Hello Ursinus! This will be my first posting on the Ursinus College LGBTQA Connection Blog! Emily put my Bio up, so maybe I should just start with a little more about myself. I really don't know what to write, so i suppose I shall begin with my story, or at least as I see it now(and laugh at it!)
I grew up about an hour north of Harrisburg in a very rural, very conservative part of Pennsylvania. When I was young, I really didn't know what gay was. Looking back though, I was definitely different. I can remember being unable to figure out why i was being laughed at for taking a mermaid barbie to school in second grade. Her hair grew and everything! I thought she was pretty cool, but no one else seemed to think so. Well, I never did that again after getting picked on so much. As I got older though, more differences began to emerge. I had a difficult time getting along with the other guys in my class, I hung out primarily with girls, I was SUPER arts and crafty! And then the hormones set in and I started looking at guys and thinking they were attractive.
Mind you I still didn't really know what gay was, I just knew that people used it as a derogatory name to call me. When I got to high school,
I started to actually struggle with my identity. I was sick of being uncool and disliked, so I started doing popular things, and dressing better, and trying to cultivate this cool self image. Well, that didn't work so well, and a little anorexia later I realized I should just be whoever I want to be. This was not an over night change, mind you, but I did begin to accept myself as I was. I became involved with the Drama club, and the school choir. Then I took a school trip to Germany and got my first real crush on one of the guys on the trip. He was captain of the football team!! Of course I was attracted to him!! BUT he had a girlfriend, and was straight, and I may have done some really devious and not so smart things to get him to like me more which eventually ended up with us stuck working as class officers together but hating each other's guts and barely being able to talk to each other.
Around the same time I couldn't really take it any more, and needed help. I couldn't go to my parents because they were conservative Christians and I knew that would never go well. Instead I called up my trigonometry teacher who was very open minded and I trusted completely. She really helped me through some rough times, and I finally began to wrestle with: do I like guys or girls? Yes, for a while I was sold on the whole "I'm really Bi!" thing, but eventually I realized that I just couldn't stomach vagina, and there was no way that was happening. It wasn't until the last week of my senior year of high school that I came out to my friends and they were just like "yeah, we know." How come everyone else knows before you do? It isn't fair, but there, I made it! I was gay! Hahaha, such a metamorphosis, but naturally the growing pains weren't done there. I tried very hard to do the whole secret thing behind my parents back, hooking up with different guys to explore my new sexuality. I came out to my loving aunt while on vacation and she was very good with it, but said we probably shouldn't tell my parents yet. Then the first week of college comes and my mother interrogates my aunt as if something is up and -POP- there it is. I'm gay! Yup, now mommy and daddy now! Biggest headache of my life! I didn't even get a chance to get homesick because I was more worried about simply having a home to go back to. Well my parents really do love me, and didn't kick me out, but I definitely would not say that it has been easy. They still are not cool with it a year later, but they are slowly coming around.
I won't go into all the grizzly details of the pain and agony, but I will say that the one thing that got me through was that I loved being myself! When i got to college I promised myself that I wasn't going to lie about who I was anymore, and it was the best decision ever! Life is so much more fun when you can be the person you were made to be!
So I know this has already gotten really long, so I will end now. Can't wait to post more.
Love Yourself!
Zack
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