The world crashed in around me like a tsunami cresting over a continent. Time slowly halted as I watched the events unfurl in front of me. How could I be this abomination? How could something this gigantic happen to me? Growing up we all believe we’re normal, something average. We think we are to live our lives without opposition, nothing to throw our steady pace off track. BOOM! Life pushes us forward like a superhighway traffic jam. BOOM! A gigantic semi slammed into my slow-moving car, and I went spinning: for two years everything was a blur. However, my tilt-a-whirl began with him.

Back then, even the thought about two guys being intimate was literally disgusting. How could something so sick to everyone be so comforting to me? When I saw a gay relationship on TV, it didn’t have the same nauseating effect as it did on my friends. “Oh! That’s sick!” one would scream with the others following shortly behind with their comments on the whole situation.

I remember being the last kid in computer class to leave. Gay web sites would flood my page, tons of information from kids, even my own age, that had come out. Testimonies that scared me, tales of beatings and death threats. I thought to myself, how could someone be gay? It’s so unnatural, so gross... I grew up being labeled as something everyone hated, why? I had never even been with a guy; it never crossed my mind. I just thought about the approval I yearned for; I needed it like water or food. I constantly found myself striving to be something I wasn’t: a stud or a jock. But deep inside of me something brooded, something was bleeding in pain.

Depression was swift and agonizing. There would be nights where only crying seemed to put me to sleep. What plagued me? What haunted my every movement? Suddenly, a terrible rage that had built up over my entire lifetime erupted, unleashing like a nuclear explosion. I started talking out the pain on everyone around me. I had literally turned my friendly demeanor into a warrior of words. I would constantly degrade and hurt people for spite. I had become a person fueled by hate, a hate that I felt towards myself. My external crusade against everything I should be was first and foremost stopped, not by action, but by a sentence that will forever loom over my soul. “Tucker, you’re so fake. You pretend to be something you’re not, and when you hurt other people you let your true self shine through.”

And everything changed. My external crusade had become an internal battle with myself. The brooding something that had dug itself into my unconsciousness finally awoke. Could I possibly be? Why would this happen to someone like me? These questions would be left unanswered throughout a gapping period in my life, in which I had no direction. Since this private affair was secret, no one would learn of these hidden truths, the codex of my life would be stowed away deep inside the coldest vestiges of my dying heart. After the darkness settled in and made its’ home, the only light that I would come to know was internet.

As the days went by, I continually searched through the millions of web sites about homosexuality, various religious sites that ultimately bashed the thought of being gay and stated I would go to “hell”, and finally I came across the site I would call my savior. XY, coincidentally the male chromosome, would be my lantern through the darkness.

Weeks and months passed by slowly, and I found myself absorbed by the content XY had to offer. One day I stumbled upon personal profiles that some of the XY users had made, and that’s when “he” came into the picture. After the simple exchange of e-mails, the question came up to exchange our digits. I agreed reluctantly. My body rejected this feeling, though, like a white blood cell to poison or infection, I had never experienced this – a deeper affection towards someone of the same sex, this was alien to me. But slowly, my questions were beginning to be answered.    He and I talked for hours on end. We learned the ins and outs of one another. Infatuation, not love, is what I felt for him though. He filled the wound left in my heart from the constant war I was waging inside myself. He was my escape to nothing, my retreat in barren wastelands. When we finally met one another, face to face, the realization of the whole situation hit me. I was gay. I had spent my whole life running from the monster dragging in the distance. The monster, however, wasn’t a monster to begin with. It was me.

Soon after, I told my parents about being gay. Lovingly, they committed themselves to helping me become completely proud and happy with me, who I was as a person. Yet, an even bigger monster screeched terrible wails in the miles closer to home.

When lies build up, they continually push, like gravity, onto the liar’s shoulders. An extreme pressure weighed on my heart, something was wrong. More questions surfaced to the top of the pile. Were people catching on? Could someone have unearthed the long buried propaganda that my heart held? I could feel the constant burning of eyes into the back of my head; it was unbearable. Rumors killed my self-confidence – rumors of me being gay. I denied the accusations as forcibly as I could, yet the cold frigid touch of fear grabbed at my heart. I could yet again, feel the unending war that I had tried so hard to avoid fire upon my soul.

Life to me seemed bittersweet. It was an unripe lemon too sour to taste. The hate I could feel etching itself onto my being, tearing me apart. Suicide. It seemed like the only fire exit in the building. When people you don’t know talk about you, in front of you, and friends that you think are your friends talking about you, in front of you, who do you turn to? God even hated me, or so that’s what I was lead to believe. Death seemed to greet me with open arms. He seemed to be the only one that cared about me and looked at me truthfully. My emotions were awry, crying was a minute stepping stone to total break-down.

And after two grueling years, I finally opened my eyes to the rising sun. The ride was over. I got up slowly, brushed off the thoughts of killing myself and smiled. I came to myself, the victor of my unending war. The blazing fires of hate died down and rising from amongst the charred remains was a phoenix. He was reborn from the ashes of the old that day, renewed.

I found myself in this conflict with both life and reality. I was reincarnated, not as you but myself. I started off confused, alone and bitter. I traversed a multitude of feelings, I looked Death in the eye and prevailed. I was reborn as a person, loving every minute of life. I fear no longer, for under the heavenly wings of God, I soared through my adversity. I no longer see imperfections and faults, I see beauty in even the smallest freckle and I know that’s how it was suppose to be. Harmony.

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