Category Archives: Notes From Across the World

A Note from Cesar, in Germany…

“My parents discovered that I was gay when I was 14, at that same age I also realized that I was gay. They found some gay porn under my bed. They talked to me and took me with a therapist until I was “not gay” anymore.Everything was good at home because I kept hiding that I was gay. But it was so hard for me. There were some nights that I cried a lot because of who I am. Saying to the world, why? why me?

I hide my homosexuality for 5 years, at the age of 19 I got my first boyfriend, it was a distance love. One day my mother took my phone and saw a whatsapp message from my boyfriend where I told him that I love him. I didn’t know until my boyfriend told me someone called him saying that he is a fucking faggot, that should get away from me because if he doesn’t it would be the end of him, also I saw that my parents were so quite with me. One day my mother and I where seating out side the house and suddenly she started telling me that she have has lesbian friends that they were ruined but the they became straight had a husband and now they are living so happy and good bla bla bla… At this point I knew what she wanted. She told me about the message, and that I should stop dating this guy. She also told me that: because of me she was feeling so bad and that if I love her I should stop being gay. As if it easy like that. I didn’t, so my parents stopped talking to me for 4 months, by this time I was sheltering with my best friends. My boyfriend traveled to my city and I told my parents that I would be with some friends the whole weekend doing university’s projects. When I arrived to my house I thought my parents didn’t have a clue about it and I was so happy about it until the next day when they realized that I was with this guy the whole weekend.

My father started insulting me saying that I’m worthless, that I’m shit, that I’ll ruin my career, that it would be better to start looking another place to live, and then asked me to take my shirt of and started to hit me with a wet belt. By this I was completely destroyed I passed 3 weeks crying every single night. And my dad kept sending me e-mails with “information” of why being gay is bad, which aids you can have if you are gay and stuff like that and stopped calling me son. One day I was really tired of it so I wrote the next e-mail attaching the movie “prayers for Bobby” to him:

“Mom, dad:

I’m 19 years old and soon I’ll be 20. Time goes fast. If I take a look back, I can see I’ve lived a lot of experiences and you have been there with me all my life.

I know, everybody tell me, you have also tell me, since you know I’m homosexual it hasn’t been easy for you. Believe me, for me neither. It hasn’t been easy to experience break hearts and arrive into the house hiding my crying or crying softly to not bother you. It hurts me the silence that you put between us. You are putting the walls between us.

No, it hasn’t been easy and I’m really trying to understand you, but sometimes it’s hard for me to understand. I know, your education is different, because they put on you a lot of walls. They teach you that love must be just between men and women.

I know I broke your plan of me having a wife, visiting you on Sundays with the grandsons. I know it hurt you because nobody prepared you to face an unexpected situation where religion, people and family influence your fear. I understand all of this, but I don’t justify it.

I don’t justify that in front of something unknown you refuse and not search for alternatives to create new links between us. Nobody teach you how to be parents just like nobody teach us how to be sons. We learn that together. The sons learn from the parents never the less the parents must learn from and for the sons. Mom, dad, I am here. I’m still here and soon I’ll start my life. It’s me. I haven’t changed. I’m still intense, the same that cries with movies and books, the same that laugh loud, the same that hugs, the same that has goals and doesn’t keep quiet, the same that make you some drawing in kinder garden, the same that danced in the elementary school festivals, the same that keep telling you ‘I love you’. THE SAME that doesn’t hurt anyone for loving or sleeping with someone of the same sex. IT’S JUST LOVE and love doesn’t have a gender.

I cried a lot because I have had this feeling that we’re losing time that will not come back, time that we could use to re-meet us, approach and share without masks our life.

Fortunately I have learned to live with your presence and absence, I’ve learned to make another family with my friends and share a lot of things with them. Things that I would like to share with you but you are missing out.

I wish you could realize that the present time goes away and it goes so fast that we don’t even realize, tomorrow maybe one of us will not be here and we will know, too late, that we were wrong.

I have the peace of mind to recognize that I tried, but I cannot do anything.

I keep on, my life continues and it’s fine. But it would be amazing if you are here sharing this path called life. Sharing experiences, talks, moments, laughs and cries.

I know this is not easy. Moms and dads experience assimilation processes that are not always easy nor fast. It’s not easy for anybody to experience a situation that breaks the established and where because of the silence, fear and absurdities unquestioned, nobody does anything and things get more complicated. Taboos that get over the existent love and move away the people.

I understand you, but I ask you to understand me. This is not a war; let’s not make trenches or sides. There are not victims or victimizers, just, ignorance, silence and barriers.

Probably everything is already lose between us but it could be that in the future it changes, shame that future is so insecure and there’s no way for us to know it there’s going to be a future or time. There’s still love to fight for.

I LOVE YOU,

Your son César”

I sent this e-mail early in the morning. During the afternoon of the same day I was in a lecture at university when suddenly my phone rang, it was my dad. I answered and he was crying telling me how much he regrets everything he told to me that he would never do that again and that he was very proud his son and that he will always support me.

Since that day everything has been amazing between me and my parents. They accept me by who I am and I feel that support, that I think Latins want always to have, the family support. Now I’m finishing my university and working as an engineer in Germany.

I would just like to say, everything gets better, keep strong, and never give up.”

photo by Cesar

photo by Cesar

A Note From Bernard, in Scranton, PA….

“I am gay of simply being. In this moment, I am 22, single and often referred to as an old soul. Aware beyond my years, yet vulnerable to many facets of life. To me, gay means love. Simple. Nothing more and nothing less. Because I am gay, I am love. This is one truth I share with clients, friends and even to you (a stranger willing to read a piece of my story).

My journey of gay started when I was harassed daily in middle-school by everyone. If it wasn’t the boys in the locker room then it surely was the girls in the hallway. Typical day included books being knocked out of my grasp and being called a faggot, he-she or shim. The majority of the school hated me and this Aries definitely dished it back with an attitude. Most of the adults in my life at the time just accepted this as a normal process of growing up.

Everyone gets picked on.
You’ll be better before you get married.
Well, ignore it and it will stop.

As you can imagine, none of those band-aid remarks healed the situation. It actually took me leaving the area altogether to discover the brilliance in what it means to be gay. Because I come from an impoverished blue collar family and was rigorously put through the ringer in public school, a guidance counselor referred me to a private boarding school for low-income families. This was my golden ticket to better my life before it was too late.

My high school days fed me the moments I needed to grow as a person. I found my spiritual calling with crystals and juggled after-school activities that included Model United Nations, Amnesty International letter campaigns, student government, tons of community service projects and memorable trips to art museums in Philly and Washington D.C. . I wanted to experience it all and even managed to do cross-country and ballet briefly my senior year. But even being gay in this setting was looked down upon and kept in secret. I wanted to start a gay-straight alliance but was told it’s against the school’s policy for religious reasons. I must journey some more to understand and so I walked across the stage from teen to adult.

The benefits of my secondary educational experience, sent me to Pittsburgh to be the first of my family to graduate from college. A bar raising triumph that would not have been possible if I didn’t courageously pursue the risk of change. In college, the freedom was exhilarating and heart raising. And I found other gay boys! Tons! But, quickly knew I didn’t belong.

The overly confident and mostly attractive gay males were dancers and swarmed in seas. I was not one to push my ego so rashly or eager to have sex freely. So instead my energy was channeled in my honors studies, working on campus and finding my way with ease. In the summer of 2010, I interned for a queer arts organization in Boston because I intended to explore the GLBTQ kingdom with immense focus. If I am gay, I needed to live mindfully of all aspects of what it means to be gay. So it led to many firsts including learning about Harvey Milk, meeting a drag queen, laughing with transgenders and going to a gay bar and swinging my shirt above my head like a goofball. It was an amazing experience and I never wanted the summer to end because I knew I would be returning to a state where I did not belong.

The one highlight from this internship was experiencing firsthand the essence of community that being gay invokes. Typically beings experience community primarily through their biological family, but because gay is so brilliant, GLBTQ folks find that source of belonging often cross culturally and with people outside of his or her direct blood line. To be able to form a union among loving souls is beautiful and compassionate. Mutual respect at it’s finest which energetically being gay inspires during PRIDE festivals and parades. Lots of color and cheer happened as I was one of the leaders in charge of the theater company’s PRIDE parade involvement. Having hundreds of people expressing gayness for life was nothing more than pure sexiness.

Gay is love.
Gay is happiness.
Gay is freedom.
Gay is you.
And gay is me.

No matter your sexual desires or political statements, gay is an energetic adjective that describes lively, wholesome and cheerful times. The lessons and insights of my soul path together have brought me to this point of my life at 22 to realize that being gay is positive spirit, commitment, respect and integrity. All key ingredients that I articulate in my spiritual practice.

Announcing who we truly are in this world, in my experience, is a risk. This is a risk we endure because in true authenticity of the circumstance – to love can be distracted by labels, fearsome tales or disease, such aspects that squash our natural light. However when we are at peace with our inner self it makes living oh so gay! A risk well worth taking.”

Learn more about Bernard at, www.bernardtalks.com

photo by Bernard

photo by Bernard

A Note from Vince, in Philadelphia…

“Dear Kevin,

Your project is wonderful. Looking at the photos and reading the personal histories makes me cry. I doubt that you will ever read this email, but it makes me feel good to write to you.

My story is no different than thousands of others. But at least writing it in this email helps me to feel good about myself and my life with my life partner of twenty-three years. How I wish I could have called him my husband. For sixteen years together he lived with HIV. I was negative, taught in high school, and no one wanted to know that I was gay and my partner had HIV. That was a dirty little secret. Jon learned that he was HIV positive on the eve of my forty-fifth birthday. It was a special birthday that he had planned: a trip to NYC, two Broadway plays, a nice dinner, and a romantic evening together. That never happened, but the next sixteen years did. I recall the words: “til death do us part.” Those words, although never spoken, we lived. There were some difficult days, and when the end arrived, it was cathartic and wonderful. How strong he made me. How much I loved him? Will anyone ever know?

I wish you a wonderful life.”