Make it through the open door…which can’t be shut
Reflecting on my independence day on Independence Day
A few months ago, I went to a daytime dance party with a few friends, headlined by DJ/Producers Catz N’ Dogz. I loved their set, and since then I’ve been pretty obsessed with them, especially a song called “Keep On”.
To the uninitiated listener or electronic music hater, this may seem like a basic dance track, but somewhere around my 100th listen I realized that this song has a deeper meaning, especially knowing that one half of the duo is a gay guy. You can listen and decide for yourself, but in my opinion, it’s deep in its simplicity.
In a previous post, I talked about my formative years and the path I was convinced my life would take based on stereotypes and the messages I heard growing up. When I finished college in December 2001 I was in the early stages of my coming out process, although I didn’t realize it.
Fast forward to late Spring 2002. I’m now 23 and about to move to Boston to start graduate school in September. At this point, I moved past being a passive observer and started to chat online with guys from Boston since I’d be moving there in May. Still convinced I was a straight guy, my official status was ‘bi-curious’. I started meeting guys in person when I moved there but was still thinking that this would be a passing phase that I had to get out of my system before continuing my search for a girlfriend → wife.
Since I was only interested in older guys, I was meeting people who had seen their share of younger guys in my situation. One night that summer I was hanging out and chatting with Rick, who I befriended online. Without realizing it, I had been going on and on talking to him about Steve, another guy who I had recently met and had been spending a lot of time with. It became apparent to Rick that I really liked Steve on an emotional level and that he was falling for me too.
Rick innocently asked when I had last been with or felt that way about a girl since I was still insistent that I was bi-curious. I realized I hadn’t given one thought to meeting any girls since I started meeting guys, or even noticed any women in a long time. I stumbled over a non-sensical answer after a period of silence. Very directly he said to me, “It sounds to me like you’re not bi, you’re gay.” I didn’t really know what to say but I didn’t deny it and tried to change the subject.
I went back to my apartment and that conversation replayed over and over in my head for the next few days. I finally accepted that if I was really being honest with myself, Rick was right. It took him saying it out loud for me to realize that this was not a passing thing and that I was falling in love with Steve.
When I thought about how Steve made me feel, it was that all-consuming feeling in your heart and your gut when you know you have to be with them or you won’t be able to go on living. I realized that I never felt that way about any woman, even my girlfriend in high school who I thought I was in love with. My romantic attraction to women had always been fabricated, something that was expected of me and that I had convinced myself was real but was not how I really felt.
In the coming days, memories of feelings and crushes I had on guys in college slowly started coming to the forefront of my mind. I started thinking back further to high school and even middle school about specific men who I had crushed on before, but never had the ability to pursue. This was the most honest I had ever been with myself, and there was no way to deny an emotion so raw. This wasn’t a phase or something I could choose to ignore if I wanted to live a happy and fulfilling life and to find love and satisfaction.
That conversation with Rick led to self-realization, and from there my coming out process was pretty fast. I’ve always been the type of person who goes all-in once I know the facts and am certain of something, so within a few weeks I told my sisters and some close friends, who were shocked because I had hidden it so well. Thankfully they were all accepting and supportive, but I still had a major hurdle to overcome.
While we all agreed my mom would be accepting, the question none of my sisters or I could answer with complete confidence was how my dad would react. It wasn’t that he didn’t support me in the past or that he was homophobic. We had a close but complicated relationship growing up. He is someone who I respected but feared growing up, and his expectations of me were high as the only boy. He was a strong role model and I always sought his approval and had a fear of disappointing him. All these years later, I still do.
He and I are the only male Luceras left in our lineage. He had one sister who took her husband’s name, and I’m the only boy of the 4 of us. My sisters were all married or engaged at this time. Part of my identity had always been wrapped up in the idea that I was supposed to carry on the Lucera name and raise a family and a son of my own someday. But part of my coming out process was figuring out that I didn’t want the heteronormative life I had been raised to believe was my path. Regardless of my sexual orientation, kids were not in my future.
In the Fall of 2002, I was home from Boston for a long weekend and decided I wasn’t going to wait any longer. I remember we had just finished watching Fraiser, and I shut the TV off and said that I needed to talk to them. I choked up as I told them that I recently figured out that I had been lying to myself and them my whole life about wanting to be with women, and that I couldn’t do it anymore.
I said to them, “I’m gay.”
I completely lost it and I was crying so hard, I think harder than I ever have even to this day. The release of emotion when you lay everything on the line to come out to the two people who gave you life, supported you, and watched you grow into the person you’ve become is something that can’t be put into words, it has to be experienced to understand.
Knowing I could never take those words back and that I was completely at their mercy in terms of acceptance. The burden of 23 years of repressing who I am and the constant confusion, self-doubt, and low self-esteem, despite putting on a confident appearance and trying to make them proud. Constantly wondering if they would ever see me the same way again once they knew, which had always been a dark cloud over me even when I forced it into the recesses of my mind. On top of all of this, explaining that I figured this out after falling in love with Steve, someone 16 years my senior.
My mom was shocked and seeing how much pain I was in upset her. My dad also teared up but immediately told me that they loved me no matter what and that he and my mom just wanted me to be happy in life. That in their eyes, I was still the same Chris Lucera I had always been. The one who did an amazing Bobcat Goldthwait impression and liked making everyone laugh. The guy who took apart his Chevy Blazer 100 times in high school to install new subwoofers and neon lights. The young adult they raised to be kind and compassionate, and who would do anything for his family and friends.
There was no judgment about being gay, no attempt to change my mind. I explained that I had fallen in love with Steve and that was how I knew, and there was no questioning if I was sure it wasn’t just a passing phase. My dad said that people like who they like, and there was nothing wrong with my attractions. Without me mentioning the concern, he specifically said he didn’t care whether the Lucera name continued past me, as long as I was happy.
My mom was also very accepting and echoed his sentiment. It took some time for everyone in my to adjust to the news and to share it with extended family, but the people I care most about in my life have never treated me any differently or shied away from the subject.
Ironically, during the months that ensued, my dad and I actually became closer. Perhaps there was a part of me that he never understood, and things made more sense to him after I came out. Maybe if we had this conversation 10 years earlier when I was 13, I could have saved myself a lot of shame, guilt, anxiety, and confusion. It was a different time, even though it wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things.
After I came out, I felt a huge mental burden had been lifted. I was spending so much emotional energy repressing my feelings that I almost felt like I had gained IQ points with the emotional bandwidth that had been freed up.
The philosopher Albert Camus described this perfectly, saying “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
Coming out is a process that starts with loving and accepting yourself, not trying to deny your thoughts and attractions because of what you’ve may have been told is right or wrong, or stereotypes you don’t relate to. The path you take in life should never be based on narrow options presented to you by family, religion, culture, or society.
Since coming out, I have been fortunate to live my life authentically in two cities at the forefront of LGBTQ rights and inclusion, Boston and San Francisco. I pay my good fortune forward by volunteering weekly as a Peer Counselor for the LGBT National Help Center.
I’m grateful to work for a company that values me as an individual and the unique perspective I bring. I’ve tried to help create a safe and welcoming space for my peers by leading and helping to grow PRIDE US, Ultimate Software’s LGBTQ Community of Interest, from 2015–2018.
Although our community is more widely accepted, individuals still struggle to accept themselves and to take the leap of faith to come out.
To my LGBTQ family members, I urge you to think about how your story could help make a difference for someone struggling… not just a younger person figuring things out, but even an adult who you sense may not be comfortable in their own skin, or who thinks it’s too late for them to be their authentic self because no one would understand. We all have our own experiences that brought us here, whether you came out at 16 or 60.
To anyone reading this who knows their truth deep down but is afraid to embrace it, please realize you are not alone. The door is open and once you make it through, it can’t be shut. Just be yourself.
Find the courage to interrogate what you’ve been told should be your path in life, and it will lead you to your truth.
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