If I have the chance to really reflect on my young 20-something life, I can clearly distinguish a before and after. Before, I lived a lot in shadows. Secrets. Hiding. Pretending. Acting. Trying to be someone other than myself for fear that my family, especially my father, would come to know the real Aldwin and despise me for it. Ever since my memory has served me I knew I was gay. Yes, you’ve heard about the doodles in my colouring book of the hairy-torsoed men but even deeper than that, at five, I had this amazing self-awareness about my sexuality that many people don’t discover (or accept) until much later in their lives. I just knew. Like breathing. But growing up knowing this truth proved to be the biggest burden I’ve ever carried. From the moment my ultra-conservative Filipino father saw his first-born son prance about their tiny living room apartment singing and dancing to Whitney Houston he did what any person with his staunch, Catholic upbringing would do. He freaked out.

“Don’t dance like that! Are you a girl or what? Don’t walk around with your wrists hanging like that!!!”

I hung my head low as he lashed out at me, his vicious words like needle pricks piercing my skin, the shame coursing through my veins like a warm venom. I remember comforting myself in the aftermath of it all, telling myself it was okay. I’d just have to dance and sing while Dad was at work and I’d show him I wasn’t a girl by walking around with clenched fists. I spent the next eight years of my life doing that. Eight years trying to mask any even remotely feminine tendency. Eight years dancing in my room behind closed doors. Eight years trying to please him. Eight years of darkness.

That was before.

Fast-forward. I was thirteen. It was Christmastime. We drove up to New York where, as part of our family tradition, we spent Christmas at my aunt’s house. I couldn’t wait to see my cousins Jenny and Jinkee. Having grown up with them and essentially being raised in part by them, they were my beacons of light in a pitch black storm. We’d laugh into the early hours of the morning every time we were together. I had missed them so much since moving to Toronto. It was finally my opportunity to drop the façade, be who I really was, unclench my fists.
But this Christmas was different.

I can’t pinpoint what it was exactly, whether it was the raging hormones, teenage angst, or pent up frustration, but I was acting out, spitting back at my favourite cousins just like my father did every time he caught me failing to live up to his standard of masculinity.

It all came to a head the day before Christmas Eve. Having had it with my insolence, Jenny was giving me the cold shoulder. Feeling awful about my immaturity, I came to her side as she was making the bed.

“Hey.” I mumbled.

“I’m busy. Get out of here!” she barked. I started crying. It was one of those moments that you don’t fully understand at the time. There I was, crying, weeping, and not knowing why. Looking back, it became pretty obvious. All the sadness and anger and helplessness was pouring out, finally, after years of holding it in. Jinkee walked in from across the hall.

“…What’s wrong Aldwin? Just tell us.”

They lead me onto their carpet and we sat cross-legged, me avoiding their searching eyes as I stared into my lap.
There is that instant where hanging over the precipice you look over and see your greatest fears facing you. And for some reason, feeling just that little bit more courageous, you are ready. You’re ready to jump. I prepared the words in my soul and I leapt. I was free-falling. I started to sputter the words out.

“I’m…I’m…you know. I’m gay.”

And that, was after.

My revelation didn’t surprise Jinkee and Jenny. They had always known that I was gay but they were just waiting for me to fill them in on it. And that’s the thing about coming out. Coming out is about you. It’s not about anyone else. It’s not about meeting other people’s expectations or searching for other people’s approval or ruining other people’s lives. In the end, it is uniquely about being honest with yourself. Because coming from a place of truth, in spite of the obvious obstacles and eventual turmoil and anguish, is, in my estimation the only way to live. To really live.

I am an openly gay 20-something man. I’m successful, happy, and I’m looking forward to what new adventures the future has in store for me. My coming out has a lot to do with that. The after part of my life has been filled with so many wonderful experiences, people, and memories that I can’t begin to imagine how different my life would have been had I remained untrue to myself. Life is far too short to be spent in someone else’s shoes. And although impossibly daunting at first, coming out proved to be one of the most cathartic experiences I have ever had.

It’s been nearly twenty five years now since I’ve come out and I don’t really think about the whole thing at all anymore. That’s what coming out did for me. It made this big, dark, weird, awful, taboo thing, feel so normal and so right. And that, my friends, is the way it should be.