Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Okay, this video that YouTube made just made me cry.
This reminds me so much of my own coming out when I was in my 20s. The thing is, straight people don't have to come out and declare they are straight: it's a privilege they have for living in a heteronormative society. They don't know the anxiety, the fear, and ultimately the courage that come bundled with the act of "coming out," which is centred around one question: "When I tell the people I love that I am gay, will they still love me?" Because in the end, it's really all about love.
When I came out to my mother, it was a mini-disaster of sorts -- she was quoting Bible verses again and again over the dinner we were having in Don Atilano. She was hoping I'd "change my mind."
I would know of her acceptance of me only very surreptitiously and only much later, when a visiting relative commented in a disparaging manner on very gay artwork she found hanging in my old bedroom in the family house. I was just outside the door, listening in to their conversation without them knowing I was eavesdropping -- and then I heard my mother, virtually a deaconess of her church, start to defend the art work, and then defend my life, and then defend the way I love. I teared up.
My mother still has no idea I know what she did.
People have no idea how wonderful that feels, to be affirmed by people you love for being who you are.
7:42 AM |
Thank You, YouTube
