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The Pressure Not To Feel Pain
On coming out and shame
Dick Gregory’s “Shame” always reminds me of a story my father once told me about how he used to have to walk so far to school that by the time he got there his uniform was dirty and sweaty. My father told me that story because he wanted me to know what he was protecting me from by moving me to a country halfway across the world. Because he wanted me to live without the shame of poverty.
I’ve never really written about coming out to my parents and I’ve never really wanted to; mostly because I was outed, which made the whole thing feel like a chore I never got around to but somehow got done anyway. It didn’t go well because my parents are conservative Christian African immigrants. What I have written about is how much I love holding my girlfriend’s hand in public because it makes me feel like I’m redefining wholesomeness. I was worried about my parents reading that because I didn’t want them to think that I was happy with my choice of living in sin, even though I really really was.
For every corporate-sponsored rainbow I see during the month of June there are two phone calls from the people I’m meant to care about the most in the world telling me I’ve made a mess of my life. One comes in the sound of the first voice I probably recognized. Her skin looks just like mine. I still know what she smells like…
