Those of you who may have read my posts know about Tim. A quick review: When I started college I met a boy named Tim. We were pretty much inseparable for about two years. Had it been today I really think we would have married. He became ill and when his parents found out about us they refused to let me see him again. That last time I came to see him they met me at the door and told me to get to "Get my faggot ass off their property". Shortly after that he passed away. I never saw him again and I wasn't allowed to go to the funeral...I don't know where he was buried. OK...that was the short version of a time in my life that totally devastated me. I went into a deep depression. In order to survive I did my best to forget those two years. I succeed all too well and did actually bury those memories...completely. In 2014, after decades of deepening depression and self-hate, I finally accepted that I was and always had been gay. In 2017 I started having very strange, erotic dreams that seemed very real. After a month of this I came to understand that they weren't dreams, they were memories. At the time I thought that I had never been with another guy in any way. The memories said otherwise...and I started to remember Tim. It was actually kind of exciting as I remembered being myself, being completely out and being with a boy that I truly did love! Then one night I remembered what happened to Tim and what his parents said and did. For the second time I was devastated. But this time I had all of YOU here on Empty Closets and I had an incredible therapist. This time I made it through the bad time and now I look back at the time that I had with Tim as a happy time that I'm glad I had. Last week a friend of mine asked me about some photos of when I was younger. I scanned and sent him a few. Then last night I thought about my freshman year of college and some good pics of me in the college yearbook. I didn't have a copy but wondered if the college had put their yearbooks on line. I checked and they had. I found the two pics of me and copied them and then I suddenly thought that just maybe there was also a photo of Tim in the yearbook. THERE WAS! For the first time since 1970...50 years, I saw Tim's face. To say I broke down into tears is an understatement. It was a kind of a strange melancholy/happy emotion. I felt like I had just had a piece of my life returned to me. Now I don't just remember Tim...I can look at his face once again and think of the time we had together. I really do feel like the boy I loved has come back to me. .....David
What an amazing, wonderful, healing story! I'm so glad this has been such a positive experience for you! And especially thanks for sharing it.
That's fantastic! It's amazing how such seemingly small things like that from so long ago can be so important later on. Really happy for you
I am glad that you worked with a good therapist. It can make all the difference in deep inner healing. How great it is for you now to have a photo of Tim that you can look at and bring back so many good memories. Well done
FYI, the pain is/will be ultimately on them. Hate, pain stays with a person and degrades their life. From time to time I look at my two high school year books - junior, and senior. I look at the faces of the two primary guys I had a crush on. It feels good to look at their faces.
To all of you.....Thank you so much for your kind words and support. It means so much to me to see Tim's face again. Every once in a while I will have another dream and remember something else about him, or something that we did. Two days ago while I was awake and just kind of day-dreaming...for the first time...I remembered playing tennis with Tim. I've never remembered anything about Tim or those two years before that wasn't in a dream. I am so excited that more memories of Tim will come to me...that the parts of those two years that are still "lost" will come back! @NotTooLoud...I cry too! I cry for happiness! I'll be 70 this year and I've been married to a wonderful woman for 42 years in July. I have come out to her and we have chosen to stay together. I have a wonderful family of three sons and eight grandkids all of whom I love very much. I know now that only tragedy could allow me to have a relationship with another guy at this point in my life. But Tim has truly been given back to me. I have so much to be thankful for that I have no desire at all to look for any thing else. .....David
Thank you for sharing this part of your life David with us. An emotionally filled story, yet one that also keeps a special person in your heart.
Lgbtqpride..... No, I'm not bisexual, I'm gay. However, like a lot of guys in my generation, we ended up married to a women as we didn't know what else to do. In my case it was due in a large part to turning my back on my relationship with Tim as it was too painful to endure. I was just talking about this with my therapist this morning. I commented that I thought that it was certainly possible for the orientation of someone to alter during their life. I don't mean from homosexual to heterosexual, etc. but from one degree of, in my case, homosexuality, to another degree of the same orientation. When I married my wife I was gay...but not a 5 on the Kinsey scale gay. Maybe a 3.5 or a 4. Over the years that gradually has changed so that now I'm a pretty solid 5 on the scale. During my time with Tim I was probably a 4.5 or a 5, but the emotional trauma that I went through changed that. I'm certainly not an expert in the field of human sexuality...I can only speak of my own experience...and at times I have been a real mess! I'm happy that I am more stable now than I've been for most of my life. I know who I really am and accept myself far more than I ever have before with the exception of the two years that I was with Tim. I hope all of this makes some sense! .....David
Oh David. I picked up your conversation in Adrian's string, and went to look for your story about Tim. I don't know what to say but I'm was very happy to hear that you found a photo. I was looking recently for pictures in old school photo graphs for someone special and found fuzzy renditions of the face I sought. I've tried sometimes over the years to find him, but never had any luck. 42 years since and I can see, like you, that had the world been in 1978, as it is now, things may have turned out very differently. Ah, but. Ken
It's never too late, Ken. I feel very strongly that I would have taken my own life (something my former wife encouraged) if I had not left when I did, so I am living on some sort of heavenly (for lack of a better word) extension. Having been given this gift, I am not going to deny myself anything I really want.