Coming Out Part 1

I know there's no way i can possibly do this post justice, it's been a good few weeks and there's just so much that has happened it's going to be a struggle to try to remember all of it, but i'll give it my best.

Where do i even begin?! I never planned it this way, but it happened. You all know about the things that were going on behind the scenes and the fact that I knew all about them. It seemed that they were just trying to come up with a way to approach me about it, or at least hope that I would finally just tell them. My mother started asking questions and essentially gave me a 24 hour deadline to give her some answers. Yeah thanks mum. I started things rolling by having a chat to my sister and sending regards from a friend of mine that she'd called after going thru my mobile phone bill. Yeah that's right, i knew all about it!

Later that day i just thought fuck it, and spilled the beans to my mum. Obviously while she knew already she didn't really understand what it meant. How did I know? Had something happened to me? Some of her major concerns were:
did I want to change? (clearly she'd been in touch with my siblings about this);
she was worried about me getting AIDS since obviously i'd have multiple partners; she was concerned about me not having kids and 'continuity', whatever the hell that meant;
she was also concerned about me mixing with non jewish gay people. I do want to make some gay friends around here, whats the difference if they're jewish or not?!
But don't I want kids? Isn't that enough reason to see if you can try and change? She also made mention of someone calling me from the US but when she answered the phone they gave a name and hung up on her.


Later that night, we ended up having a family meeting. My siblings were brought up to speed by my mother, and it turned into a huge discussion. The who, what, how, why and when. They admitted to going through my phone bill, seeing who I've been calling, but said it only began because it was noticed i'd used my phone on shabbat (like that's an excuse?!?)

My father barely said a word, except for forbidding me from contacting this gay non-jewish friend i'd made. As if i'd break off contact because he decided so. Gimme a break! Things certainly got heated, good thing there were others there to calm him down, because there was no way I was backing down!

Obviously they got all emotional, because I explained to them I couldn't/wouldn't stay religious, and obviously would leave the community at some point. Things sort of improved from there, I was told that they'd accept me, and they wanted me to stay because no-one was throwing me out.

They mentioned therapy and getting help to change but I wasn't interested. I gave my whole spiel about that kind of stuff, and obviously they weren't prepared for me to be so against it, but I know more about it than they do. I've done my research, I know people who have gone through it, and it's something that I don't believe can really work, nor do I think the possible negative reactions to it are worth it.

I thought things went ok and later that night I spoke to my mum, and I honestly can't remember the last time we'd had such an honest and open talk. It was really great and she seemed to be ok with things, even though she didn't quite 'get it'.

So much more to be revealed in part 2! The highs, the lows, and the real crazy stuff!