David Sedaris

When I was a closeted young man I couldn't even begin to accept myself because I was so supremely confident that there wasn't a soul, not a single person in my daily life, that would accept me. Not my friends, not my family, certainly not the women I had serially dated after discovering that holding hands with a girl during high school passing period did a fantastic job abating the calls of "gay" and "fag." Being gay wasn't Christian. It certainly wasn't normal. It was most definitely wrong so why should anyone accept me for it?

Then I got caught having internet conversations with a guy. We would chat about the world. He would try to convince me being gay was fine. I would retort with Bible verses and quotes from popular culture. We would flirt. An ex got his name from my computer and, when she confronted him, he spilled the beans on me.

It's difficult to describe what that felt like because, before I knew it, people knew and were actually rejecting me--not for being gay but for actively lying to them for years. In my desperate (albeit misguided) attempt to cultivate a support system in the shape of a false life, I had unwittingly undercut it all. I remember getting off the phone with a girl who I thought was my last tie to the life I had so carefully constructed. "I can't do this alone," I told her. Her terse response was "you can because you don't have a choice."

...

I made it through that night and then another night and then another but that doesn't mean being gay felt normal or acceptable. I moved through the world hating myself for something I also knew I couldn't control. Then, one day while browsing in the Waldenbooks store at the mall, I came across Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. I read through the first few pages and it seemed funny, refreshing. I purchased it and, that night as I read half the book in bed, I learned that this man, the very man who had penned the words in my hands, was gay. This is the absolute first time I had this experience and it happened completely by accident.*

And, strangely enough, Sedaris seemed happy, or at least seemed to have developed some fantastic coping skills. In essay after essay, tiny pictures of a potential life flowed from the page into my head. Maybe, I thought, maybe I can do this.

So it was a wonderful surprise when The Progressive arrived in the mail today with a fresh interview with David Sedaris. Now I can finish this blog, draw a warm bath, pop a bottle of Stella Artois, and catch up with the man who changed my life for the better.

*Full disclosure: It's true that, when I introduced Alex Sanchez at his Illinois College lecture, I claimed that his Rainbow Boys was the first book that did this for me. It wasn't. It started by accident with Me Talk Pretty One Day and then on purpose with Rainbow Boys. Turning it the other way around made for a better introduction and, come on, the guy was listening to me introduce him. Like, in the same room.