This Christmas I introduced my boyfriend to my family. It was one of the greatest gifts I ever gave myself. It was the gift of demanding to be seen by the people whom I love in the fullness of myself. It was the gift of forcing my worlds into collision and therefore into singularity. It was the gift of living in truth and walking in freedom.
My extended family has developed the tradition of gathering to celebrate Christmas the week before so that everyone can be home with core family on the actual day. This also has the benefit of allowing people to travel when the roads and airports are less crowded and to go out to activities together when bars, restaurants and entertainment venues are still open.
The celebration location floats around from family member to family member. This year was my first hosting at my home in Atlanta and only my second time ever hosting. When I lived in New York, it was simply too far to ask the whole family to travel, almost all of whom still live in the South.
I decided that if my family was coming to my house, they were going to meet the person I was dating. Simple as that.
But to me, that wasn’t so simple. I had never had the sense that they were open to queerness. In fact, I thought them hostile to it. My mother was not happy about “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the memoir I published in 2014, in which I came out to the world as bisexual. She has never called the book by its title. On the few times she has referred to it, she has done so by saying, “You know, that book you wrote.”
When it was developed into an opera, only one of my four brothers came to see it. My mother did not, although she did go to see the movie theater showing of it. She didn’t tell me what she thought.
But one of my brothers died a few years ago, and that event has completely changed me. I now start every decision with a question: If not now, when? His death has infused my living with urgency and clarity. There is no time or space for fear or indecision. There is no time or space for wasted days and wasted years.
I must live — now, fully, ferociously. I had to stop being self-destructive and live in self-care and self-forgiveness. In my case, it is not hyperbolic to say that my brother’s death not only changed my life but saved it.
I thought I was being rejected, and that plunged me into darkness. When my brother passed and moved into the light, I chose the light.
Part of choosing the light was choosing to shine it into all of my corners, to make sure that all the people I loved knew whom I loved and how I loved.
My boyfriend is a dancer and choreographer. He was in a show in California the day my family arrived, but he took an early flight the next day so that he could meet them before they left. My family had no idea that he would be there. Beyond my children and their cousins, I wasn’t even sure they knew he existed.
For two days before they met, I had terrible tension headaches. But I just took headache medicine and told myself that this was a thing that had to be done.
That Saturday, he walked into my place with my entire family there, and I reflexively introduced him with a joke: “Everyone, this is my boyfriend. He and I have been dating for two and a half years. If anyone is shocked by that, take a deep breath and swallow hard. You’ll get over it.”
My family responded the way I should have expected them to: They didn’t skip a beat. They embraced him and fixed him a plate and shared love and laughter. My youngest son asked him with a wry smile, “Do you need me to make you a drink?” My brothers began to ask him about himself and his work.
Later we all biked the BeltLine in Atlanta (even though it was cold), and that night, we went bowling. More love and laughter.
In the abstract, my family may have disapproved of this supposed lifestyle, but when confronted with the truth of my life and a flesh-and-blood person I loved, they responded with love because they loved me.
I should have been elated by all of this, but I was enveloped by an enormous sense of regret. I had waited and worried all this time. There were years, decades, of sadness and pain that could have been avoided. I have talked and written about the importance of visibility, but I have had to learn that lesson over and over. I have learned that coming out is not for me a one-time event but a series of events.
I was hesitant to write this column. I said to myself: Who cares about the coming-out journey of a middle-aged man in an era when children come out before their teens? But I was reminded of what I learned when I wrote my book: I am not alone. There are others out there with similar stories, thinking that they are alone.
To them, the late-in-lifers, I give the gift of being seen and reflected. I give this story and hope that it helps. I give the gift of permission that I gave to myself and that my deceased brother gave to me. Merry Christmas.
Charles M. Blow
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