Gloria

When I was a boy I had a feeling that I was different from the others.  It was then only a vague impression which I couldn’t put my finger on and didn’t even often try to.  I enjoyed rough and tumble games as much as anyone and wasn’t scared of standing up for myself and defending my honour if the need arose.  In fact, I was pretty tough, and if Billy Hawkins hadn’t been bigger and stronger than me, I might well have been the leader of our gang.  As it was I became Billy’s right hand man, and if we ever got into a scrap with the boys from Deadman’s Creek it was always me and him right at the front leading the charge.

As the years passed some of our childish interests faded and new diversions took their place.  Our bodies had different demands and we sought new knowledge.  This physical need affected me no less than it affected the others, but it was at this time that I was able to pinpoint more precisely what it was that had made me feel different, and even to put a name to it.  For the first time I realised how unlike the others I really was and I suffered terribly.  I was scared at what I was feeling and what the future held for me.  The other boys were disgusted and amused by the practices of those who were like me, and I wished more than anything to just be the same as everybody else, and to not carry the burden and shame of being different.  Apart from that I knew that I couldn’t tell anyone of my feelings and harbouring that secret put me under enormous strain.

I tried at first to deny my instinctive impulses and sought my pleasure as the other boys did in the hope that either I was mistaken about my proclivities or could somehow be cured of them by conscious pursuit of that which was considered normal and, if sinful, at least less sinful.  The girls I accompanied on long walks in the woods or through the fields down by the river did please me with their explorations but, despite my efforts to appear as the other boys, these trysts only served to reinforce the feelings inside me, and one by one the girls learnt to leave me alone.

As time went by I gradually drifted apart from everybody and if they didn’t know exactly what it was that afflicted me, they identified something wrong with me and I increasingly spent my time alone which had the effect of alienating me even more.  I became desperately unhappy when I further discovered a penchant for something which made my situation yet more unbearable than it had been.  I fought the darkest thoughts which assailed me, unwilling to contemplate the only course of action which then seemed open to me.

Ironically it was a visiting minister of the church who saved me.  He would have been horrified to know the kind of person I was, and would have tried to turn me from that path with prayers and exhortations to the mercy of God, but it was his pronouncement that each of us should be true to ourselves that finally helped me overcome my fear.  I knew that my coming out would hurt my parents but so would taking my own life.  I could have simply run away but we would all have lived then in a constant state of unresolved anxiety, and furthermore my denial of myself would make me feel as though I was living a life too sordid to be acknowledged.

It took a long time to build up the courage to do what I intended and I was shaking with trepidation and excitement as I dressed for dinner that night.  I lavished special care on my wardrobe and took great pains with my face.  Descending the stairs I was floating on air and felt a radiant glow surround me as I entered the dining room and declared that, from that day onward, I wanted to be called Gloria.

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