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when they sing and women can’t<br />
pray in front of men. I thought that<br />
weird but thought,<br />
“This church<br />
will change<br />
me!”<br />
I tried this for four years. I<br />
remember going to visit my parents<br />
that first semester in Oklahoma City.<br />
It was around September and I’d<br />
been in college for just a few weeks.<br />
I thought that I would stop having<br />
these thoughts but they got worse<br />
and worse.<br />
I was driving on Interstate<br />
35 and crying so hard I could hardly<br />
see. That’s when I thought it would<br />
be so much easier to just drive my<br />
car off a bridge than to have these<br />
“awful” thoughts and one day die<br />
from HIV/AIDS because that’s what<br />
I was taught if a man sleeps with<br />
a man. Needless to say, one of the<br />
JUNE <strong>2014</strong> / ARIES 104<br />
lowest moments of my life.<br />
Thank God I didn’t do anything<br />
like that. I met a good friend<br />
named Cary, who now goes by Patrick.<br />
He and I hung out all the time.<br />
We clicked and I felt good about<br />
just being alone the rest of my life<br />
surrounded by friends and ignoring<br />
these thoughts would be easy. He<br />
was dating another friend of mine<br />
and was a great friend.<br />
Through the years I had a<br />
couple of friends come to me and tell<br />
me they were gay. Cary first then my<br />
best friend Vince. I thought, “They<br />
must be coming to me for help and<br />
just to talk.” I was a little slow minded<br />
back then ;) They were telling<br />
me one for support and two because<br />
they were hoping that I would finally<br />
come out as well.<br />
Before my first<br />
senior year,<br />
I was a<br />
“super-senior,”<br />
I went on a couple dates with<br />
this girl named Lauren. She was<br />
exactly what I thought I wanted my<br />
wife to be. I thought, this is how<br />
it’ll work. But I still had attractions<br />
to men and couldn’t stand to fake<br />
my life. I called Cary and talked to<br />
him for hours. Then I went down to<br />
visit him in Houston. Granted, I still<br />
hadn’t told him that I was gay but we<br />
talked about a lot of stuff. I finally<br />
came back to Still-water to start the<br />
new semester and couldn’t just lie<br />
to myself anymore. I was telling<br />
my friends that there isn’t anything<br />
wrong with being gay! I was telling<br />
them that God loves them no matter<br />
what! I finally took a sip of my own<br />
medicine.<br />
I told my parents first. I knew<br />
that I needed their support and I got<br />
it. I was terrified. I made a special<br />
trip Labor Day Weekend to Albuquerque<br />
where they were living and<br />
I remember it being on the tip of my<br />
mind the entire weekend.<br />
I wouldn’t talk the whole<br />
time pretty much. Then we were sitting<br />
out on the back porch the night<br />
before I was going to leave the next<br />
day. I thought, “Now or never!” So<br />
I told them that I came in for a reason<br />
and I was mostly worried about<br />
my Dad’s reaction. I knew my Mom<br />
wouldn’t have a problem because<br />
she asked me if I was gay SEVER-<br />
AL times! Of course I always got<br />
super-defensive when she asked but<br />
back to the story.<br />
I told them and before I could<br />
get the words out, wouldn’t you<br />
know it, I was bawling my eyes out.<br />
I was worrying I’d be disowned by<br />
my family, they’d never talk to me<br />
again, and tell the entire family that<br />
I was a freak. I tend to over think<br />
things.<br />
They were amazing! My
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