Night with the family...

It became very clear to me last night how hated I would be if my Grandparents found out I am gay.

Yesterday I payed my Grandma and Grandpa a visit. They live about 40 minutes away from me, but it's pretty easily accessible to me. I haven't seen them since Christmas day, which is a little strange as we're a pretty close family and usually are in more contact than that.

It was a typical late afternoon visit that stretched into the evening. We at dinner at around 5 p.m. (how horrible...) and settled in to watch the news.

I don't really know the exact moment where I started to feel uncomfortable, but as the evening grew on I became very aware of how sad the situation is. Just sitting on the couch, looking back at the both of them, people with such high hopes and great excitement for my life...all of which would instantly be destroyed because of my orientation. It fills me with a great sadness.

In a way it feels like I'm already being hated, albeit unbeknownst to them. There never goes by a day when they don't make one or more comments about homos being bad, and it's usually in the general, horrible, homophobic sense. It just gets me down, the knowledge that they would turn on me in a second if they knew. The hatred, and betrayal. All over something that many would agree is senseless.

But there I was, sitting there talking about my semester and my hopes for summer jobs and my future plans...with the secret burden, that terror mixed with cutting insult, all the while them blissfully unaware.

It's a tragic situation. These are the only family that really matter to me, that care for me and will be there for me aside from my parents. By now you're probably saying, "If they can't accept you and would hate you, then you're better off without them." I understand the sentiment, and in 99% of instances I agree with you...but this is blood. It would kill me to have that relationship just severed, and it would ripple down to my parents as well, who would no doubt be cut off from life. Further to that, it would disrupt everything that I've ever known; Christmases and holidays and birthdays would almost cease to exist.

I've tried to stand up to their bigotry and intolerance. Sometimes when I'm particularly enraged I'll argue about things...like when they get on about AIDS being a gay disease that doesn't really matter. Forget the fact that homosexuals are the highest percentage of sufferers, what about the kids who are born with the disease? What about the African children who don't even have parents anymore? Sometimes it silences them.

No doubt this makes them sound like horrible people. They are not. But their ideas on certain topics are archaic and insane.

Even their perceptions of how things 'work' around homosexuality are wrong. Over the past few months my Grandfather cannot help himself but to ask what my weekend plans are. "Oh, you aren't going home again?" he'll say in that voice. "You're getting to be a city boy, watch out. Getting dazzled by all the lights," he tags on, in a half-joking manner. Then comes the good stuff.

"Just don't be down there in the gay village, walking around or anything. You'd better stay away from there," he says.

Grandma pipes in, "Yeah, don't want them turning you into one of those faggolas!"

Often times I find myself jealous of those who have at least one ally in their family. People who have a crusading mother, or a level-headed father, or the raging Grandmother that is a throwback hippie chick encouraging you to just be yourself. I have nothing like that...at best I have a mother slowly coming to grips with it, grudgingly, a father who still doesn't know, and two homophobic, gay-bashing Grandparents that would disown me after the words, "I am gay."

A slightly touching thing has come out of all of this. My mother has commented to me on a number of occasions that she finds it hard to stomach when they start gay bashing. "My chest just gets all tight, and I hope that they don't see the look in my eyes," she said. "I just can't stand hearing that stuff."

Nice to know she doesn't like it either. Or maybe she just doesn't like hearing it out loud, as often such internal comments can sound much worse when they are verbalized.

Before I was able to cope a little better with it. I maintain the attitude of not worrying, simply because they will 'never find out' and the boat will not be rocked. I'd detach that part of myself when around them, so their words and misguided attempts at humour don't hurt. But last night, a particularly normal visit by any other means, left me feeling this great sense of disappointment and burden.

I'll have to shore up the walls, because I've got years more to go, and with any luck that will include a boyfriend and a bit more gayness in my everyday life, no doubt making the facade even more difficult to maintain. There is simply no other alternative though.

All of this has led me to hope to finally settle down with a guy who has a big, loving, accepting family so I won't have to live a semi-isolated family life because of sexuality. People who are past this.

Maybe my family will one day all find out, and just accept it for what it is, no problems. Somehow I don't think this is the case, but I'll keep that small hope in my heart.

Until then, I've got to put up with the 'fear of the faggolas' that my Grandparents seem not to be able to shake.