport to teach against. What are we supposed to think from that? History is not something that happened then! History is happening now, right now, all around us. It is not a done thing. It is living, and breathing all the time. And the then of back then, decades and centuries ago, was just as much now at the time, as now is now.
The words just flowed. I practically didn't even have to think. It was perfect. I signed it, "The Mattachine", taking the name from The Mattachine Society, one of the very first Gay rights groups of the twentieth century. Once again, I printed it out, sealed it up, and dropped it in the anonymous drop box that the Blaspheme had posted up in a classroom somewhere. And then I waited.
A couple of weeks went by. They only published every so often, once they had enough material. I got kind of spooked one day, when Neal came up to me with Jeff to ask me something about the article. (Neal turns out to have been at least bisexual, but, I didn't learn that until years and years later.) Jeff calmed me down from my initial panic, saying that Neal had come to him, having figured out that it had to have been written by either me or him, since all three of us actually had been in both those classes. I answered Neal's questions, and said yes... to go ahead and publish the article. Another week or two went by. I wouldn't say I forgot about it, but I almost didn't think about it too much by the end, cause I was dealing with college stuff, and I was sure that my identity would be safe.
***
And then... at last... Out it came.
It was a Friday. Ironically... Valentine's Day. On that same day, Michele found out for the first time, that her parents intended to get a divorce. On that same day, another friend's of ours mom died of cancer. We, my small circle of friends who I still keep in touch with from that time, still collectively refer to that day as Black Friday.
But yes... the paper came out...
And... it was like wildfire, all throughout the entire school. I came in from the bus... and there was this weird, hushed, spooky frenetic... energy, permeating the air. Hushed, frantic whispers all over the place. Oh my god, did you see the thing? What thing? THIS thing! There's a gay kid here somewhere in the school! Oh my god! Who is it, where is he? I don't know!!!
All this, all around me, everywhere, everywhere. Every step I took. All over the halls. In every single class room. Even the teachers were doing it. The charade of classes was still going on, but nothing was really happening there that day, except for that letter. I was so nervous and terrified. But I was also thrilling inside! The butterflies were making a virtual mosh pit in my stomach. You could here a lot of shouting and cursing and untargeted threats flying out from the mouths of the jocks and the bullies and various sorts of other people. But, there were also a small number of, "But he's right after all you know, and makes some really good points!"
In French class, a casual acquaintance in front of me, who I always had a sort of good natured back and forth ribbing with, jokingly turned around and said, "Haha, I bet Quentin wrote it! ;) " And I was just like... *best grin I can muster* "Eh.. heheh..."
But... I did it. I'd accomplished my grand mission. And by the end of the day, I was about to walk out of there, free and clear...
Until, one freshman girl I did not know peeled away from this giggling gaggle of others. She came right up to me and said, "Um... excuse me... But are you Quentin?"
"Um... yeah..." I said, looking at her warily. I noticed that her pack wer all glancing over my way now and then, still tittering to themselves. Her only response then was "Ooooh... okaaaaay.." Then she turned around and walked off back to them.
I started to get a very cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I turned away, and walked quickly out to the bus. I wanted to be the hell away from there...
***
The next week, we actually had Spring Break off. So I had seven days to just sit quietly and contemplate what possibly might be in store for me. I was, strangely, actually pretty calm, and only thought about it marginally. Lemmings came out that week - a game I had been waiting for forever, after first getting hooked on the demo, and I spent much time playing that. Jen's mom's wake and funeral was held, which I attended with her and many of our other friends. I didn't know if anything had actually happened at all. That girl on Friday could have meant anything. Who the fuck is she to me? Nobody. But, deep down inside, I knew... I knew that it had gotten out. Somehow... some way. I felt like... waiting in the garden at Gethsemane... begging for this cup to pass from me. But, I knew that it would not...
...
Monday morning came... And I went back to school. First period. Gym. I walked into the locker room door, gym cloths in toe, and...
THERE'S THE FFFFAGGOT!!!!
Stop.
Time is still.
Slow motion.
A din is rising.
People are yelling... banging on lockers... fists flailing in the air... a mass of people is coalescing all around me. I am still walking, in my trajectory towards my locker. Autopilot. On Rails.
I get to mine, in the middle of the room. The din is screeching all around me. I turn to look at Neal, with what must have been "...?"
His eyes are sad and he shakes his head, as he quietly mouths the words, "...I'm sorry."
Floating now.
Floating now, in a sea of time. One single moment, that is at once a microsecond, and an eternity.
A whole universe of time, wherein, before one atomic slice of a tick of a clock, the World is one way... and after one atomic slice, it is very much another.
I can reach back.
I can reach back, and stop it! I can change just one little thing, and then this threshold will not be crossed! Everything will go back to just the same way that it was.
But of course... I can't
It is impossible.
The moment slips from my grasp.
Time speeds up again...
...and I can here and see everything all around me again. The noise. The yelling. The curses. The threats. The violence that yearns to feed upon me... The teacher intervenes, and yells at them to settle down. He doesn't say anything at all about the matter at hand. He is one of Mr. Brown's partners. He'd probably be inclined to take Mr. Brown's earlier, original position. But, he of course knows what happened then. And, of course he know about the letter last week. There isn't a soul in the entire school who doesn't. He just merely keeps the peace. For now.
I... don't remember very much, for several month's period of time after that. I really don't. Not coherently. Not in any sort of narrative way... I remember images.
All I remember are images, and sounds, and single events here and there, and the FACES! FACES TWISTING AND CONTORTING INTO REVULSION THE MOMENT THEY TURN ON ME! AND THE YELLING AND THE SCREAMING! AND WHISPER WHISPER WHISPERING! THE THINGS THROWN THE BODIES TWISTING OUT OF MY WAY AS I WALK DOWN THE HALL AS THOUGH I WERE HOT METAL TO BURN THEM WITH MY TOUCH! MY CAR KEYED! MY TIRES SLASHED! MY LOCKER TRASHED! THE THINGS THROWN AT ME THE SHOVING AND THE RUNNING AND THE HIDING! AND THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE OF THEM THAN ME, ALWAYS ALWAYS! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE, ALWAYS AT LEAST FIVE OR SIX OF THEM AND THERE IS JUST ME, ONLY ME AND IF I CRY OR SCREAM OR FIGHT BACK THEY WILL ONLY COME AT ME HARDER AND MORE!
Eyes on my back. Eyes all around me. Eyes eyes everywhere viciousness thick in the air, and if it isn't the bullies blatantly in front of me that I can see, then it's the invisible all-voice all around me. Everyone. No one. I can't see who it comes from. I don't know who did it. But they all can see me, they all know right where I am, every day and always!! Don't make eye contact. No eye contact. Look into any of them and not only will you attract them to you, but you will also gaze into the murder laid there...
I still.. to this day.. sometimes have a problem now with eye contact. I never used to at all. I used to be very bold. It comes and goes. It is a lot better, now. But, when it comes, people can sense... something, but, not having any idea why, it feels like they assume me to be nervous, or sketchy, or... not genuine, or something... I don't know. But, there's nothing I can do about it...
My life changed. Suddenly... there was no future any more. There was no past. There was only... Now. This single present second, and how to survive it. Not years, not next week, not tomorrow, not five minutes from now. Just, right now.
I cried so much... I cried until I couldn't cry any more. And, I'm in PAIN! So much pain... so much agony.. I want to curl up.. I want to not exist. What if I were dead... then it would stop... No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! KILL IT! BEAT IT BACK! BEAT BACK THE PAIN AND THE TORMENT! STUFF IT UP ALL IN A BALL, GRAB IT IN AN ARMFUL HERE, AN ARMFUL THERE, STUFF IT AWAY! STUFF IT ALL AWAY INTO THE DEEPEST DARKEST RECESSES OF YOUR MIND, WHERE YOU CAN NEVER EVER FIND IT AGAIN!!! Make this space... clear this one single space, here. Rest here. Here, there is no movement, nothing can touch you. Here, it is Ice. Cold. Frozen. Desolate frozen landscape, stretched to the horizon, where no other living creature exists. Walls of ice. Pillars of ice. Claws of ice surround you, protect you, so that nothing can hurt you. You cannot feel it. You will not feel it.
You will not feel... anything.
***
I skulked about the hallways then... just like that. Eyes always forward. Never to any side. Never at anyone else. If you did, you might see. Rictus of scowl frozen onto my face. Acknowledge no one. Say nothing. I avoided large groups when I could. I became acutely familiar with certain people schedules, and meticulously skirted around them.
Some of the teachers even did it, too. One time, in my math class, I hadn't done my homework, because I just couldn't... deal with it. The teacher, going around the room to collect them, a scowl already on his own face as he came to me, when absolutely nothing else had yet happened to be disruptive... He gets to me, and barks out, "Where's your assignment?!" I said, very calmly and slowly, "I'm sorry... I'm having a... problem right now."
He exploded at me right in my face. I DON'T CARE WHAT KIND OF FUCKING PROBLEM YOUR HAVING!!! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING YOUR WORK! NOT -----------------!!!!!
I honestly... don't remember his actual words there... as I sat there, stone faced, immobile, looking downward and ahead, frozen. I think I'm very glad that I don't.
One time, there was one of the bullies there, by the soda machine. But, all alone. By himself, this time. Not with his five or six other guys. Thin. Scrawny. Long blond hair Whitesnake wannabe. Someone that I could have totally taken, all by myself, if I'd had the mental clarity to do so. I was grabbed by an impulse. I wanted to do the whole "Not so tough when you're all by yourself, are you" thing. I walked up to him. What actually came out, however, was "N N NOOT TT T SOO TTT TOUGH W WH WHEE HEHEH HEN (*crying*) YU YOU'RE BBY YOURSSSSELF, ARE Y YOU?"
He was rattled, clearly. He tried to laugh in my face. But he was clearly scared shitless, shaking in his boots. Probably from the sheer wretched horror of the spectacle I'd just produced, rather than my pure intention per se. He walked away, trying to pretend to be calm, but he obviously wanted to run.
The school blood drive came around. You don't have to do it of course, but it's kinda one of those things where you're marked as a scumbag if you don't. I went for it. And saw, for the first time ever, those questionnaires they make you fill out. The ones where they say, if you're a man, who's had sex with another man, even once, since 1970-whatever, then you cannot give blood. I had not had sex yet. And, I would not for many years thereafter. But, there I was now in the huge gymnasium again where this was being done, with hundreds of other people, all reading and seeing that same form. All seeing that same question. Surely now all wondering what I was going to do. Fucking great. What do I do? If I walk out now, and don't give blood, you know where that's gonna go. And, if I stay, and do give blood, then either I'm a liar, or then it'll all be about how much not sex I'm having har har har snicker.
I gave blood.
One female sort of friend of mine, in trying to comfort me, told me that there was one other gay guy in the school that she knew about. o.O!! I desperately begged her to tell me, so that I could have someone - someone to talk to, to cry to, who would understand. But she spooked. She refused. She said that no, he'd said that he didn't ever want her to tell me, for fear he would be found out as well. I was all alone. Abandoned. Left to rot by myself. My small group of close friends did stick by me, but, they were getting tormented just as much as I was, for being my friend in the first place. It is an incredible credit to all of them that not one of them renounced me.
I still managed to perform the musical... I seriously have no fucking idea how. Mercifully, there was only one single time there that anyone cat called anything at me from the audience.
***
And so... that's how it went, four four straight months. It may as well have been millennia.
And then, one day, in humanities class... (the actual one, not the other one from before). The regular teacher was out for the day, and we had this substitute that we all really liked. She'd had a meditation exercise planned for us to do that day. Which was... thus:
Close your eyes...
Breath slowly and deeply...
Be as calm as you can. Empty everything from your head.
Now, imagine, in your mind, a small stage. With a spotlight shining down, and a single chair there in the middle. (We were instructed to think of various things about this for some time, to get us up into that level.)
Now, imagine your best friend walks onto that stage, and sits down on the chair. (I imagined Jeff coming in.) Look at their face.. Look at their eyes, their expression. See how they feel. What are they thinking about. (a few other things, such as that.) Now, have them get up, and walk off. Now, have a close relative come in... (proceed with the same scenario. After they get up, have a couple of various other different types of people come on.)
And then, finally... Have your self walk onto the stage, and sit down in the chair. Look at your own face... what does it look like...?
And... I pictured myself, walking onto the stage, and sitting in the chair...
I looked at the face... my face...
And what I saw there, staring balefully back at me... was the most horrid... wretched... twisted, tormented creature... It was barely human.
And, it was me...
I recoiled in horror and shock.
NO!! No... this cannot be me...? This isn't who I am... I am not this... thing... this creature...
The monster turned it's head up to look, hurt, wretched, sorrowfully, into me...
I started crying... bawling... right there, in the class room... I cried and cried and cried... It was the first time I'd cried in four months.
***
And then... one day... It just... ended.
Class was over. School was out. We had graduated.
Just like that. I never had to go there again, see any of that again. I had gotten accepted into college. I was going to Rutgers in the fall.
But... what did it matter? What was the point?
I kind of just laid around the house, catatonically for days at a time. Staring outside, staring at the ceiling. Immensely grateful not to have to feel the constant pain anymore. But... also not feeling much of anything else. I shivered a lot.
I got better, gradually. But, the baseline was often just... numb. *shrugs* That was okay, that was still better than the pain.
And then, when I eventually got to Rutgers, and, ya know, liberal accepting college atmosphere and all that, and I was still fearful of people finding out and it going back to all of that. But no, there were gay people all over the freakin' place. Just, out, and fine, and whatever. I started to bring it up to certain people that I had become friends with, who it seemed they would be okay with it, but, I was always so nervous and fearful and apologetic about it. And, they'd scoff at me. Like, tsk, heh, what are you talking about? What's the big deal? It's totally fine!
And I was just incredulous. I was like... Fine? FINE??? HOW THE FUCK IS IT FINE???? HOW THE FUCK IS ANY FUCKING THING FINE ABOUT IT, AFTER ALL THAT BULLSHIT THAT I JUST WENT THROUGH?????
Time passed. I went to classes, made friends, actually started to get semi comfortable and relaxed again. I, eventually, genuinely started to feel a bit okay again, and started to have a good time. But... it was always still there... all of that.
I would sometimes start to feel, that I never had anything to talk about. I had a hard time, for the first time ever in my life, to start talking to knew people. I never had anything to say. Because, what I had to say, was about all that trauma, and that time back then. And, who the fuck wants to hear about that all the time anyway?
Eventually, when I would start to get to know people well, and we would exchange our life stories, I would go through my childhood, and all the good things about that. And then... the story would build, and grow darker. Always, culminating on those final four months in highshcool... and the punch line of the chair meditation... where I would always have a hard time to look at... and would always start to cry. It made many people cry with me. But then, we would get over that, and go on, and do all the normal things that friends do. But, this was always the culmination to my life's story.
...
The first year.
And the second.
And the third.
And the fourth.
And... so on. That was the end of the story of my life. There was no more story to tell, after that. Sure, I would have anecdotes and jokes and things, here and there. But, about me, and who I was, that was it. That's what you got to hear about me.
Eventually, I found that I'd lived all these years after that, and... I had nothing to say about them at all. They were just stuff. They were not part of my story. The story ended there.
For nine years. For nine freaking years, I was stuck back there.
***
Time, however, did pass. And other things... many other things did happen to me. Filling me. Waiting to bloom. I did comedy shows and various plays every year that I was at Rutgers. I joined a co-ed fraternity. I did many many other things, that would take at least as long as all of this now, to describe. I interned at Comedy Central. I moved to New York City. At 25, I met my first boyfriend Jonathan, whom I was with for three years. He was, in fact, a significant breakthrough for all of that. But, through a variety of ways, I did, slowly, eventually, start to get better. Six years ago, I found Furry.
Until, finally, one day... I was sitting in a bar, with a new found friend I'd made not so long ago at the time. And, we were doing the same getting to know each other thing, trading our life stories.
I launched into my speil. Recounting everything, the same as I always did. I got to highschool, and the last year, feeling that culmination coming on, getting ready to feel the crying coming on at any minute.
And then, just at that moment, that final agonizing moment, where I would brave to look into the place again that I dare not look...
I found that I suddenly did not care. Did not give the least two shits about it.
I faltered for a second, confused.. And then, I *shrugged* and said, "and then such and such stuff happened, and I graduated and I went to college." And that was it! That was all I felt or had the least little bit of interest in saying about all of that!
And... I kept on going! I suddenly found that I had - OUT OF NOWHERE - all of these stories about college to tell, and the city, and Jonathan, and... a whole LIFE of time after that!!
Nine years worth of time just instantly back-filled itself, into all these wonderful and colorful things I didn't even know I had in me to come out. I just kept talking and talking, and laughing to myself, and had my friend rolling on the floor with laughter and good times! I just felt... so amazing.
When, at long last, we finally parted, and I went back home, to go to bed.. I started for a second, confused. Something was wrong.. Well, no.. not wrong, but.. different. Missing. What the heck is it?
It was that old tightness. At the back of my throat. It was gone. It was just simply... not there anymore.
***
Even that last bit now too is many many years ago. And, as the years roll on by, I constantly, am always finding I have new and amazing stories I want to tell. I have lived more life now probably, than I ever did at any time ever, even before all of that way back then. I have traveled all over the country and even abroad. I have dozens and dozens of wonderful and amazing friends, and, though there are of course ups and downs, as all lives lived well must have, my life is filled with wonder and beauty, every single day.
I am valued. I am loved.
And to think, that if I had ever fallen to despair and given up, if I had ever let anything happen to myself... Then I would not now be standing here to see it.
I love my life.
I thank the universe for it.
It has been a rather long time now, since I've last told the highschool story to anybody. Even when I did, that was still pretty few and far between anymore. I never even wrote about it at all here even once, until now.
***
And now... that I have at last told it here, in full, one last time... I think that I shall never again tell it ever, for as long as I shall live. Never again verbally, at any rate. Maybe one or two sentences, and possibly a link to here if anyone really give that much of a shit. Just to mark those four months of time, for completeness sake. But I'm done. Fuck those bitches. That's all they deserve.
Besides. I have a lot more stories to tell now, that are a lot better use of my time.
And, I have a whole lifetime of stories still ahead of me.
Now then. If y'all will 'scuse me, my roommate's playing techno in the other room, and I gotta go dance ;) ^.^
Q.
-The Book of G'Quon
And now I will tell you a story that, once upon a time... was my story...
Curiously, I have never once told this particular story in the entire life of my journal. Curiously - considering how, for the longest time, it was the only story I ever had to tell.
That time is gone now. It's chains at last broken. But others have lived it, too. Somewhere out there, others are still living it, even now. I am now free. But... I do remember. I must stand upon the rock and reach back... reach back to help those who are still lost at last come into the light. And so I will, one last time... reach back... reach back into...
***
My name is Quentin. I am seventeen years old. I live in a small rural town in NJ, with my parents, my only immediate family. I have lived here now, for about five years, after a life spent moving around constantly with my family while growing up. I am considered intelligent and friendly by most adults, and I have a fair assortment of good friends here now in this place, the longest single stretch hitherto now where we have stayed put in the same place. For being somewhat sensitive, nerdly, and more intellectual than most of my peers, I am one of those kids who one would call 'the outcasts'. I am not popular. I am picked on fairly regularly in fact by that aforementioned crowd, and bullied by all the jocks and the rougher sorts. I have not particularly liked school for most of these past several years, for it is there I must go and be subjected to these sorts of things, at random, unpredictably, so that I am always nervous about it, as I never know when or from where it will come, other than to know that yes, it will come.
Though I am bright, my schoolwork is not the best, for I am constantly distracted from it with thoughts such as the above. I often don't do my homework. For, I prefer just to kind of get through the day as best as I can, and then I'm free. Free to go play and hang out with my several good friends. Free to immerse myself in my video games and science fiction or fantasy books that I love to read, and generally live in the rich fantasy world I have constructed in my mind. A world, wherein I am a light saber wielding super hero, in a place filled with talking animals, and chivalry, and space exploration... I believe that I had elements drawn in there from, let's see... Star Wars, Battle of the Planets, Spell Singer, Leo the Lion, Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and others, The Last Starfighter, Tron, The Yellow Submarine, and of course, pick any given Disney movie out by that time. I had golden eagle wings, could fly, and in addition to superstrength and agility, I had all psi powers, and could shapeshift.
In this world, I was not popular... I was beloved. Adored. I was a hero, a champion of justice and goodness. All evil and injustice in the universe would be swept away by my hand, and the downtrodden would rejoice, and join with us, and become stronger, and our glorious Federation would spread boldly forth into the cosmos.
Why live in the world where there was school and bullies, when I could live in that one, instead? One other thing I had in that world as well - love. Love, in a way that I never had in this, the 'real' world, for, another thing about me, I am gay.
I have known this fact clearly, consciously, since I was twelve years old. When it dawned, when that first realization hit, back then, at twelve, I used to stand in front of the mirror, and mouth the words, looking at myself as I did so. "I am gay. I am a ho-mo-sex-ual". Trying them out, trying to examine their flavor. Pondering what exactly the hell that was supposed to import, anyway. I read that in a book somewhere. The previously quoted phrase, I mean. One that I had managed to steal from the library one day, so that no one could ever know I had checked it out. It was also about a young gay kid, and what he went through in this same kind of discovery. He did that. I started doing it too.
But I'm me. I'm Quentin. So? You're gay. Gay gay gay. You are a ho-mo-sex-ual. Yeah, but so what? What does that mean? How does that make me any different than I was yesterday, before I knew that? When I thought I was straight, whatever the hell that means, just because that's what we're told we are, and what we'll do with our lives? I mean, I don't feel any different. Yes, I know that. But... You're gay. You like other boys. And the world says that changes everything.
Funnily enough, despite what the world said about it, I was still actually very quickly okay with this, ironically thanks to my racist grandmother on my mother's side. (This part of this story, I have told before, and so I will not belabor it here again now.) But, suffice to say that, I knew I was gay, knew that that was okay, but also knew that the world did not, and I could not tell another soul because of what would proably happen to me. And, I also knew that I was very likely the only gay kid around who knew all of these things yet, and who also had the serendipity of experience to be able to possibly handle all this.
At twelve years old, these are the motherfucking thoughts that I have to have rattling around in my head, simply because I have no choice not to. It would be understatement to say that, I had to grow up very quickly...
...
But... Now I am seventeen. All of the above was, and is, true. But, I have made it here thus far, relatively okay. There is a very subtle, but constant, pain in the back of my throat. It is with me, always. Day after day, never ending, never easing, 24/7 for years. Much of the time, I don't notice it and forget about it, because there is never any absence of it to compare anything too. But it is still there. It is the pain of loneliness, from all of that, and also, from all of the bullying. The pain of world-weariness. It is the pain of tears, drawn inward. Drawn back and held close inside of me. So that the world will not know. So that they cannot betray my secrets.
By this time, I have come out to my parents when I was sixteen. A story in it's own right, which could or should be told, but that is not the focus here. I have also come out to my two best friends, Jeff and Michele, a boyfriend-girlfriend couple, who I usually spend most of my time with.
But, even so, despite it all, if you can possibly believe it after all that... I am still, somehow, paradoxically, a happy, more or less, and upbeat person. I can make almost anyone laugh, with a smile, my own booming laugh and one of my jokes.
And now... the stage is set, all of the pieces are in place...
***
It is Senior year. And surprisingly, amazingly, most of this one, and the last, have actually been comparatively good. I started "cooling out" a little bit, somehow. Raising up a bit in that wonderful high school pecking order we all know and love so well. A number of people who have been mean to me for years and years, have actually started talking to me a bit now, and finding me to be an okay guy after all. The throat pain, though not gone, has still relaxed a bit more than it ever has in quite some time. I'm starting to look into and apply to colleges. I'm nervous, but also rather excited by the impending life change, and all the potential possibility.
Health Class rolls around for my turn in it's unit this year. We have one period of gym each day, but, for a couple of months, everyone is rotated around in turns into this, instead. The teacher is Mr. Brown, also one of the regular gym teachers. Last year, it was Driver's Ed. This year, it just so happens to be Sex Education.
Things proceed here uneventfully enough for awhile, though I of course know and am annoyed by the fact that pretty much all of it is not for and is completely useless to me. But whatever, at least I don't have to be in gym. That's where the bullies always have their biggest heydays. My friend Jeff is with me in the class, and sits at the desk next to me.
And then, one day... they get to the part in the book about sexual orientation, or, as you may colloquially know them, gay people. This section is exactly all of one paragraph, in its entirety, from beginning to end. And it states thus: "If you're a boy, just because you may feel attractions for other boys [etc etc. same thing for girls], that does not necessarily mean that you are homosexual.
That's it.
Did you miss it?
Here, go back and read that again, I'll wai... Oh... You're done already.
I am, of course, rather pissed off at this for any number of reasons that I'm sure I do not have to enumerate here, starting with "Okay, if that's so, then how come you don't also say that, if you're a boy that sometimes feels attractions for girls, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're straight," and working on up the gamut from there.
At the same time however, I'm angrily grateful for it being so short, cause I just want them to get off the fucking subject and move on, so that I will pass out of danger of all the snickering and remarks that are sure to come, making me have to clamp down on myself, and not betray anything, which is already growing more and more difficult because of my anger of the whole situation being this way in the first place, and just feeding itself in a vicious cycle from hell.
Mr. Brown pontificates upon the above aforementioned paragraph.
And then, all of a sudden, from the back of the class, one of the resident jock shouts out:
"Yeah? Well I think all gays should be shot!"
Snickers and murmurs off approval filter up from throughout the class.
And then... Mr. Brown says:
"Well... I'm the teacher... So, I'm not really supposed to give any opinion on this... But, I agree."
...
...
...
Clamp.
Clamp down HARD!
DO IT NOW!!!!
I am a stone. An expressionless, motionless, trembling hell star of pain and rage. I do not speak. I cannot think. All I am aware of is the sound of my own blood frothing and boiling in my face and ears. If brain waves were made manifest, Mr. Brown would be a smoldering ash layer of elemental particles.
Jeff of course instantly intuits my state, and subtly reaches over to squeeze my arm and hold on to me.
I don't remember much of the day after that. Somehow I made it home and safe, without anything happening. Whereupon I exploded into tears and yelling and screaming and raging to Jeff and Michele, accompanied by tears of their own, for me.
That evening... when I was alone... and after the crying and the shaking had finally abated... focus and clarity came. Calm. Determination.
I sat down in front of the word processor in our study, and I began to compose a letter. A letter to Mr. Brown. In it, I recapped what had happened that day, and stated that I was a gay student, right there in his class. I did it anonymously, I did not identify myself. I wrote that he had known me and I had been a student of his for years. And I started by asking, if he had a gun in his desk, would he pick it up tomorrow and shoot me? And... everything just went on from there... flowing, gushing out of me... on and on I typed. For six whole pages. I wrote about the gay teen suicide rate, as compared to straight ones, and asked how many kids are gonna go home now, and, tomorrow, or next week, or ten years from now, blow their brains out with a fucking bullet because of him, and people like him, standing up there sanctioning these things. How many will have their heads beaten in in a dark alley, because of others who are encouraged by him. I brought up my own commentary from above on the paragraph in the sex ed book. I asked how many families, how many children's lives will be ruined and torn apart, because of men who tried to lie to themselves, suppress themselves, and try to pretend to be something they are not, until at long last it just will not bear anymore. All because of him. Well, I am NOT going to kill myself! I know myself, and I am good, and I am stronger than that. You cannot make me. But... how many others will?
And I was yelling in the letter, and I was raging! But, I was not just cursing him out... I was making points! And arguments, and reason, and my adrenaline was flowing, and all of the torment, and late night introspections of the past five years, all flowed through my hands, out of me, and onto the screen. By the end, I felt exhilarated.
I printed it out, sealed it in an envelope, and waited...
***
The next morning came. When I got to school, I went straight into the office, and slipped my letter into Mr. Brown's mailbox. I was fairly bursting at the seems with nervous energy and anticipation. Finished with Homeroom. The bell for first period class rang, Health class, and there I went.
It just so happened that, on this day, Mr. Brown had already planned to show a video to the class, instead of teach. So, he set up the tv, got the video started, turned out the lights and, while the whole rest of the class was focused on the video, sat down at his desk to read his mail. I, of course though, had eyes only for him. Like lasers, burning into his flesh. A barely held back snarl on my face. Predatory. Watching his every little movement and mannerism.
I saw him go through his mail. Saw my envelope there, in his hand. Finally gets to it and opens it, completely unaware. He unfolds it, and begins to read...
And reads... I am watching him read... watching his eyes flickering left and right over the text, scrolling down line by line. I am reciting the letter in my head back to myself as he does so. And I watch is face...
And...
It sinks...
lower...
lower...
lower...
Tears start running down from his eyes... First the left, then the right... I watch them travel, slowly down his face. He is beet red... and he is shaking a little bit. He looks like he is about to start sobbing openly now, any second. Suddenly, he gets up, and quickly excuses himself from the room. No one else seems to have noticed anything.
Good... Good. That's right... you mother... fucking... son... of... a... bitch. Feel it. You feel what we feel...
I can see a tiny bit of teardrop that has fallen, glinting on his desk. I know, sitting there in the front row, from ten feet away, that it is delicious...
Eventually he returns. The bell rings for next period. I get up, and collect my books. I do not look at him as I calmly walk out of the room.
***
The next day comes, and we are back in class once again. I am strangely giddy, nervous, and chipper, all at the same time. Mr Brown is there. The class sits down and settles in. I wonder what's going to happen.
Mr. Brown gets up, and stands before the class alone. He has a bible in his hand. I feel my eyebrow arch, quizzically, uncertainly. I wonder where this is going. But, I wait...
Mr. Brown speaks. And he reads a passage from the bible. A passage on the importance of teachers and their duties.
And then, I hear... "I am a teacher. And, I have failed you in my duties. Something was said here two days ago, that was very, very wrong. It should never have happened. But, worse than all of that... was me. I should have taught you what was right. I have failed you. And, I am... deeply sorry. I hope that you will forgive me."
O.O;
It's like a dream. I practically cannot believe that I am seeing what I'm seeing. And I did it... It was all because of me! I feel almost lost in a sea of astonished wonderment. My heart is singing, and it's practically all I can do to contain myself, this time in a good way. Once again, I do not remember much else for the rest of the day, but this time it is a polar opposite feeling.
I did this...
I can actually do things...
I stood up and fought for us... And I won!!! WOO HOOO!!! :) :) :)
I am on cloud nine for days afterwards.
A few days later, the new issue of Blaspheme came out (this was an underground news paper started by some of the students, simply because they wanted to have something like that that was entirely not controlled in any way by the school. Every now and then, they'd print up a new issue and pass them around everyone. The school didn't encourage it, but they tolerated it) Anyway, they always had a little bulletpoint blurb section of various happenings around the school. In this issue, one of the top bullet points was, "On such-and-such-day, Mr. Brown said he thought all gays should be shot." And, they way they'd done it pointed it out to be a negative thing.
"Wow... this is really awesome!" I thought. Hmm... maybe one of these days, I should think about writing my own article for this thing. Life was feeling pretty good.
***
And that's how they stayed actually, for a time, anyway... Several months passed without further incident. My highschool star was still rising, as it were. Christmas and New Years came, with me throwing my big New Years party at my house, for all of my friends. Another semester started, and auditions got held for the school musical, this time The Sound of Music. I was cast in a fairly leading role, once again, as I had been for the previous three years as well. Certain classes changed over. I was back in gym now again, but oh well, not too much longer till it's done forever.
One of these classes was a certain type of Humanities class. I forget what it was actually called, cause we did have one other class also, that was explicitly called Humanities. This one instead more ran along the lines of civics and politics.
So one day, this one student Neal (who coincidentally, was also the founder and editor of Blaspheme. And, for that matter, was also in that same health class with me from the beginning of the year), brought in an audio cassette tape of some speaker or other giving a public speech on civil rights in general. The teacher, a woman this time, agreed to play the tape. So, there we all were, our desks arranged in a circle, all kind of forum like, listening to this guy give his speech.
Now... as I said, he was just speaking upon civil rights generically - not about any particular given group. But, the fact of the matter is, his voice did happen to be, for lack of a better term, stereotypically flamey and gay sounding.
So... there we are listening to the tape, and all of a sudden, this teacher out of nowhere suddenly up and says, "What is this guy, some kind of faggot??"
...
...
...
No.
NO!
NOT AGAIN! YOU WILL NOT FUCKING DO THIS AGAIN, YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!!!!
The rage came again. But also the determination again along with it. This time, I had a game plan. I knew instantly what I needed to do.
When I got home, I got back on the word processor again, and started another letter. This time, I addressed it more widely. This time, I started to write that article I'd had in mind to do, all that time ago, but till now just had never gotten around to. Again, it was fairly multi pages long. I said, that I was a gay person. And here, now, among you. Going to classes with you. Possibly your friend. I have been here all along, growing up with you. That gay people are not just some... thing that spontaneously generates onto this earth, fully formed in their thirties or whatever. We are here now. You know us, you have always known us. And we are taught about civil rights, and history in our classes. About the holocaust. About slavery. About the pain and suffering of the struggle for equality. And yet, that these same teacher who teach us, in their next breath, then turn around and commit the very same atrocities that they purport to teach against. What are we supposed to think from that? History is not something that happened then! History is happening now, right now, all around us. It is not a done thing. It is living, and breathing all the time. And the then of back then, decades and centuries ago, was just as much now at the time, as now is now.
The words just flowed. I practically didn't even have to think. It was perfect. I signed it, "The Mattachine", taking the name from The Mattachine Society, one of the very first Gay rights groups of the twentieth century. Once again, I printed it out, sealed it up, and dropped it in the anonymous drop box that the Blaspheme had posted up in a classroom somewhere. And then I waited.
A couple of weeks went by. They only published every so often, once they had enough material. I got kind of spooked one day, when Neal came up to me with Jeff to ask me something about the article. (Neal turns out to have been at least bisexual, but, I didn't learn that until years and years later.) Jeff calmed me down from my initial panic, saying that Neal had come to him, having figured out that it had to have been written by either me or him, since all three of us actually had been in both those classes. I answered Neal's questions, and said yes... to go ahead and publish the article. Another week or two went by. I wouldn't say I forgot about it, but I almost didn't think about it too much by the end, cause I was dealing with college stuff, and I was sure that my identity would be safe.
***
And then... at last... Out it came.
It was a Friday. Ironically... Valentine's Day. On that same day, Michele found out for the first time, that her parents intended to get a divorce. On that same day, another friend's of ours mom died of cancer. We, my small circle of friends who I still keep in touch with from that time, still collectively refer to that day as Black Friday.
But yes... the paper came out...
And... it was like wildfire, all throughout the entire school. I came in from the bus... and there was this weird, hushed, spooky frenetic... energy, permeating the air. Hushed, frantic whispers all over the place. Oh my god, did you see the thing? What thing? THIS thing! There's a gay kid here somewhere in the school! Oh my god! Who is it, where is he? I don't know!!!
All this, all around me, everywhere, everywhere. Every step I took. All over the halls. In every single class room. Even the teachers were doing it. The charade of classes was still going on, but nothing was really happening there that day, except for that letter. I was so nervous and terrified. But I was also thrilling inside! The butterflies were making a virtual mosh pit in my stomach. You could here a lot of shouting and cursing and untargeted threats flying out from the mouths of the jocks and the bullies and various sorts of other people. But, there were also a small number of, "But he's right after all you know, and makes some really good points!"
In French class, a casual acquaintance in front of me, who I always had a sort of good natured back and forth ribbing with, jokingly turned around and said, "Haha, I bet Quentin wrote it! ;) " And I was just like... *best grin I can muster* "Eh.. heheh..."
But... I did it. I'd accomplished my grand mission. And by the end of the day, I was about to walk out of there, free and clear...
Until, one freshman girl I did not know peeled away from this giggling gaggle of others. She came right up to me and said, "Um... excuse me... But are you Quentin?"
"Um... yeah..." I said, looking at her warily. I noticed that her pack wer all glancing over my way now and then, still tittering to themselves. Her only response then was "Ooooh... okaaaaay.." Then she turned around and walked off back to them.
I started to get a very cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I turned away, and walked quickly out to the bus. I wanted to be the hell away from there...
***
The next week, we actually had Spring Break off. So I had seven days to just sit quietly and contemplate what possibly might be in store for me. I was, strangely, actually pretty calm, and only thought about it marginally. Lemmings came out that week - a game I had been waiting for forever, after first getting hooked on the demo, and I spent much time playing that. Jen's mom's wake and funeral was held, which I attended with her and many of our other friends. I didn't know if anything had actually happened at all. That girl on Friday could have meant anything. Who the fuck is she to me? Nobody. But, deep down inside, I knew... I knew that it had gotten out. Somehow... some way. I felt like... waiting in the garden at Gethsemane... begging for this cup to pass from me. But, I knew that it would not...
...
Monday morning came... And I went back to school. First period. Gym. I walked into the locker room door, gym cloths in toe, and...
THERE'S THE FFFFAGGOT!!!!
Stop.
Time is still.
Slow motion.
A din is rising.
People are yelling... banging on lockers... fists flailing in the air... a mass of people is coalescing all around me. I am still walking, in my trajectory towards my locker. Autopilot. On Rails.
I get to mine, in the middle of the room. The din is screeching all around me. I turn to look at Neal, with what must have been "...?"
His eyes are sad and he shakes his head, as he quietly mouths the words, "...I'm sorry."
Floating now.
Floating now, in a sea of time. One single moment, that is at once a microsecond, and an eternity.
A whole universe of time, wherein, before one atomic slice of a tick of a clock, the World is one way... and after one atomic slice, it is very much another.
I can reach back.
I can reach back, and stop it! I can change just one little thing, and then this threshold will not be crossed! Everything will go back to just the same way that it was.
But of course... I can't
It is impossible.
The moment slips from my grasp.
Time speeds up again...
...and I can here and see everything all around me again. The noise. The yelling. The curses. The threats. The violence that yearns to feed upon me... The teacher intervenes, and yells at them to settle down. He doesn't say anything at all about the matter at hand. He is one of Mr. Brown's partners. He'd probably be inclined to take Mr. Brown's earlier, original position. But, he of course knows what happened then. And, of course he know about the letter last week. There isn't a soul in the entire school who doesn't. He just merely keeps the peace. For now.
I... don't remember very much, for several month's period of time after that. I really don't. Not coherently. Not in any sort of narrative way... I remember images.
All I remember are images, and sounds, and single events here and there, and the FACES! FACES TWISTING AND CONTORTING INTO REVULSION THE MOMENT THEY TURN ON ME! AND THE YELLING AND THE SCREAMING! AND WHISPER WHISPER WHISPERING! THE THINGS THROWN THE BODIES TWISTING OUT OF MY WAY AS I WALK DOWN THE HALL AS THOUGH I WERE HOT METAL TO BURN THEM WITH MY TOUCH! MY CAR KEYED! MY TIRES SLASHED! MY LOCKER TRASHED! THE THINGS THROWN AT ME THE SHOVING AND THE RUNNING AND THE HIDING! AND THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE OF THEM THAN ME, ALWAYS ALWAYS! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE, ALWAYS AT LEAST FIVE OR SIX OF THEM AND THERE IS JUST ME, ONLY ME AND IF I CRY OR SCREAM OR FIGHT BACK THEY WILL ONLY COME AT ME HARDER AND MORE!
Eyes on my back. Eyes all around me. Eyes eyes everywhere viciousness thick in the air, and if it isn't the bullies blatantly in front of me that I can see, then it's the invisible all-voice all around me. Everyone. No one. I can't see who it comes from. I don't know who did it. But they all can see me, they all know right where I am, every day and always!! Don't make eye contact. No eye contact. Look into any of them and not only will you attract them to you, but you will also gaze into the murder laid there...
I still.. to this day.. sometimes have a problem now with eye contact. I never used to at all. I used to be very bold. It comes and goes. It is a lot better, now. But, when it comes, people can sense... something, but, not having any idea why, it feels like they assume me to be nervous, or sketchy, or... not genuine, or something... I don't know. But, there's nothing I can do about it...
My life changed. Suddenly... there was no future any more. There was no past. There was only... Now. This single present second, and how to survive it. Not years, not next week, not tomorrow, not five minutes from now. Just, right now.
I cried so much... I cried until I couldn't cry any more. And, I'm in PAIN! So much pain... so much agony.. I want to curl up.. I want to not exist. What if I were dead... then it would stop... No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! KILL IT! BEAT IT BACK! BEAT BACK THE PAIN AND THE TORMENT! STUFF IT UP ALL IN A BALL, GRAB IT IN AN ARMFUL HERE, AN ARMFUL THERE, STUFF IT AWAY! STUFF IT ALL AWAY INTO THE DEEPEST DARKEST RECESSES OF YOUR MIND, WHERE YOU CAN NEVER EVER FIND IT AGAIN!!! Make this space... clear this one single space, here. Rest here. Here, there is no movement, nothing can touch you. Here, it is Ice. Cold. Frozen. Desolate frozen landscape, stretched to the horizon, where no other living creature exists. Walls of ice. Pillars of ice. Claws of ice surround you, protect you, so that nothing can hurt you. You cannot feel it. You will not feel it.
You will not feel... anything.
***
I skulked about the hallways then... just like that. Eyes always forward. Never to any side. Never at anyone else. If you did, you might see. Rictus of scowl frozen onto my face. Acknowledge no one. Say nothing. I avoided large groups when I could. I became acutely familiar with certain people schedules, and meticulously skirted around them.
Some of the teachers even did it, too. One time, in my math class, I hadn't done my homework, because I just couldn't... deal with it. The teacher, going around the room to collect them, a scowl already on his own face as he came to me, when absolutely nothing else had yet happened to be disruptive... He gets to me, and barks out, "Where's your assignment?!" I said, very calmly and slowly, "I'm sorry... I'm having a... problem right now."
He exploded at me right in my face. I DON'T CARE WHAT KIND OF FUCKING PROBLEM YOUR HAVING!!! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING YOUR WORK! NOT -----------------!!!!!
I honestly... don't remember his actual words there... as I sat there, stone faced, immobile, looking downward and ahead, frozen. I think I'm very glad that I don't.
One time, there was one of the bullies there, by the soda machine. But, all alone. By himself, this time. Not with his five or six other guys. Thin. Scrawny. Long blond hair Whitesnake wannabe. Someone that I could have totally taken, all by myself, if I'd had the mental clarity to do so. I was grabbed by an impulse. I wanted to do the whole "Not so tough when you're all by yourself, are you" thing. I walked up to him. What actually came out, however, was "N N NOOT TT T SOO TTT TOUGH W WH WHEE HEHEH HEN (*crying*) YU YOU'RE BBY YOURSSSSELF, ARE Y YOU?"
He was rattled, clearly. He tried to laugh in my face. But he was clearly scared shitless, shaking in his boots. Probably from the sheer wretched horror of the spectacle I'd just produced, rather than my pure intention per se. He walked away, trying to pretend to be calm, but he obviously wanted to run.
The school blood drive came around. You don't have to do it of course, but it's kinda one of those things where you're marked as a scumbag if you don't. I went for it. And saw, for the first time ever, those questionnaires they make you fill out. The ones where they say, if you're a man, who's had sex with another man, even once, since 1970-whatever, then you cannot give blood. I had not had sex yet. And, I would not for many years thereafter. But, there I was now in the huge gymnasium again where this was being done, with hundreds of other people, all reading and seeing that same form. All seeing that same question. Surely now all wondering what I was going to do. Fucking great. What do I do? If I walk out now, and don't give blood, you know where that's gonna go. And, if I stay, and do give blood, then either I'm a liar, or then it'll all be about how much not sex I'm having har har har snicker.
I gave blood.
One female sort of friend of mine, in trying to comfort me, told me that there was one other gay guy in the school that she knew about. o.O!! I desperately begged her to tell me, so that I could have someone - someone to talk to, to cry to, who would understand. But she spooked. She refused. She said that no, he'd said that he didn't ever want her to tell me, for fear he would be found out as well. I was all alone. Abandoned. Left to rot by myself. My small group of close friends did stick by me, but, they were getting tormented just as much as I was, for being my friend in the first place. It is an incredible credit to all of them that not one of them renounced me.
I still managed to perform the musical... I seriously have no fucking idea how. Mercifully, there was only one single time there that anyone cat called anything at me from the audience.
***
And so... that's how it went, four four straight months. It may as well have been millennia.
And then, one day, in humanities class... (the actual one, not the other one from before). The regular teacher was out for the day, and we had this substitute that we all really liked. She'd had a meditation exercise planned for us to do that day. Which was... thus:
Close your eyes...
Breath slowly and deeply...
Be as calm as you can. Empty everything from your head.
Now, imagine, in your mind, a small stage. With a spotlight shining down, and a single chair there in the middle. (We were instructed to think of various things about this for some time, to get us up into that level.)
Now, imagine your best friend walks onto that stage, and sits down on the chair. (I imagined Jeff coming in.) Look at their face.. Look at their eyes, their expression. See how they feel. What are they thinking about. (a few other things, such as that.) Now, have them get up, and walk off. Now, have a close relative come in... (proceed with the same scenario. After they get up, have a couple of various other different types of people come on.)
And then, finally... Have your self walk onto the stage, and sit down in the chair. Look at your own face... what does it look like...?
And... I pictured myself, walking onto the stage, and sitting in the chair...
I looked at the face... my face...
And what I saw there, staring balefully back at me... was the most horrid... wretched... twisted, tormented creature... It was barely human.
And, it was me...
I recoiled in horror and shock.
NO!! No... this cannot be me...? This isn't who I am... I am not this... thing... this creature...
The monster turned it's head up to look, hurt, wretched, sorrowfully, into me...
I started crying... bawling... right there, in the class room... I cried and cried and cried... It was the first time I'd cried in four months.
***
And then... one day... It just... ended.
Class was over. School was out. We had graduated.
Just like that. I never had to go there again, see any of that again. I had gotten accepted into college. I was going to Rutgers in the fall.
But... what did it matter? What was the point?
I kind of just laid around the house, catatonically for days at a time. Staring outside, staring at the ceiling. Immensely grateful not to have to feel the constant pain anymore. But... also not feeling much of anything else. I shivered a lot.
I got better, gradually. But, the baseline was often just... numb. *shrugs* That was okay, that was still better than the pain.
And then, when I eventually got to Rutgers, and, ya know, liberal accepting college atmosphere and all that, and I was still fearful of people finding out and it going back to all of that. But no, there were gay people all over the freakin' place. Just, out, and fine, and whatever. I started to bring it up to certain people that I had become friends with, who it seemed they would be okay with it, but, I was always so nervous and fearful and apologetic about it. And, they'd scoff at me. Like, tsk, heh, what are you talking about? What's the big deal? It's totally fine!
And I was just incredulous. I was like... Fine? FINE??? HOW THE FUCK IS IT FINE???? HOW THE FUCK IS ANY FUCKING THING FINE ABOUT IT, AFTER ALL THAT BULLSHIT THAT I JUST WENT THROUGH?????
Time passed. I went to classes, made friends, actually started to get semi comfortable and relaxed again. I, eventually, genuinely started to feel a bit okay again, and started to have a good time. But... it was always still there... all of that.
I would sometimes start to feel, that I never had anything to talk about. I had a hard time, for the first time ever in my life, to start talking to knew people. I never had anything to say. Because, what I had to say, was about all that trauma, and that time back then. And, who the fuck wants to hear about that all the time anyway?
Eventually, when I would start to get to know people well, and we would exchange our life stories, I would go through my childhood, and all the good things about that. And then... the story would build, and grow darker. Always, culminating on those final four months in highshcool... and the punch line of the chair meditation... where I would always have a hard time to look at... and would always start to cry. It made many people cry with me. But then, we would get over that, and go on, and do all the normal things that friends do. But, this was always the culmination to my life's story.
...
The first year.
And the second.
And the third.
And the fourth.
And... so on. That was the end of the story of my life. There was no more story to tell, after that. Sure, I would have anecdotes and jokes and things, here and there. But, about me, and who I was, that was it. That's what you got to hear about me.
Eventually, I found that I'd lived all these years after that, and... I had nothing to say about them at all. They were just stuff. They were not part of my story. The story ended there.
For nine years. For nine freaking years, I was stuck back there.
***
Time, however, did pass. And other things... many other things did happen to me. Filling me. Waiting to bloom. I did comedy shows and various plays every year that I was at Rutgers. I joined a co-ed fraternity. I did many many other things, that would take at least as long as all of this now, to describe. I interned at Comedy Central. I moved to New York City. At 25, I met my first boyfriend Jonathan, whom I was with for three years. He was, in fact, a significant breakthrough for all of that. But, through a variety of ways, I did, slowly, eventually, start to get better. Six years ago, I found Furry.
Until, finally, one day... I was sitting in a bar, with a new found friend I'd made not so long ago at the time. And, we were doing the same getting to know each other thing, trading our life stories.
I launched into my speil. Recounting everything, the same as I always did. I got to highschool, and the last year, feeling that culmination coming on, getting ready to feel the crying coming on at any minute.
And then, just at that moment, that final agonizing moment, where I would brave to look into the place again that I dare not look...
I found that I suddenly did not care. Did not give the least two shits about it.
I faltered for a second, confused.. And then, I *shrugged* and said, "and then such and such stuff happened, and I graduated and I went to college." And that was it! That was all I felt or had the least little bit of interest in saying about all of that!
And... I kept on going! I suddenly found that I had - OUT OF NOWHERE - all of these stories about college to tell, and the city, and Jonathan, and... a whole LIFE of time after that!!
Nine years worth of time just instantly back-filled itself, into all these wonderful and colorful things I didn't even know I had in me to come out. I just kept talking and talking, and laughing to myself, and had my friend rolling on the floor with laughter and good times! I just felt... so amazing.
When, at long last, we finally parted, and I went back home, to go to bed.. I started for a second, confused. Something was wrong.. Well, no.. not wrong, but.. different. Missing. What the heck is it?
It was that old tightness. At the back of my throat. It was gone. It was just simply... not there anymore.
***
Even that last bit now too is many many years ago. And, as the years roll on by, I constantly, am always finding I have new and amazing stories I want to tell. I have lived more life now probably, than I ever did at any time ever, even before all of that way back then. I have traveled all over the country and even abroad. I have dozens and dozens of wonderful and amazing friends, and, though there are of course ups and downs, as all lives lived well must have, my life is filled with wonder and beauty, every single day.
I am valued. I am loved.
And to think, that if I had ever fallen to despair and given up, if I had ever let anything happen to myself... Then I would not now be standing here to see it.
I love my life.
I thank the universe for it.
It has been a rather long time now, since I've last told the highschool story to anybody. Even when I did, that was still pretty few and far between anymore. I never even wrote about it at all here even once, until now.
***
And now... that I have at last told it here, in full, one last time... I think that I shall never again tell it ever, for as long as I shall live. Never again verbally, at any rate. Maybe one or two sentences, and possibly a link to here if anyone really give that much of a shit. Just to mark those four months of time, for completeness sake. But I'm done. Fuck those bitches. That's all they deserve.
Besides. I have a lot more stories to tell now, that are a lot better use of my time.
And, I have a whole lifetime of stories still ahead of me.
Now then. If y'all will 'scuse me, my roommate's playing techno in the other room, and I gotta go dance ;) ^.^
Q.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 04:38 am (UTC)But still, LJ cut man... LJ cut...
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 04:43 am (UTC)*hugs*
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:05 am (UTC)Wow...that was...awesome. I read every word; I never realized you've been through so much o.o
*Hugs*
- K
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:34 am (UTC)Pretty sure everyone reading this knows the feeling that you describe with the bullies. I know I did. But it was magnificent of you to write what you did to those teachers, and what you still managed to achieve, graduating and performing in a school play, under that great strain.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:34 am (UTC)I'm still riding on the fact that you were so brave in a way to stand up and say SOMETHING! Anything! to people like that... I had my chance to do that in Junior high and I choked. you sir are amazing *noses*
the lesson I take form this however Quentin is that people heal, people grow and change and this entire thing however painful it was however deep it was in your psyche seems to have been healed not in catharsis but by sheer time. Time is something you enjoy though so maybe that's not too bad a way. I think that teaches me at least that time can heal many wounds... and that's important *hugs* I think in part it helps that you have friends now, a lot of good friends who care for you and think you're pretty drag awesome, which you are, and the fact is you know its not only okay to be who you are but its dang fantastic. Quentin Coyote not exactly a master of the impossible... more master of his past
but yeah I can see why this was hard to write and why you did write it. Not an easy thing but
*hugs* thanks for sharing it. thanks for sharing this story... but you are right you have a bunch more in the old library still and I for one can't wait to read the next one...
or some other equally cornball statement form moi....
but yeah... wow *hugs and ear rubs*
[edit:such an inappropriate icon this is better]
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 06:02 am (UTC)*hugs you*
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 05:56 am (UTC)You'll tell it again. We all tell it again no matter how many times we say we won't. It's our lives and we share them. At the point where we are the most open is when the ones we say we'll never tell again come out.
And we enjoy telling them too.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 06:09 am (UTC)I know I'll be recovering my happy place very quickly now, for a number of reasons. But no, this bitch is realy done. From now on, if someone really needs to know, they'll get an lj link from me, a "have fun", and an "I'll be waiting when you're done."
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 06:13 am (UTC)So emotional that I actually shed more tears during Mr Black than all the bullying (though I did tear because of that as well)...
I have wondered, and especially while reading this, what would've happened had I came out in High school. I had a heck of a time in high school, I wasn't that popular, but everybody knew me, and most people liked me.. I don't think anyone actually disliked me, some people were just neutral.
Those times seemed so open and happy and I was so confident and secure that I wonder what had happened had I came out... Would it all have changed? Would I have those horror high school stories like yours, or like others?
I'll never know...
::hugs so very tight::
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 06:19 am (UTC)She may forward it all over the Internet (well, at least a small portion of the Mexican users of the Internet); so I don't know if you rather I send it to her as a link or as text (with you quoted as the source of course) to avoid a small comment flood here...
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 06:17 am (UTC)It ought to be reprinted somewhere, though I haven't a clue where. But somewhere that a hell of a lot of people would see it.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:13 pm (UTC)Well, I'm open to suggestions, or linking.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 07:08 am (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 07:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:24 am (UTC)Thank you for the telling.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:17 pm (UTC)Sh'yeah. And even all of that not witstanding, then what? So, you just had the 'best years of your life', and now you get to hang aound for the next 80 or so, give or take, sitting around waiting to die, cause yeah, just can't top that ol' highschool time. Bullpucky indeed! ;)
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:38 am (UTC)I had thought I had been hurt badly. I got picked on quite a bit. Names, food thrown at me, people used to spit on me, beat me up, grab my head and slam it into the wall - while I was taking a piss, at that. But you know what it was for? Long hair. Over and out, that's all. They didn't even know I was gay, no one did. I can only imagine what I could have gone through if they knew, because even at that point, I had a gun to my head for a moment. I gave up, so I saved myself pain, but I paid in an equivilent exchange - I paid in good memories and friends that will never happen. You didn't give up. You are stronger... you are better than me.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:44 am (UTC)Haha seriously. High school was pretty good to me. I owe that partially to the fact that my high school was far too big for anyone to really know that many other people, and that being in Queens, NYC, the cliques are divided more by ethnicity than by social ranking or whatnot. It's true, we didn't have jocks, preps, nerds... no one was white enough for that crap. Instead we had the Latinos, the Russians, the Chinese, the Korean, the Indians, the Blacks, etc... Whatev, it's true... (Oh, what's a whitey to do)
But I went through that kind of hell back in elementary school. Except instead of 4 months it was a few years... and I was a bit younger... and I was actually NOT gay! Lol I dunno what's more fucked up, being tormented for being homosexual, or being tormented for being homosexual when you're actually not! I guess mine is just question mark forming.
I don't beileve I ever really told anyone my story save for a few bits fo details here and there, but one day I should tell you about it too.
Quentin. I want to cry right now. Just right now as I am writing this line, not when I was writing the paragraph above. Wow. So this is a serious moment and does not get one of my funny icons. I go with Saturn today.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:It works too!
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:56 am (UTC)You get many awesome hugs from me. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:21 pm (UTC)Actually thank you, that is one of the best compliments yet! :) If because of this, or otherwise, I would love to see more people's life stories :)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 09:29 am (UTC)the lessons Coyote teach are painful and filled with strife, but the rewards are great with lessons learned and hard fought.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 10:05 am (UTC)*snuggles*
I raise a drink to demons, may they be banished in the hell they were created.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 06:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 08:24 pm (UTC)As with me, it is where you are, and where you're going that is important, not so much where you came from. It took me a long time to realize that. I'm glad you do too.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 11:57 am (UTC)speechless.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 12:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 06:48 pm (UTC)And what's also amazing is that Quentin didn't just fall apart when insulted like that, instead he did something productive and spoke out.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 02:49 pm (UTC)But I have never known anyone, really, even as close as on LJ, who has had to endure such a thing. You have my apologies for the human race.
And I am so, so glad to hear the end of your story - that you moved on, had good times, and have wonderful happy stories to fill your head and your mind now. I weep for those who do not, who weren't strong enough to keep going. :(
Anyway, this is a rant and ramble from someone you barely know, but I felt it necessary to tell you you touched me and gave me some perspective I've never before had. *hugs* Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 09:54 pm (UTC)One of the worst aspects of all of this was, at the time, I felt like I went through it all for nothing, no recognition, no difference, no change.
If my story can help even one person get through this, surivive their own pain, and know that there is light and hope at the end of the tunnel, and if it can help others understand, then I am at last, finally, at peace.
*hugs tight*