A "Thank You" and Reflections

I want to thank those readers who have sent me e-mail messages of support and friendship since my postings yesterday. It is truly nice to know that I have friends and supporters virtually around the globe. It definitely shows how the Internet has made the world so much smaller in some ways. To have friends even on the other side of the world is comforting.

One of the costs of coming out of the closet for me has been that the vast majority of my "friends" from the straight phase of my life have written me off. I definitely learned who my real friends are. Years of working on political and civic matters and championing quality public education in Virginia Beach that benefited these people's children suddenly meant little or nothing. It has truly been a harsh education in the hypocrisy of upscale suburban America (at least in Virginia Beach). If you are not white and straight, you are largely not welcome. I guess I should have been forewarned: many of these same folks tried to social climb through their children, placing them in private schools, etc. Superficiality is the best description for the area of Virginia Beach where I once lived. I do not miss it.

Of course the irony is that my "crime" is that for most of my life I tried ever so hard to do and be precisely what my church, my family, and society in general told me I should do and be. At great emotional and mental cost I might ad, not to mention irritability and self-hate from having to always "be in character." When I reached the point of simply being unable to keep it up and came out, my past good deeds and sacrifices meant nothing to so many.

Fortunately, my parents and siblings accepted me. Likewise, most of my clients did as well. It was my "friends" and my children (other than my youngest) who abandoned me. I sacrificed for all my children, but my youngest received the least in terms of material things, yet she is the one who currently still communicates with me. Admittedly, there is no hand book for being a good parent. I am not saying I was the best parent I could have been, but I did try my best. I truly did given the hand fate had dealt me.

If I had it to do over again would I come out in mid-life? Yes, I would. I might do some things differently - which I will elaborate on further in the future - but I would come out. Finding peace and acceptance with who you are and your sexual orientation is worth more than nearly anything else. I hope that in time my older two children will understand why I had to do what I did. It's not that I did not or do not love them. I just could no longer live my life as an actor on a stage, always fearful of discovery.