Gay in the 80’s was not like being gay today. I was called sissy, faggot, a bitch.

At 17 I met Cole who was 35, and I came out to my Mother. She said my love is unconditional for you, but who is this man? He was a butcher who worked for my sister in law’s family and I wanted to move in with him. He was older and experienced and he swept me off my feet. After a month we traveled across the US to Vermont to meet his family. It was a great incredible time of my life. I was free, away from home and on my own.

We moved back to LA and I found out that he was a cheater and a Liar. I met Bobby who was also gay, and we lived as platonic roommates for 8 years. But during this time I did not date at all. I surrounded myself with female friends and straight people. I was a straight hag. I was not living the life of a gay man, but I plunged into my art and found a creative outlet in oil painting, 3-D triptych art, and collages. This I incorporate today in window display and visual merchandising.

At 26 I moved into West Hollywood and started living life for the first time as a gay man and opportunities started arising. I came out to my employer and this allowed me to be more myself at work. I was comfortable in my skin and clients would set me up on dates.

The ducks were in a row, but that does not make it easy. I was afraid to date or go to a bar by myself. Although I wanted a relationship I had to deal with my own insecurities. I still had a hurdle to overcome before I could have my happy ending.

2 years ago I was united with a sister that had never been in my life. She is a lesbian with 3 kids and her partner has 3 kids too. They joined houses and formed the Gaydy Bunch, like the tv show. My new nephew just came out at 13 and he did it in such a supportive and loving environment. What a great time this is for him. It is very brave of him.

So, I suppose the thought that I might be gay was always lurking in the back of my mind. But I didn’t call it gay or anything else for that matter. It was just my secret passion for men’s bodies. My dad, a very handsome man, had many handsome friends who gathered once a month to have “jam sessions” and play favorite big band songs popular when they fought in World War II: Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. These were real men’s evenings where there was much drinking, non-stop smoking and language and stories not for children. But I loved seeing and hearing them and begged to be allowed to stay up a bit later once in a while to watch. On one of those special nights, my mother and I were sitting on the steps leading into our “sunken” living room listening to their stylings. I was absentmindedly stroking my eyebrow with my index finger. My mother told me to stop doing that immediately. “Why?” I asked. “Because that’s how homosexuals signal each other,” she said.

And suddenly I thought, she knows! How can she know??

Well, she didn’t really know then although she suspected later as I found out. But it was enough to make me keep my guard up for several years. So I suppressed that side of me and went off to college determined to sleep with women and have a girlfriend and I did just that. But I still couldn’t keep my eyes off the cute and often bare-chested college boys, one in particular named Gerald. Gerald had already had a boyfriend before so he was a likely target. And then one drug-drenched night at a friend’s house in the country we wandered off to get away from the psychedelic madness. Two men went into the woods and came out changed forever at dawn the next day. And it had been the most natural, delightful and satisfying experience I’d ever had. I only wondered why I’d waited so long.