CAPTAIN JELL-O RIDES AGAIN

I don't think I was born to my parents at all. I think they opened a box of lime-flavored Jell-O, ripped the top off the brown packet inside, poured the powdery contents into a bowl, stirred in boiling water and ice cubes, and–voila!–there I was. Ready to be poured into a waiting mold. All my life I've let others define my boundaries; decide what shape I am to fill.

On the other hand, I'm convinced my friend Bill began life as a hawthorn tree. His parents planted him in the good earth, watched their sapling son grow tall, strong and iron-willed. Like the sharp-spiked hawthorn, Bill can be worse than prickly if you get too close. Grab him the wrong way and you'll be sorry.

Bill seems to have an inborn ability to summon boundaries. Something comes up automatically in him, some self-protective mechanism which I totally lack. He swells up like the puff adder who when threatened pretends to be a cobra. Mess with him or those he loves and you're in for a world of trouble.

Mess with me and I probably won't even notice. Or if I do, I'll tell myself I deserve whatever ill treatment comes my way. I am the puffball. Threaten me and I just sit there. Step on me and I emit a little gasp and spew green spores into the air.

Growing up, I didn't know I was gay. Didn't know the meaning of the word. Didn't know there was a word to describe who I was inside. Knew I was different; couldn't tell you how. Knew that difference was wrong. Knew I was somehow flawed, disordered down deep inside, sinful, wrong. All this without ever learning there was a term to describe me, without learning there were others like me, that who I was had validity in and of itself.

Instead, I picked up on the message that who I was inside was worthless. That if I were to find acceptance and place in the world, it would be granted me to the extent I made my mother happy, to the extent I followed religious teaching, to the extent I paid attention in school and followed the rules.

I grew adept at molding myself into the exact shape of others' expectations. My parents wanted an obedient cheerful child. Voila. The church wanted a good boy, one who told his friends about Jesus, who memorized Bible verses and volunteered time and energy. Voila. Teacher wanted answers, homework done, legible handwriting, no lip. Voila.

Later I met the demands of professor, employer, girlfriend, fiancée, wife with similar aplomb. I look back now and shudder to remember my boss praise me with, "You have a real knack for knowing what I want." Voila. That's how I survived in a world where I felt nobody would want me if they really knew who I am. Given a whiff of your expectations, I'd mold myself to them. Captain Jell-O rides again!

I wish I could say coming out changed all this. My mother would probably say so. She experienced my coming out as a slap in her face. To me, in coming out I signaled I would no longer kowtow to what and who others wanted me to be. At least in this one area I would claim my right to exist. I would claim my own life. I would live into it. My announcement met with something less than widespread acclaim.

"Bastard," said family. "Not here you won't."

"Fired," said employer. "Not here you won't."

"Reprobate," said church. "Not here you won't."

"Betrayer," said wife. "Not here you won't."

Suddenly I was running naked through a forest of hawthorn trees. Bloody business, that. Some of the puncture wounds are still tender, 16 years later.

I have not altogether broken with the past; coming out did not reshape me into an entirely new person. I'm still beset with Jell-O-like tendencies. What's changed for me is that I now ride though life with greater awareness of when and how I'm shaping myself into another's mold. Sometimes I make conscious choices to shape myself this way or that; sometimes I refuse to bend and flex. Sometimes only afterwards do I say, "Gosh, how very Captain Jell-O of me!" I then resolve to be on the alert, watch for it the next time. I forgive myself and move on.

I'll never be a hawthorn tree. It's not my nature. And why be something I'm not? I'm proud of myself those times I ask this same question when I feel the urge to take up my Captain Jell-O cape and ooze to the rescue.

This essay appeared in the May issue of The Community Letter.

DEAR JACK, DEAR ME

Notes From the Afterlife

If I were a cat I'd have seven lives left. I’m not and I don’t. I’m 15 years into my second life, no promise of a third. The first ended at age 35 with my coming out. Try as I might to reconcile my two lives, they resist union.  

Recently I contacted an acquaintance from my first life. I remember him as a tall, sexy  graduate student with an infectious smile and an outsider’s insight into our society. A U.S. citizen, he’d grown up overseas. We enjoyed long philosophical discussions. I lost track of him when he returned to Europe.

Thanks to the internet, I learned he now lives stateside, works for a religious institution. I emailed him this innocuous note:

Jack (not his real name),

Warm greetings and (mostly) good wishes to you in the midst of the yammering and clamoring of daily life.

I stumbled across your name today and smiled to think of you back when you wrote for the magazine I edited. Back when I yet called myself Doug, before I named myself. 

My file of abandoned to-do projects includes an airmail letter I started to you overseas. Perhaps this note is by way of laying that obligation to rest. <

I hope you are well and happy. Interesting how life continues apace, how it carries us along on its currents, how we do the best we can. How much this matters; how little.

Life and peace to you. And light, 

Bryn

He replied, addressing me by my birth name. Red flag. People who refuse to honor my name change also tend to discount the person I am now. Jack wrote:

Dear Doug,

Thank you for your note. I enjoyed writing for the magazine. There is something you write here that lacks wisdom: "I named myself." It is folly to think that we can name ourselves. We are not our own authors. We are the clay, not the Potter. 

What's in a name? "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). Everything's in THIS name: "For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). 

And this is my only hope—that Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He alone is true peace, light, and life,

Sincerely, 

Jack 

What gives? His response seems overblown. Somehow he must have learned I've come out. Apparently my making contact threatens him. What, is he afraid I’ll assault his belief system? His person? I feel angry.

At the same time, I've been where he is, smug and secure in self-righteous conviction on his side of the church door. If I write Jack off as a lost cause, I also throw out the former me he represents. I want to believe my first lifetime was not a total wash, that some part of what I did or who I was outlived my coming out. That's why I emailed Jack in the first place. When I answer him I also address the man I once was: 

Jack,

Curious (or maybe not) that you and I address comments to persons who lived some 14, 15 years ago, who are no longer present to life in a physical way. I write a Jack whom I perceived/projected to be in the thick of continued learning, able to pose questions, feeling his way into the future. You write a man named Doug, earnest, sincere, sure he knew where if not what the answers were. Peace to both those men. And to the men they are at present, may one day become.

Thank you for your response, for your time, energy and expression of hope/belief. Given the tenor of your words, the judgment I hear in them, and my desire for health, I choose to terminate contact with this email (leaving me the last word, I note) and say to that ages-ago Jack and his present incarnation, as I did to my father four years ago on his deathbed, three years later to my dying mother, then to my beloved grandmother, "I love you; I let you go."

Bryn

When I was little I wanted to be a cat when I grew up. In childhood, all bets were off, all options open. My world has narrowed since then. Nowadays the thought of having to endure nine lives leaves me feeling tired. I can’t seem to reconcile the two that have been granted me, let alone nine. I grieve the loss of my first life and my inability to bring people from my past into my present. This life after death is deeper, richer, fuller, different. I wish those I once loved were here to share it.

This essay first appeared in The Letter, February 2009