The Thirteenth Year

The number 13: there are two reasons why this number holds dear and near to me. The first being that I was born on the 13th of November and the second is today, I celebrate my 13th coming out anniversary. February 20, 2012, was a scary, yet joyous moment in my life. While many people have since stopped being friends with me because of me coming out as a gay man, there are others who love and accept me for who I am. I knew that I liked guys at a very young age, but my now estranged parents, made it difficult for me to fully express myself. I had to act and look a certain way around them. To them, being yourself is wrong and they think something is wrong with you. I had to hide my true self for about the next 20 years, because I grew up in the 90s, at a time when being gay was a taboo topic and not accepted by society.

I grew up Arlington, Texas and while most of my childhood was great, I also had abusive parents who were conservative. The continuous guilt of hiding my sexuality from the people who cared about me, especially from my friends at school. I'm the oldest of three children and suffered the brunt of the abuse, verbally and physically, from my parents on a regular basis. It was almost like they hated me for being born and existing. I hardly received any love from them, and they were emotionally unavailable at times. I desperately wanted two loving adults to love and support me, but to no avail. I carried this resentment into adulthood, and this was one of the reasons why I no longer speak with them.

In 2020, I wrote an open letter on Vocal, when I finally came out to my estranged parents. I'll have the link to the letter down below, but in that letter, I addressed them one last time and shared how horribly they treated me all those years, among other things. My estranged mother and sister were not pleased of the things I said in that letter. They pressured me to take it down, but I refused. I shared it on my social media pages, so I could show them that they weren't the loving parents towards me than I thought.

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Even if my estranged parents aren't willing to accept the fact that they have a gay son, I'm okay with that. It's because parents will never change their ways and will always see themselves as victims, taking zero responsibility for their actions. In fact, I thank them for disowning me. I know it sounds strange but hear me out. They don't deserve a son like me and will regret not showing me any sort of affection. Sometimes, you have to let people go, and that's what I did. As much as you want to make things work with your parents, you have to realize that reconciliation with toxic people is impossible. I chose to cut toxic people out of my life for the sake of my mental well-being. It's not worth the energy or stress.

As I conclude this story, I want to share some advice with you. You have to learn how to love and accept yourself. RuPaul once said, "If you don't love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?" If people won't accept you for who you are, that's their loss. Kick them to the curb and surround yourself with those who will love and support you unconditionally. Never apologize for expressing yourself, because how you identify yourself is no one else's business but yours. I'll never apologize for being my true self and if me doing that makes some people uncomfortable, then so be it. Stay true to yourself and continue to be that fabulous person.

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