I’m going to preface this post with an apology. It’s probably just me but I’ve been pressuring myself to get something up here for the last few days and it’s been something on my mind so I feel like this should have been done days ago. Hopefully I’ll follow through this time because I drove myself up here to middle of nowhere so that I would be more committed. It’s somewhere in the 40s right now and I’m sitting on the roof of my car. Hopefully I don’t get writer’s block because I don’t think it’s getting any warmer. So here we are, I guess I probably owe you guys a real post about now, eh? There’s really not much to tell, you guys have probably heard this story more times than your favorite bedtime story (I’ll skip the ‘once upon a time’). Besides, most of you have probably lived it in your own way. Anyway, here goes nothing. There was always that voice in the back of my mind telling me I was a just little different. Well I mean besides that, “You’re different and unique, like a snowflake” type of thing you’re told as a child. I guess that’s what I believed for the first while, up until when I knew better. Well Santa Claus and the Easter bunny went away and the divide between between what I thought of myself and what I thought was normal kept growing. It was an itch I couldn’t scratch, a thirst I couldn’t quench: that thought that everyone around me was somehow not quite the same. I had no baseline for normal because I wasn’t sure if I was another average kid. It wasn’t something I was worried about, I never felt like anyone thought I was different, it was just a curiosity. Sometimes I would jokingly think that I was in some kind of elaborate experiment or joke and that at any minute the curtain would roll back and there would be people in lab coats or an audience congratulating me. Alas, no (or at least not yet). Truth be told I had a pretty decent adolescence. I was extremely fortunate and never had the problems that many others had. Of course there were bumps in the road here and there. Among a few other things I had one of those ‘misunderstood’ phases a long while back. But with age comes a measure of maturity and I realize now how bad some others have had it growing up and that I had plenty to be thankful for. I might not have been the captain of the football team, I wasn’t first in my class, I never really sat with the ‘cool kids’ on the bus, and I didn’t drive the fastest car on the lot. But I’ve never had to worry for my personal safety, I’ve got a solid family, I’ve never lacked for friends, I’ve never even had a hard time finding a date for prom (though that’s an awkward story for another time). Anyway, sometime in my early teen years I began to get suspicions as to what was different about me. I had all the usual delusions and a few others: “It’s just a phase.” “This is all in my mind, I’d never act on these thoughts.” “Gay people are a myth, they’re only in the movies.” “If I don’t think about it maybe it’ll go away.” So there I was for a few more years. I tried not to dwell on it and continued to beguile myself into thinking that I was just being crazy and that I would ‘get better’ eventually. Well ladies and gentlemen (spoiler alert), in this case at least, it didn’t get better. It took until about sometime before my senior year of high school to even allow myself to think about this rationally. There came a day I decided to entertain the notion that this was more than just fantasy. I thought maybe that if I said it out loud, so it wasn’t all in my head, it’d be clearer. All alone I took a breath and muttered those words to myself, “I’m gay.” Then. The point that I knew absolutely, was right then. I’m not really sure what happened, the words felt clumsy and almost vulgar but I knew they meant a lot more than what two words usually mean. It’s those words that struck a chord deep inside me. It’s those words that would be with me for the rest of my life. I made up my mind to do nothing for the time being. I didn’t really want a relationship, especially then. I’m a pretty independent and not really a lovey dovey kind of guy (I didn’t even like to be held as a baby). Not needing anyone certainly makes life less complicated. So I went through my senior year, secrets held close, and had a lot of fun. Fast forward to college. Ups and downs, freedom, lessons learned, new experiences, responsibility, knowledge gained, etc. It was all magnificent and uneventful up until the Sunday before finals week last semester. One of my facebook friends posted a link to the video of Jonah Mowry responding to bullies. I watched it, and it was really touching. As with most videos, if I like them I’ll surf some of the similar videos or search for some. Hop, skip, and a jump later and I’m at the video of Randy coming out to his father. Blam. I watch all of his videos, and a second time. Before I saw those videos I had hardly even considered coming out, then all of the sudden it was on my mind all the time. It’s hard to explain, I don’t know why I feel the need to come out to anyone right now. I'm not sure what my next step is going to be at the moment, knowing me probably trip and fall on my face. I'm happy right now, and things are going great. I can hardly imagine being happier and I would hate to throw a wrench in the gears of what I've got going right now. I can't be brazen, I'm going to do my homework on this one. I've got a little something planned for the future, a trial run if you will. Stay tuned is what I’m saying for now.

It's time to call it on this one, my fingers are cold and it's getting hard to type. I did warn you that you'd heard this one before. If I didn’t bore you to death then I hope that at least you feel a little less alone now. I said I wouldn't start this with 'once upon a time' but maybe one of these days we'll all be able to have a 'happily ever after'. Be careful out there and remember, the stripes on a tiger are hard to change.