Davey Wavey's Coming Out Story

This is the story of me, Davey Wavey, coming out of the closet to my mom.

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When I remember the most emotional moment of my life—January 29, 2001—it feels like yesterday. I can still smell my mother's hand lotion as I laid my head in her lap. Putting down her book and placing a hand on my chest, she could feel my racing heart—and knew that I had something to say.
Coming out is an ongoing experience. It doesn't happen just once. It happens each day. I come out to the grocery clerk when I steal a kiss from my boyfriend while waiting in line. I come out to the strangers on the street when I hold his hand. I come out to the waitress when she asks if we're brothers.
But coming out to mom is very different. If the clerk snickers, or if the strangers yell a slur, or if the waitress refuses to serve us, I can get on with my life. I can shrug it off, and hope that the world continues to get a little bit friendlier. But if things don't go well with mom, it's a much scarier reality.
When I came out to my mom on that January night, I was very much aware of what that moment meant. And I was terrified. When you tell someone that you are gay, it's impossible to anticipate his or her reaction—especially if that someone means the world to you.
When my mom asked what I needed to say, I couldn't find the words. As she held my head in her lap, I felt so vulnerable—like a young child. I knew that so much of my future was hanging on this moment, and that it was all so beyond my control. I remember hearing the tick of my mom's watch against my left temple, and in the space between the seconds, I imagined what it would be like to be homeless and disowned. I wondered where I would go, or how, at age 17, I was going to make a living for myself. I felt the cold nights alone under the stars, and the emptiness in my stomach.
Instead of saying the words that I couldn't get myself to say, my mother started finding them for me in a game of 20 questions. 20 questions soon became 30. And then 40.
"Did you steal something?" she asked.
"No," I replied.
"Did you see something that you shouldn't have seen?"
I shook my head.
Having gone through the full list of venials, my Catholic mother was running short on sins. "Well, is this about a girl that you like?"
"Close."
There was a pregnant pause, and in that moment, it felt like entire lifetimes came and went. The pause said everything that I couldn't, and in our silence there was a knowing that only tears could acknowledge.
We cried.
My mom rocked me—her vulnerable 17-year-old son—back and forth. She cried because she knew that life was hard for everyone, but that it would be even harder for me now as a gay man. She cried because her reference point for being gay was the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and because she didn't want her son's life cut short. She cried because the emotional gravity of the moment almost required it.
Her tears—our tears—said it all.
It's been ten years since that fateful January night. And though it hasn't always been sunshine, rainbows and roses, I've never spent a single lonely, hungry night under the stars. Not a one.

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Tags:

• coming out
• davey wavey
• coming out of the closet
• coming out story
• closet
• homosexual
• gay
• lesbian
• glbt
• pflag
• hrc
• closet case
• gay youth
• sexual orientation
• pride

[shizmanugas]

im hetero sexual but i totally love you :) <3 you are a superb writer!!!!! keep up the great work

[FunAdorableChelsea1]

Wow that was amazing

[kellykak98]

I'm crying... 

[ishop4819]

I want to cry but I'm so tired that crying hurts my eyes. I loved this!

[lurchmalone1]

Wow. Thanks.

[TheMdvdl]

I now have tears

[annabelSPNlover]

Oh... Now I'm all emotional, this is so moving.... :'o

[peemawaj15]

This is very inspirational...and emotional :'((

[MentallyDatingDahvie]

@dahviewaveyraw are you trying to murder all of us with your abs?? XD PS im subscribing! It was hard for me to come out to my mom 2...still havent told my dad;)

[DeKaasbaas]

You are amazing

[senclass07]

I just want to say...this was incredibly moving. You are a phenomenal writer.