Gift of Life

She and I had just enough room to sit and talk. We were in the nook of the stairway of the coffee shop, the spot where the stairs go up mid-level and then switchback-like the trails I hiked back home in Oregon during the summer. A few days ago, she emailed me about some research and needed some friends' influence for her social work, and ironically, sharing my story excites the once fearful child inside me. She pressed the record button on her iPhone, and our conversation rolled.

“When did you first know?"

“Why did you decide to come out?”

“What has changed since then?”

These were fundamental questions which, to my surprise, rarely come my direction, causing the answers I spouted out to be insufficient. Consequently, our conversation neared an end, but she made one last request, “So tell me about the most recent date you’ve been on…” the interest and eagerness in her voice booming.

“Well, I haven’t really been on a date,” I responded, “… but here’s the closest thing I’ve had…” She stops the recording, and I began describing my day with that I-definitely-wouldn’t-hate-bringing-you-home-to-momma-Lewis-but-let’s-be-real-I-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on friend, who strikes my fancy just a little too much.

“Do you like him?” she playfully interrupts.

Pausing, “I think so…” I said reluctantly, fearful of the truth I was admitting to her yet more importantly myself.

She peered into the chapters of my life – both past and present – that passed like a freight train blowing through a railroad crossing, leaving one oblivious as to what was just seen. The barriers go up, and we cross the tracks to continue down the road.

Her questions brought me back to that train, where I noticed that the blur of a passing train was composed of countless carts with different colors and signs of graffiti, along with that one with the transient sleeping in that open door.

Moreover, the most important change since coming out became evident moments after our conversation: the newfound affirmation that never existed in my life. My life is my life. What shame do I have for my life and all the authentic beauty that accompanies it?

Up until a few months ago, I rummaged around for someone that I believed could bear the weight of my story, and to muffle my actual story, I filled conversations with heavy words dancing around spirituality – never giving my old friendships justice. I turned our moments together into a test of having them prove themselves worthy in my eyes. We deem individuals unworthy by holding onto presuppositions based upon the few who treated us poorly.

Girls, not all guys are the same.

Gays, not all Christians are the same.

Friends, not all people are the same.

Truthfully, most people aren’t like those few who made us think otherwise. While the words and actions of the few are crippling, the general community understands your uniqueness with some of the best gifts to offer, questions and listening ears.

Our lives, whole lives, are like that brook – as the Creator inspired from the beginning – in enriching relationship with the creation, with the Creator, and with one another. If we continue to withhold the areas of our lives where God's grace is necessary, how can we be a testament to God's grace? The words of our lives are those waters that which sink deep into the soil and give life and beauty to the forest around us. Friends, each life is a gift of life to the other. Share It.

Walls (Part 3)

<-- Walls 1
   <-- Walls 2

The wind had a slight chill to it, but luckily, there were few clouds in the sky, making the sun shimmer off the ocean and into my eyes, making me squint as I looked at the San Diego skyline just across the bay. His luster-filled blonde hair didn’t help too much either.

A few months beforehand, he and I sat on the cliffs where we finally reconciled the moments that went unaddressed: the reason why he had so little to say, the reason he waited so long to call, and the reason why he became so distant.

Denying my tears, I kept listening as my abandonment – birthed at that cafeteria table – cleared the air tainted by months of passive aggressive bitterness. I always found comfort in his voice, and the more he spoke, the more I could see the guilt I imposed start leaving his heart.

There, we were restored. There, we were made new.

---
He was biting into his burrito when he looked up at me asked to hear more of a story I told him earlier: “So what happened with those two guys?”

“Oh yeah! I forgot about that!” I muffled with a mouth full with bacon burrito, thinking back and remembering a conversation we had a few week ago.

We sat in his room, rallying a tennis ball around his room, trying to keep it off the floor. As we bounced the ball off the walls, bunk beds, and mirrors, we kept our conversation just as alive. We were killing time until his laundry finished and could walk back to our friends’ condo just down the road.

The laundry finished, he loaded it into the dryer, and we left. We walked silent until I asked him, “Did I tell you about what happened with these two guys?”

“No, you didn’t! What happened?” he replied, eager as a kid in a candy store.

“Oh man, we have a lot to catch up on…” I smiled, searching for a starting point to my soon long story. “Well, back in the beginning of last semester, there was this guy…” I started.

Strolling down the street, jaywalking to the other side, and entering into our friends’ neighborhood, I constructed the groundwork for my story.

As we climbed the massive flight of stairs to our friends’ condo, we approached the condo’s doorstep.

“Should we stay out here and keep talking or should we go inside?” He stated, subtly implying the awkwardness if I continued to talk.

“This is a good point to stop,” I insisted with a cool smile on my face. “But the crazy part comes next,” assuring him that what he knew was unsatisfactory in the grand scheme.

---
“So I left off at…” I continued, sharing the heartbreak, the kissing, and the confusion, more than what I have dealt with personally in a while.

He engaged with me as I told my story, not just letting me tell it but also letting me immerse him into it.

After I finished, our conversation continued to flow, and we caught up on life: our goals, our aspirations, our struggles, some stupid decisions, and the list goes on.

I revealed to him how in the months following that conversation on the cliffs, one by one, I started opening up to my friends and, brick by brick, I tore down my walls.

My fellow Oregonian and closest friend my first two years of college found out after I told her, and she finally realized that I never actually did have that crush on her.

That friend I made the beginning of this semester tugged it out of me that night I sat, for hours, slouched in the passenger seat of her car, head pounding.

My tenderhearted roommate called me an idiot and embraced me after I hinted, “I understand if you don’t want to live with me anymore.”

Lastly, that friend, who despite his misunderstanding, said those powerful words, “You’re my friend, and I still love you.” Providing me the opportunity to finally see the Love of God, and changed it all.

With each of them, nothing changed. They were willing to walk through it with me and be present. The greatest relief overcame me because I had been exposed but for once, not disowned. I could be honest and no longer pretend.

---
As time passed, our conversation approached a timely end, and we got up from the picnic table. Getting closer to his car, he fired me one shocking question, “So, what does your ideal guy look like?”

“Are you serious?” I chuckled, failing to think of another straight friend that had asked me that question before.

“Of course, it’s no different than you asking me what do I look for in a girl,” he laughed, as we both got into the car.

Driving away, we started talking about boys, and I realized I was no longer trying to impress him. I wasn’t trying to hide myself. I was just being, myself. Nothing more, nothing less. Just Sean.

Walls (Part 2)

<-- Walls (Part 1)

Inside our cafeteria, we have short tables each accompanied by two chairs sitting on both sides, "date tables" as we call them, ideal for a laid-back and highly unromantic date in the university cafeteria. That’s not why we are here though.

---
Sometimes, outstanding individuals catch you off-guard. I met this guy who was a character of love, or so I thought at the time. Whether it was random road trips, artistic bouts, studying, or philosophical discussion, much of our time was spent together. He became the friend I had continually asked for. He seemed to be one that was on my side and could something was wrong, but I still could not tear down the walls.

Two years beforehand when I initially built these walls, they held firm, but the autumn following their construction, I left for school in sunny San Diego: "This is staying in Portland. There is no way this coming to San Diego." I would tell myself that eventually, it would go away. I was wrong. It followed me.

---
We sat at one of these date tables when I prepared for one of the most difficult conversations I would have in over two years.

Suppressing my feelings for so long only made them stronger. Closing myself off only made me more insecure. I longed to be known, but I failed to let them in.

"Oh, Sean, the track guy," people would say. I cringe and anxiety builds when I become associated with track. To me, it holds only a small portion of my life. I like music. I like art. I like feeling my heart melt as I sit at Filter Coffee House, listening to Bon Iver and pouring my life out into a red, Bible-sized notebook filled with graph paper.

Embarrassed, I thought if only they knew me, they would want nothing to do with me as I replayed the toxic tape once more: "I don't like the way you live and don’t feel like associating with you. I was just blind to the way you are I guess. Sorry man."

To liberate myself, I had to be there. I had to be sitting with my friend staring at him in silence, scrambling for the words I wanted to say. I had to release those tears that I kept tucked away.

Finally, I said it, chiseling at my walls: "I have this gay struggle." Seeing a perplexed look on his face, I continued, "It plays into so many areas of my life, and I don’t know what to do. You have no idea." I vented about past problems with my father and betrayals by friends, the reasons I had these walls.

Time finally started to pass, and we glanced at the clock. It was two minutes past 1:30pm, and we were late to class already. We parted ways, and there it stopped.

We didn’t talk for a while. I’ll blame it on busyness, but I still take it personally. The next week was finals week, loaded with studying. After that, school was out, and he was gone. Our conversation was never finished, and I almost felt it again, abandoned. The walls still remained, and I continued with my normal pattern, reservation.

A month and a half later, my phone rings. He called, and we caught up, on the surface level, getting nowhere, but at least I knew he didn’t completely leave me, shutting me out. At least, he contained an ounce of compassion, but hollow words only last so long.

Walls (Part 3) -->

Walls (Part 1)

The rain splattered across my windshield as my wipers raced to remove the thousands of droplets so that I could see. Portland, Oregon tends to get a little wet. My hi-beams guided me through the old country roads; so far out they lacked streetlights. The night felt sinister.

I was on my drive home from my high school small group when I decided to text a good friend of mine. For about a week and a half, this friend had been treating me very differently.

---
I did my devotions before school everyday at the coffee shop just down the road from our high school. Around the time I would finish up, my friends would come and sit with me. He would arrive later, order his quad-shot caramel latte, and sit with us. He stopped.

During lunch, we and a few of our other friends would go off-campus, grab some food, and bring it back to the school’s parking lot. My friends and I would sit in the back of his lifted Ford Ranger, eat our lunches, and have a good time. These days, they left without me.

He distanced himself from me and stopped talking to me. I wished it had been something different, but I knew exactly what it was.

A week and a half prior, after failed attempts of calling my mentors, I felt overwhelmed by shame and said some words to him that I still regret to this day: “Dude, I messed up. I did something with a guy.” He had known that I was gay for about a year, but the whole time, we had been trying to get me a girlfriend. We failed.

He said he was busy, and he quickly finished our conversation. There, I began my descent, and as soon as an earthquake crumbles a bridge, we got to where we were, distanced.

---
A message came back and finally, I understood what he had been trying to do. His words tore me like lion devouring its prey.

"I don't like the way you live and don’t feel like associating with you. I was just blind to the way you are I guess. Sorry man," I read on my dimly lit iPhone screen.

My eyes began to water as I continued my drive back home. That night, I didn’t sleep. The blow to my already flustering guilt drove me into one of the lowest points of life.

“If that is what I’m to expect from my best friend, no one will know this about me. I’ll figure it out on my own,” I would tell myself.

These hurtful words provided the perfect foundation. On this statement, I built my walls. I pulled myself away and removed my loved ones from one of the most vital pieces of my life.

Starting from the ground up, I laid down a brick of rejection, followed by a brick of shame and a brick of depression; and the self-loathing-based cement held them firmly in place. Soon enough, I cut myself out.

Walls (Part 2) -->