Get. Out.

So it’s National Coming Out Day today in Canada — even though it’s technically an American invention — and I’ve been totally, totally out to absolutely everybody for… wow, twenty-one years? Geez.

And, really, I want to tell you… except for a good cry with my Dad when he asked and I told him, and a good cry with my Mom when I told her, and a few weeks of them assuming I’d automatically get AIDS and die, and a couple of years of them not telling anyone that they had a gay son… it’s been painless.

I haven’t regretted — for even one second — coming out and living my life out and free.

And if there’s some protoqueer kid out there reading this (or, really, anyone reading this) who’s afraid to take that step out, know that everyone who’s done it before you is encouraging you, and is supporting you, and wants to reassure you that it really is a process, and it never ends, and that you might not think you’re gay or lesbian because you’re not like all the gays and lesbians you’ve encountered or see in movies and on television but if you have sexual feelings for someone who uses the same locker room as you… you are.

And that’s okay. In fact, it’s better than okay. You will find your true self and you will love that true self. You will find community, even if it’s a small community which rejects the larger community. You will find people to love and people to be loved by.

Honest.

Coincidentally, it’s Thanksgiving this weekend in Canada. I’d like to give thanks to my health and my luck at so far dodging the bullet that mortally wounded too many of my gay brothers — and a helping of common sense, too, to not engage in risky behaviours. And I’d like to give thanks to my parents and my brother, my family and friends, my colleagues, my blogbuddies and readers and commenters, my exes and my wonderful and amazing boyfriend, Champ.

Not one of the above things for which I am thankful would be possible had I not come out.

Thanks for reading this.