It Gets Better (13 page)

Taking care of my brothers helped me to become a strong person. No one can dictate to me what's going on in my life except Kean. I feel that speaking out to young brothers or young sisters—white, black, Asian, whatever you are—saying that you need to live your life for yourself is important. Because nobody can take care of you like you'll take care of you.

 

Lenox:
And the world is changing, too. I came out when I was fourteen, when nobody I knew was out at all. Now we have shows that are gay. When Ellen came out on television it was not the cool thing to do. I did it in high school and I was accepted and I had a great experience. I was around really positive people. So there are people out there that can help you and can be there for you and can support you, and will love you for who you are. So it does get better. It really does.

 

David:
I didn't have a traumatic experience like Kean. But, growing up, I was always teased by kids for being “different.” But you know, when you're a kid, you don't really understand what different is. Until you get older and you realize that's what they were talking about when they said you were a faggot or you were gay. I went from being teased in school to being hit to being beat up, and always being scrutinized by kids on the block.

The silver lining to all of that was I realized that I create my future; I create my destiny. Just because these things happened to me doesn't necessarily mean that they should continue to happen to me. So I became stronger, and I built a support system with family and some friends. I think that no matter what you're going through, as long as you have someone to support you—100 percent, totally—it gets better.

 

Rannon:
I can definitely say it gets better. Growing up I remember feeling like I was different. I was always the smart kid or the proper kid. And because I was a late bloomer, I didn't realize I was gay and start messing with guys until the end of college. It was very, very difficult for me to tell my parents because I had always heard gay slurs growing up. So for them to hear me say, “You know what, I like men,” I thought it was the end of the world. My mother locked herself in the bathroom and cried for two days straight, I believe. Yes, she did. She cried herself to sleep. It was a traumatic experience for me.

I love my parents very dearly. I'm their Golden Child. I'm the only one that's gone to school. I'm the one that has tried to live my life the way my parents wanted me to live it. So to do something outside of the norm and come to them and say, “Hey, I'm doing something different. Something that you didn't put in this plan for me,” was very hard for me. I had a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of nights where I cried myself to sleep, but you know what? It got better.

Now I've graduated from school. I've got a great job. I have this great group of friends. I have a great support system. And my family came around. They love me for who I am. They don't care what my sexual preference is and they don't care who I'm with. They still love me for the person that I am.

And after that, I started mentoring students, I started talking to people, talking to students and telling them that it gets better. And, although it may look hard, just remember that you are the master of your fate. You are the captain of your soul. You are the one that determines what happens to you. Don't let those people out there tell you that because you're gay, you're wrong. That's not true. You can be gay. You can be successful. All of us are successful. All of us have a great future. All of us have great lives. And you know what, it does not matter what our sexual orientation is, it just matters that you have the will to succeed. That's all that you need.

 

Kean:
Let the choir say:

 

All:
It gets better. Amen.

 

Kean:
It gets better, and gaymen!

 

Kean:
We are successful. I'm a director of finance. David does PR. Lenox is a journalist. And Rannon is an analyst/HR/business man.

So we're all very successful in that aspect but that's not what
makes us
successful. What makes us successful is the fact that we didn't let our gayness define who we are. It's a part of us, but it doesn't define who we are. And I think that's what makes us a unique group of guys and a unique group of people. Because “we is who we is,” but we're not letting anybody tell us that just because you're gay you can't do things. You were meant to be great. Everybody's meant to be great. It's the question of what are you going to do to make yourself great. That's the question you have to ask yourself.

 

Lenox:
And you will find the answer to that question. It's really hard but you just have to keep the faith and keep believing in yourself and loving yourself and it will come. It all comes to you. It really will.

 

David:
What I do now, and what I did back then, are affirmations. I know it sounds crazy talking to yourself in the mirror. But, honestly, I kind of have a theme song I carry with me throughout the day. I think it was Ellen who talked about that, about having a theme song every day or having some type of mantra to get through my day. It's really been a positive thing for me. It's given me a shield of armor, if you will, against all those elements that were negative affecting me. I started seeing things in a different perspective. Think about doing something like that, saying something that's great about yourself every day and wearing that on your sleeve. Letting that guide you through your day and for the rest of your days, even as an adult.

 

All:
It gets better!

LONDON, ENGLAND

 

 

 

I
'm so old that when I was in junior high school calling someone a queer was like calling him a warlock. This is not to say that the word was never used, just that no one had actual faith in it. A kid might be girlish. He might tape pictures of other guys to the inside of his locker or pack for Scout camp in a patent leather purse but no one believed he could truly be a homosexual, as such creatures didn't really exist—did they?

We certainly didn't see them on TV. My school had no information on gay people, and neither did the public library, not even in novels. Perhaps it was different for kids in big cities but in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the late '60s and early '70s, I honestly believed I was the only homosexual on earth. It's the way that a zoo creature might feel—these seals, for example, I saw on a recent trip to New York. Born in captivity, what do they know of the oceans, and of all the other seals living contented lives out there?

A gay fourteen-year-old in the year 2010, even one living in the smallest of towns, must surely know that he's not the only homosexual on earth. He might need reminding, though, that all the best people are tormented in junior high school. If they're not getting harassed for being gay, they're bound to get it for being too smart, too loud, or too independent. It's always something, and then you get older, and things change for the better.

If you had told me when I was young that by the turn of the century, I'd be a published author, I would not have believed you. If you told me that I would have a long-term boyfriend, and that the two of us would live in New York, and then Europe, I'd have accused you of reading my mind—the innermost section where I hide my wildest fantasies. With the exception of owning a proboscis monkey, everything I wanted when I was a teenager has come to pass.

This is not to say that every homosexual automatically gets what he or she dreams of. A miserable youth doesn't guarantee you a happy adulthood—that would be too fair. It helps to be flexible, especially in regards to what you might think of as your “type.” Decide you will settle for nothing less than Thor, the Nordic God of thunder, and you've essentially drained your dating pool. Loosen up. Be kind. Allow yourself to be surprised.

It helps, too, to keep a diary, to record the many injustices you've suffered, and later turn them into stories. You can't do anything with people being nice to you. People being awful, though; that's gold, so mine it while you can.

HUDSON, NY

 

 

 

T
o be honest, bullying was such a regular part of growing up for me that it doesn't seem like days, moments, or events to remember, but just a chunk, an era, and one of the hardest parts of my life.

I do remember the first time like it was yesterday, though. In the fifth grade, I had a friend named Gwendolyn. We stuck together at school and hung out in the afternoons. Gwendolyn was tall, athletic, kind of a big girl. We were alike in a lot of ways; butchy, indifferent to what the other girls seemed to care about, and, the big one, uninterested in boys. But when one boy teased us, saying we were “tomboys together,” Gwendolyn turned to me and said, “No way!” and pushed me. She chased me home until she caught me. She told me she wasn't my friend anymore and hit me in the face. I didn't understand what I had done, but I felt terrible about myself. It felt like something must be really wrong with me if Gwendolyn, who I thought I shared a lot in common with, didn't want to be my friend any more than the other kids who seemed so different from me.

I was afraid to make friends after Gwendolyn. And I was teased for years after that. I was pretty isolated and often lonely in middle school and high school. I went to the prom with my own brother. I wasn't sure why I wasn't like more of the girls in my grade, but at some point, I realized that what set me apart was not what I was wearing or eating for lunch or listening to on my headphones, but that I was gay. Once I knew that, which wasn't easy to realize, I looked outside my class and outside my school for a few people who I thought might recognize me. And there were lots of them once I looked. With a little time and a few people on my side, I became brave enough not to care about the people who didn't like me. I even became brave enough not to hate them for being mean to me. My world did get better, but I got better, too.

I don't know what happened to Gwendolyn, but I do know this: When I look back, it is still a little painful. When I think about being a teenager, I don't usually feel nostalgic. But I don't have to feel bad about how I made someone else feel ashamed or unwanted. Despite how painful it was to earn it, I cherish the wisdom I have about accepting myself and other people, all kinds of people, for who they are. When I make a friend now, I make sure they know that I don't care if they are weird, or popular, or straight, or pretty, or black, or like me, or different. I just want them to know that I like them, that I am their friend, and I mean it.