Homecoming for the Out

I'm writing this from my hotel room in Illinois. I'm writing this on my way back home...

Tomorrow will be the first day I am back home after I came out almost six months ago. I am coming home, for the first time, completely and wholly honest and myself. And there is this huge unknown that accompanies this already sobering fact. I feel very much like how I imagine Leonidas the night before the Battle of Thermopylae.  Not in that I plan to come and conquer but that in the same way he was defending himself and the identity of his people against those who would challenge their way of life; I too, am coming to defend my identity among those who would seek to change it. I feel like the candidate on Election Day; the unknown looming over me, yet the finale quickly approaching.

As I sit here and reflect on these things: not only am I wondering if the hotel staff knew of my delusions of grandeur concerning Leonidas and if that is the reason they gave me room number 300, but also, what is different now from just a few short months ago. When I examine the past snapshot of my life, I recognize that a lot of things have changed. Some would even say me and I think this is worth unpacking. I need to know if that's the case. Have I changed? Is the person coming home the same person who left? Have I abandoned my principles? Have I lost sight of who I really am?

You say I've changed. I haven't changed. I just stopped lying. When I peel apart those questions, this is what I am left with. Three sentences that sum up my entire thought process and lay bare where I am at within my journey. And to be frank, I think it is where a lot, if not damn near all of us find ourselves after coming out. Let me explain: I spent 22 years lying to myself. And everyone else saw the manifestation of that in this false me. Now, that isn't to say that I was lying to everyone else. I was lying to myself and they (along with my psyche) were victims in that struggle. I spent years constructing a worldview, a persona, and a life around a lie that I tried desperately to convince myself of. When I finally stopped lying, the real me was able to show. So, the Jacob that is coming home is the same one. His appearance isn't. How you have perceived him isn't. Yet his core, his ideals, his passions are all still there ready to be fully seen and recognized for the first time. All that is seen is how I should have always been. It's how I was inside; I was just too afraid to show it until now.

So now I look to you, the newly out. You may feel like you have changed. You may have been told that. That isn't the case. It is not that you have changed; it is that you have stopped lying. You are letting those close to you gain a more intimate understanding of who you are. We don't go home saying this is who I am. I've accepted it and so should you otherwise we can't have a relationship. We come home saying I've discovered who I am; let me share it with you! We invite our family and friends in to be a part of who we are. We allow them access even unto the point where they can wound us with rejection. Yet this is how it must be. We come home hoping for the best and anticipating the worst. We come home praying for acceptance and preparing for excommunication. Baring ourselves to others makes us vulnerable. I can't think of a more intimate display of trust and love. Know that in any event the are those who love you. You have brothers and sisters who care and celebrate who you are. I have found that some of the best people I have met are 'family members' in a community I am honored to be a part of, the LGBT community.

I write this knowing I am not the only one coming home for the holidays. I know I am not the only one talking about sexuality this season either. I hope I am not the only being honest this Christmas...