Always Coming Out of Closets

My Parkinson's Disease

I knew I was gay when I was in the 4th grade. No shit. True story. I didn’t “come out” publicly until I was 24.

Oh, I had relationships. In fact, the most passionate love I ever experienced was bound within the confines of no one being able to know about it. Unlike my peers who openly talked about getting laid, falling in love, or joked about their morning’s “walk of shame,” I remained silent.

When that relationship ended, I suffered my pain alone. Why? I was afraid — pure and simple. During the time that my straight contemporaries moved in together and some bandied about diamonds proclaiming their undying devotion, I nursed a broken heart in solitude.

Isolation is devastating. We are not built to be alone. Perhaps this has never been better depicted than by Tom Hanks’s love of Wilson — the soccer ball.

There are two perspectives of the closet. From the inside, it is the person isolated, alone, living their singular human experience as “less than.” Then there is the perspective of the per…