THREADING THE NEEDLE

 

 

I walked to the back door of my parents' home. The potato chip like crunch of leaves underfoot combined with the crisp autumn air to welcome me. The yellow porch light extended a familiar warm glow. Ash, the family cat, my companion since childhood, scurried ahead as I opened the door. She waited patiently as I filled her food dish and rubbed her worn scarred ears. Her purrs acknowledging our bond.

Closing the door against the Autumn chill, I entered the toasty warm kitchen. Aroma of bread just out of the oven teased my senses. The loaves on the counter sat in large worn baking pans. Butter crowned their tops. The kitchen light, created a soft golden glow. I reached into the cupboard for a bottle of freshly made strawberry jam. I picked up the butcher knife by it’s black handle and carefully cut through the warm loaf. When I was ten, that knife had slit a finger of my left hand, leaving it drooping at an odd angle. Shocked, I gazed at the blood ruining my bed lunch. A scream from my sister Sharon, brought me back to reality while my other siblings jostled for a view. In a flash, our mother, a veteran nurse, had wrapped the digit in several layers of clean gauze. Dad called his brother from next door to drive us to the hospital. An hour or so later, we returned home with a huge bandage covering the neatly stitched finger. Cuts scrapes and bruises happened regularly in our family of five boys and two girls. Mom was always there to tend to the wounds, with a dab of emotional salve to speed the healing process.

I heard her now, calling from the living room. "Douglas, are you eating the fresh bread? There is day old in the bin." She gently scolded from her chair.

 "I'm just having a small piece," I responded as I generously spread the delicious jam on the still-warm slice. I ignored my waistline, which had ballooned over the previous years. My youthful form and hair had disappeared. I poured myself a glass of milk and joined my parents.

Dad acknowledged me tacitly. His attention was fixed on the daily Parliamentary "Question Period." Experience told me to hold off conversation until the show ended. Mom was in her rocking chair, about to mend a pair of Dad's pants. Neither of them would have considered throwing them out despite their worn appearance. She deftly gathered her scissors. Her only concession to time and failing vision was to ask that I thread the needle, which I did quickly and handed back. She nestled into her comfortable chair and put her legs up to begin the task. "You know Douglas, as I get older, it’s harder to accept change in myself and things around me." It seemed a strange statement from someone I saw as strong and determined. The conversation shifted. "What brings you out tonight?" asked Mom. "Meet the Teacher" I said, with little enthusiasm. "Not my favourite event. "The parents I need to meet don't come.” I relaxed, while digging into the sandwich.

"Yes, I went to the sessions for each of you. I think it showed the teachers we cared, although there wasn't much we could do in high school." Mom’s oblique reference was to my failing Grade 11. She didn't mean to hurt. But the current of regret still trailed through me. My mother saw missing a grade as a five-alarm fire.  Her sensible boy who helped with chores without asking and caused no worry, had failed! I wore the shame like a hair coat. At that low point in my young life, a tempest was brewing, a sexual storm.

 At sixteen, I struggled with my identity in a world created for the obedient son, the Boy Scout, the Altar Boy. The disguise was almost exposed two years earlier when a handsome wonderful boy came into my life. Exciting feelings and urges were unearthed, colliding with inherited religious and cultural teachings. Those few shining months with Gerald, helped me see there was an alternative to my self-imposed isolation. When his family moved to Australia for his father's work, we tried in vain to maintain communication.

 

In my blue-collar village, the resident’s beliefs were strongly anti gay, leaving me in constant conflict with myself. A friendship with another boy grew into a sexual relationship, followed by bouts of guilt and anger directed at him. It confused Kevin as he only wanted a companion. It ended when rumours emerged that our friendship was more than that. Reluctantly, I slid once again into the closet. My life fell into a dull heterosexual pattern in High School.  

My university years started along the same paradigm.  Beyond a few glances and the odd gay fantasy, I had managed to push the homosexual side of me firmly into the subconscious. I didn’t understand that humans are far more complicated than most of us can understand. As teenagers and young adults, our brains and personalities are still developing and can not be simply turned on or off. That lesson nearly cost me my life a decade later.

At age eighteen, I was a straight man to myself and others, yet just below the surface, eddies of uncertainty were swirling. At the small university, I met students and teachers who challenged my world view. The beliefs I had carried from my tiny village were gradually discarded in favour of more expansive and inclusive ones. I began to see the damage I had done to myself by conforming to the expectations others had for me. But the pace of change was slow and sporadic. I continued a long-distance relationship with a girl from high school. It was a comfortable pattern that I saw no reason to break.

While I was content to selfishly play a role in one theatre of my life, I struggled to find my place in the other where my long-held beliefs were under the microscope. I regret not allowing them more space in my mind but am grateful for their efforts to break through. Two good friends, Anthony and Charles have since died. During my five undergrad years, they were constant in my life. They tried to poke holes in my armour, while I played the mature student leader. They spotted the farce and gently chided me when they could.

Other students, labelled Charlie a clown. Outwardly he seemed to enjoy reinforcing the image. When we were alone, he abandoned the role and shared ideas and personal feelings that showed how much he struggled. Sometimes, his anger and frustrations boiled over when he was taunted. He wanted the help of a friend when I couldn't even help myself. I played into the pranks that further isolated him.

In some ways, I envied Charlie. Few expected much of him. I worked to maintain my "man in control" image. Charlie went on to finish his Education degree, married and worked in Alberta. We stayed in touch for a while.

One Sunday morning, after Mass, his older brother told me he had died. "Yeah, the crazy bastard hung himself in his garage." The message and the coldness cut me deeply. Years erased the shock but did little to lessen the loss.

            Anthony, that intellectual giant, a whirling dervish, blew into my dorm room unannounced, day or night. He introduced me to new and different approaches to appreciating people, free from bias and prejudice. Tony taught me to understand and love classical music. When I hear Mozart I see Tony, looking quizzically at the billowing summer clouds. My friend had his private battles. Sexuality may have been one. But that beautiful expansive mind, wasn’t to be contained by the mundane world. Whether he ended his life or succumbed to the illnesses that plagued him, I don't know. At that time. the fear of aligning with him was more than I could offer. 

            The university experiences aided my journey of self discovery. But it was not enough to tear down the curtain of illusion I had subconsciously created. A series of events in the final days of school began a journey that took another twenty years to unfold.

I need to start this part of my story, by pointing out a byproduct of denying who you are. Neurosis is defined as, an extreme and irrational reaction to anxiety that interferes with your life. The price I paid, for being the “good boy” was to live with apprehension. At a very early age, I experienced that control was the only way I could limit the crippling effects of uncertainty. I worked hard to keep people and events under control. My brothers and sisters were the first to experience the phenomena. Initially they saw their sibling oddly focused on cleanliness and neatness. They nicknamed me, “the butler.” The moniker seemed to fit. Our mom appreciated the help in her endless household tasks.

It worked well until I began to mature. Some behaviour, of my siblings was causing me discomfort. I tried to change it by manipulating the person. Our youngest sister Sharon was the only one to submit. Cheryl Ann saw it for what it was and pushed back every time, always to protect her younger sister. My brothers seemed to have some sort of an internal manipulation detector. Any attempt to control them generally failed. My parent target, Dad proved equally impenetrable. I patterned mom in her attempts at shame and guilt after his episodes of drinking. I tried to ignore him the next day but gave in and helped get him back in shape.

I brought these unhealthy coping mechanisms into my adulthood. When my girlfriend was about twenty two she developed a tumor in her pituitary gland. The diagnosis and treatment phase proved tough on both of us. For Mary it was the unknown and the fear for her physical and emotional well being.  For me, I fell back into what was now an entrenched part of my personality, the need to control events and people around me. I assumed the role of advocate dealing with her doctors, then sharing the information with her. Consciously I felt I was protecting her from outside forces. Taking on that role had a terrible consequence for me.

            The discovery of the tumor coincided with the completion of my teaching degree. A meeting with a specialist was scheduled two days after my last exam. We were dreading it but wanted to know what would be done. After finishing my final exam, I was driving back home to Nelson. I met a huge snowstorm which had swept through Fredericton the night before. In a white out I hit another car which had partially gone off the road. My vehicle was demolished. I reached my home on the back of somebody’s snowmobile. That evening, I tried to take stock of what had just happened and at the same time work out a plan to get to the doctor. Suddenly the room shrank, I was sweating and could not get my breath. I jumped up and ran outside. It took a long walk to calm myself down. That was the first of the panic attacks.

The following day I managed to get a rental car and we drove to Moncton and met the specialist. The treatment was to be long and not easy.  I continued to show her nothing of my own feelings, concentrating only on bringing her comfort and support. Inevitably the attacks returned and became more intense. A week later, her tests and treatment began. Mary was transferred to hospital in Saint John and I wasn’t able to stay with her. Back in Nelson I made an appointment with my doctor. There I spilled everything to him. He listened and handed me a prescription for a drug he said would take care of the anxiety. I took one that night and had my best sleep in months.  The feeling of being relaxed and completely in control was like nothing I had ever experienced in my life.

Mary’s treatment was lengthy and difficult but thankfully successful. We were married the next summer and I started a teaching job that Fall. Six years later we welcomed our adopted infant son into our new home. I met the groundswell of changes in my life with the same inadequate coping skills I had in university. Each challenge was met with resoluteness and a need to control the situation. A surface view of how I was handling things would have been positive. Internally I was a mess. Nearly a decade after the first prescription I was still taking the pills, benzodiazepine (Serax). I was using my manipulative personality to get the pills from several doctors and at a dangerously higher dosage. The circus came to a screeching halt when a doctor discovered he was one of the prescribers. The word was out. A week later, I drove to the Fredericton treatment center with Mary and my one-year-old son. The picture frozen in time, is me, outside our vehicle looking at my son in his car seat. I still had a bag of tricks I could have used to avoid or lessen the experience but I was fed up with my lies and deceit. I wanted my son to grow up knowing me and not some stoned fool or going to the graveyard staring blankly at a headstone. The next two weeks were hell. The episodes of panic drove my blood pressure so high the staff feared a stroke. It finally settled down and I was left with stretches of boredom and self loathing.

 I returned to my work as a teacher shaky but on my feet. The experience of withdrawal and detox shook my confidence but somewhere a seed of possibility was sown. As I grew stronger emotionally, acceptance of being gay wasn’t as threatening. I weighed that against the reality it was conservative New Brunswick in the late seventies.

I loved teaching and was good at it. I brought some gifts I learned at university to my students. I shared alternative views and beliefs for them to consider. As an English instructor, I used many examples of popular writers and musical artists who challenged conventional thinking. But I couldn’t cross the Rubicon of coming out.  It would be decades before openly gay teachers would be permitted in New Brunswick schools.

I did begin some purposeful growth. The visit to my parents some forty years ago wasn’t as spontaneous as I first presented. That night, I intended to share my secret with them, instead, we talked about family and community, then I went home. During that conversation, I made the decision not to tell them. It wasn't that I feared shunning. I knew that I had moved to a different stage where I didn’t need to seek approval, implied or explicit. Confiding in my mother, specifically, would have altered the dynamic between us. I didn't want to subject myself to that. Her ingrained beliefs lay in traditional Catholic faith. Her love for me was steadfast. Why force her to endorse a different version of the son she loved? My parents, are gone now. Looking back over subsequent years, my decision was the right one for me.

After that night visit with my parents, things began to move on my journey of self acceptance. I would like to report that I used the visit as a jumping off point to a new life. But I am not known for moving hastily on any occasion. It would be another few months when my glacial progress moved to warp speed. The internet was in its infancy with dial up and chat rooms being the norm. I discovered the latter innocently one evening and I was hooked like a bee to honey. I was able to “chat” with other gay men married to women. The experience was like fresh air and sunshine flooding a dungeon. I became a regular in the room, One guy and I became friendly and conversations spilled over to letters. The relationship was helpful for both of us, until the day I came home to find Mary, my wife, reading a letter from my internet companion. She was shocked and hurt as she read it. My shock was how much the tone had changed from on line. He had taken things to a different more intimate level. I tried to explain that it was a mutually supportive friendship but what he wrote called me a liar.

And there it was, in a moment our marriage changed forever. As we talked, it became clear we had no future as a couple. She clearly had no idea I was gay. That was simply an acknowledgment my persona as a masculine straight male had worked, There was no success in the realization.

 I made a promise on that day, that I would stay with her and our son until he graduated high school. That concession was a relief to her. Sheldon’s behaviour and performance at school was a concern for us and teachers. As it turned out it was a portent of future events that would upend our lives even further. I don’t regret my decision to stay. The effect of being honest with her was immediate and emancipating. Gradually I came out to my brothers and sisters and close friends. Their support and the acceptance from Mary went a long way to show me, whatever challenges lay ahead I could meet them.

            At this writing, I am seventy – one years old. A friend of mine said I was brave to write about my struggles around being gay. That may have been true if I was twenty. but society has made progress in accepting us. Another person asked if I was resentful of the people who shunned, or hurt me along the way. Simply put, no. Most were acting in accordance with the norms and beliefs of the day. The others are just inherently mean and best left alone. I am married to a wonderful, kind man who tolerates my weak attempts at manipulation and gently, but firmly rebuffs me when I regress into control mode.