Monday’s ambush

Sorry for the lack of update, it’s been a little busy (as you can expect).
So after the weekend I got a call from mum and dad on Monday at work “we’re coming up to London for a chat”. :-S
Now just to give you a bit of context, it costs £50 return each ($100) to get to London and my parents are not made of money, so they obviously meant business. After feeling a little jittery all afternoon at work I left and caught the tube to Paddington and met them under the clock.

We left the station and headed towards the canal and a small café on the water front. We sat down and started to talk. We spoke about loads of stuff, they kept on asking questions and I kept on asking. We spoke about my suicidal moment I went through and everything, as I said, they asked the questions and I answered. They did keep on asking the question “are you sure?”.

Dad then asked me if I would be willing to give it 6months before coming out to make sure. I advised him that I had been through that already and that I wouldn’t have come out to my parents if I hadn’t.
They then said if I want to jack in my job and come home then I could. It was if they where trying to save me. Dad then said that you don’t need to deny your orientation, but you can chose not to act on it. When he said this the mist started to descend, I managed to keep a cool head “so dad are you asking me to be celibate for the rest of my life?”. With that came silence “I suppose I am”. Again staying calm “unfortunately dad I can’t do that, A: I don’t believe being an active homosexual is wrong and B: I need a relationship, I’m like a lost ship without one”.
In a firm way, but not rude, or unloving, or petulant way I said to them both “I think the understanding we need to come to is that we are coming from completely fundamental different places and therefore we will disagree”. They both agreed and repeated that they’ll love me what ever.
After that they gave me some name of some councillors that I could see, which to be fair is a good idea my is tres messed up at the best of times. (We’ll come back to those councillors later)
And with that we said goodbye and walked our separate ways.

I then headed to PingPong a Chinese restaurant with Stephe and got completely hammered of Sake.

The next morning I looked at the counselling services they had found, they where all “fix my gay son” services, I was a little offended to be honest. I know that all their doing is what they think is best for me and that its all done out of love but I still feels like their not accepting me. I think when it comes down to it, as manxxman said on my other post, I just need to give it a good lump of time.

Out i come

So what a weekend. I’m still in shock now and disbelief, it sort of doesn’t feel real.

So this is how it went.

Friday I went to work and threw-up (vomited) 3 or 4 times cause I was just a bag of nerves. Strait after work (in London) I headed the station to go back to Bristol (where my parents lived). When I got to buying a ticket my hands where shacking so much I couldn’t press the buttons on the machine. I sat on the train and just listened to my iPod praying and trying to clear my head. By the time I got to Bristol I was on another planet of panic.

Once got home at 7pm I found out that my mum had gone climbing (my parents weren’t expecting me home) so I had to sit with my dad watching TV trying to look normal. Luckily my brother had gone to his friends for the night to watch films. About 9pm my mum finally got back. We sat there in the living room watch some crappy TV program and in my head I was freaking out. I was saying in my head “I cant do this, I cant do this, what if they reject me”.

I suddenly just blurted out “we need to have a serious chat”, all at once I thought I was g’na pass out, so I gave them the letter and said “you need to read this”. I started to cry I couldn’t take the pressure anymore, it had all built up way to much. As mum read it she just came over hugged me, as did Dad when he had finally read it.
“There is nothing in the world that you could do to stop us loving you”. (by this point I was balling my eyes out).

And so we sat there for about 2 and a half hours just speaking about everything; about the last year, about Mr C, about my faith.

The next morning I went into my parent’s room and sat on the end of their bed. Me and Mum got into the nitty gritty of the biblical side of things and by the end of our conversation came to a mutual understanding that we don’t agree with each other, but that’s fair enough.

So with my parents there is one outstanding issue, they keep on saying the word choice, when actually its not a choice at all. But I think that will just take time.



Saturday morning it was time for my brother. I sat him down and explained that I had a boyfriend and that I was gay. He just sat there and said “well its your choice” and then went to have a shower. I get the feeling he’s in denial about it.



Sunday night I phoned up my sister (she lives on the other end of the country). She was great, she basically didn’t care (not in a rude way, but it made no difference to her) and she wanted to add him on face book.

So that in a nutshell is my coming out to my family. I seriously cannot complain at God about how it went.

Im out

I'm out to my parents. It happened in friday night. It went well. I'll write more tomorrow. I AM EXHAUSTED

The whites of my eyes (its coming out time)

So I’m going home tonight to come out to my parents and to say I’m shitting myself is a mild and massive understatement.
To be frankly honest I’ve never been so scared in my whole life, its 10am, I’m in work and my heart is already going.

I’ve decided that I’m g’na give them the letter and let them read it with me there, I think if I try to say it I’ll just pass out.
All last night and this morning I’ve let the outcome play around in my head (trust me I’m trying to stop it, but its hard), I’m just trying to keep positive.
And then after I’ve done this there are so many friends to tell. My God parents, extended family.
Do I tell them all individually in person or by email, or do I just tell a few and let the rumour mill do its job, or do I just update facebook and let it run wild. The thing is I don’t want to offend people by not telling them in person, but I can’t take the stress of it.

Anyway here’s the letter.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I’m not sure where to start (or even where to
finish).

So the first thing I want to say is that I love you
both, you both mean the world to me and I couldn’t ask for better parents. You
are both real role modals and I’m always proud that I’m Chris Smith’s or Louise
Smith’s son.

What I’m about to tell you may be a real shock to the
system and I completely understand if you don’t agree or if you just need space.

I’m gay.

I have a boy friend who I love dearly.

And before you ask no, its not PD.

Since last august
life has been hell. The combination of coming out to myself, moving to London
away from my support structure, and trying to reconcile my faith has nearly
killed me.

I now have a boyfriend, Mr C, who I have been seeing
for 3 - 4 months and I love him dearly.

I can completely
understand that this is a lot to deal with and take in, and there’s a lot more
to explain, but lets just do this one step at a time.

I don’t know
what else to say really.

I completely understand if you don’t want
to talk to me for a while, or ever. But I will always love you and I’m always so
thankful that you are and have been my parents.

If you need any
counselling organised or want any reading material then just say and I’ll get it
organised.

If you have any questions then just ask me, I won’t be
offended by anything you ask me.

Love Dave

Looks like I possibly have a church, maybe, ish.

There’s a church I’ve been to 3 times in London now and I’m really starting to enjoy it, an old friend from school introduced me to it. So I decided that before I get too involved and attached that I come out to her and find out A: what their take on things were and B: what level of inclusiveness is involved.

So last night I took her out to Nanado’s for “the chat”.
I start to explain stuff and she really paid attention and gave very fair answers. She herself was still unsure on where she come from with being Gay and being Christian but she still believed that everyone is welcome. And this is the score as she sore it:- A: Yes I would be completely welcome to join the church, they have a lesbian couple there already. B: She wasn’t shore weather I could actually become involved in leading as they’ve never really discussed the issue and suggested that I speak with the senior pastor.

So it looks like I have a place to be. A place to lead is another issue all together but we’ll see how that goes.

Germany

Again,

Sorry I havn’t blogged for ages. Iv’e been a little busy with life and work.

As you know I went to Germany to see my nan this weekend and it was really good. Shes looking well and slowly recovering.
When we finally arrived in Germany I picked up the hire car and got a 3.0TDi Audi A4 and, as many of you know the german highways have no speed limit. So I took that as an opportunity to drive as fast as I could (safely) and managed 210kph WOOT WOOT. I might be gay but I still have testosterone LMAO.

There’s not a lot more to say at the moment. Apart from I’m thinking of coming out to my parents this weekend, but I’ll see how the mood is.

Flat Spin

Why are we so human.
I don’t know If you’ve heard of the term flat spin, but its when a plane stalls and then spins on its centre axis, so the plane sort of turns into a giant helicopter blade. They can happen at anytime in a stall and have a tendency to uncontrollable and very hard to get out of.

The saying flat spin comes from that aircraft term, the idea being that we to such a point of shitness that we loose control.

This happened to me yesterday. I think every thing got to me. Mr C in hospital, Gran in Hospital, coming out, not being out, living in London, my job being crap and the weather topped it off.

I got home last night and just lost it. My plane stalled and the spin began. I just lay on my bed and started to cry. I think I’ve been bottling a lot of stress and crap up, and at some point that had to be let out. And if im honest with myself I’m pretty messed up at the moment and I should really find someone to talk to. I found Samaritans centre in central London so I may go and see them.

I think there are two things getting me down, actually theres shit loads getting me down, but the two main things are Mr C being in hospital and my so-called life in London.
Mr C being in hospital is obviously not his fault and it not him that I’m getting at, I just really miss him. I miss the hugs the kisses, I miss us arguing about stupid stuff like the number of horizontal pixels in 1080i HDTV (its 1920 by the way, he thinks it 1440 lol), I miss him.
And my life in London isn’t helping. I’m struggling to make close friends, I know it takes time, but I miss my crew.

So that’s me the endless rollercoaster of emotions. 90% I control them, but sometimes I just want to let it all go.

I’m off to Germany to see gran on Friday.