A Tale of Two Cities

After speaking to some friends about ‘coming out’, a question was raised.

Why do we feel the need to come out?

The act in itself is almost like saying, “oh hey, guess what I’m different to you”. Look at me, I’m not like you. Society screams “you’re different” and we go along with it. We prepare long drawn out speeches to give to our family and friends all in the hope that they’ll shrug and say “that’s fine, you’re still the same person we know” or even better, “so what?”

And afterwards, what do we do? How do we feel and act? Do we decide to thrust all our new relationships in their faces and stick two fingers to the society that still insists on branding us as different, reiterating to all that will listen that we must have different norms and values, that we have different morals, or even that we don’t have any morals to speak of!

We struggle day in, day out to get by walking around with a weight on our shoulders, sneaking around to see our partners in the hope that if we are seen together in public, we can pass them off as a friend until the day we feel comfortable to walk alongside them with our heads held up high and when questioned have the courage to say “this is my boy/girl friend” without fear of recrimination or rejection.

Can you imagine a world where we weren’t constantly inundated with adverts showing the ‘perfect’ family: a mother, father, 2 kids, a dog and white picket fence. All smiling, happy in their existence and showing the world what the ‘perfect’ family is made of. All those adverts about romantic holidays with a ‘perfect’ couple, walking alongside the beach, smiling and whispering sweet-nothings to each other whilst frowning at the gay couple walking in the opposite direction having accidentally made it into the frame being filmed?

I liken all this to the opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the 

superlative degree of comparison only.

I love this paragraph and feel that fits in with the theme of the first blog. Coming out is truly the best and worst of times. The anticipation and fear is second to none, because once you ‘come out’, you can’t take it back. No matter the reaction of the other party, the sense of freedom it gives, that it promises is worth taking the risk.

Take care and fly the rainbow high,

Msenge Ushujaa