Coming Out.

Ten years ago, I said in a Facebook post on National Coming Out Day that my mother and I had different memories of my coming out, and that prompted some email correspondence that I’d long since forgotten till this morning when the post came up in my “Memories.” The two versions are described in my recent essay in Statorec, so I won’t go into mine, but I’m glad I dug up Mom’s email because it includes some small details I’d forgotten (like the fact that my sister was reading my diary in high school — wtf?!).

One thing I love about gmail is how it preserves everything. I’ve lost so much that was on old hard drives and email accounts; correspondence that, if it were paper, I would surely have saved: earthlink and aol, yahoo, Eudora … gone forever.

The bit about Mom and Dad leaving books around for me to notice — that memory is so vivid to me, but Mom didn’t recall it at all and it doesn’t seem like a thing you’d forget, so I question it now. How did that get in my head? My very close high school friend Laura Deer, for my 17th (or maybe 18th?) birthday, gave me a Holly Near album and the book based on the documentary “Word Is Out,” a hint so obvious it’s not even really a hint, but still I was afraid to come out to her, or to anyone I’d grown up with, until I’d been away to college and come back feeling more confident, safer.

Mom and I used to correspond regularly, by U.S. Mail for decades, and then by email nearly every day. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the loss of that.

Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer <…>
Oct 13, 2012, 1:49 PM
to sharon

So what is your memory of me coming out? I think you said you
remembered it being when I was in college? I don't remember it ever
coming up until I came home with Eduardo. But I also don't remember
ever having any kind of direct conversation about it, just that at
some point it was understood. But I remember finding a book in your
magazine rack that made me think you were dropping a hint to me to
come out, something like "How to Talk to Your Gay Kid." But I
mentioned that when we talked recently and you said you don't remember
anything like that?

Strange how memory works!

Steven

sharon cheslik <…>
Oct 13, 2012, 2:02 PM
to me

Steven,

I knew sometime while you were still in high school, but waited for you to approach the issue. I think you mentioned leaving books around your room dealing with homosexuality that you hoped we would notice, and maybe that was when I knew, but can't remember that for sure. However, I suspected years earlier, but was confused because you dated girls. (Dumb me!)

Kay woke up in the middle of the night while you were in high school, crying, and told me she read in your diary that you were gay. I assured her it was all OK, but don't recall confronting you with the issue.

Maybe because I thought she shouldn't have been reading your diary! I think that happened in the summer when the two of you spent so much time together during a Putnam Co. play.

The first time I remember a real discussion was when you came home the first time from Miami of Ohio, with one ear pierced, which at the time was the mark of being gay. Dad and I had lunch with you at Moore's bar downtown in Greencastle and we talked about it, and Dad warned you to be careful where you went in Greencastle so you wouldn't be beat up.

I do remember telling Mike when he was home on leave from the Navy and he was stunned. He said "NO." Not because he couldn't accept it, but because he was absolutely so surprised.

That's how I remember it.

Love, Mom