I would like to tell a story of a young fairy named James. He was about 15 years old. He was still as gigantic as he is today, but his face was a little bit more busted. Acne was a bitch and so was he.
The young fairy is me. If that wasn’t clear.
I decided to join a group called “Madison Youth Choirs”. It was an all-men’s choir. I auditioned, and I was accepted! YAY! But every year of MYC started with a camp where we went to learn all the music; I was going a camp full of boys I’ve never met before; EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!
My mom was driving me to this camp in the middle of nowhere. I remember sitting in the passenger seat feeling like I would explode and praying that I would. You see, I had decided that I would tell my mother during this car-ride that I was gay. I figured the worst-case scenario would be: she was NOT a fan of the gayrods but she would have the time while I was at camp to come to terms. So I’m sitting in the passenger seat feeling EXACTLY like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls; I was CONVINCED my stomach was seconds from falling out my butt. I felt like I had a fever and as if I had swallowed a bowling ball that was slowly expanding inside me. It took me a while to muster up the courage and even longer to make my tongue speak but I told her, “Mom, I have something to tell you… I’m gay.” And she said, “….I know,” with a kind, omniscient smile on her face.
Cue the record screech: “ERRRRRRRRRRR”.
Um…. way to steal my thunder, hoe! (I was gonna write “bitch” but I can’t imagine calling my mother that. But her immense sluttiness more easily lends her to the word “hoe”.)
And in that breathless moment, I remember wondering, ‘How the hell did she know?!!? How long has she known? Did I come out out the womb winking at the male doctor? Did I have a penchant for phallic nookies?’
But now I know: No, it was none of those things. It was mothers’ instinct… and also the fact that she had two functioning eyeballs in her head. And it’s the fact that moms really do know everything. I remember when I was in second grade my mother was helping me with my homework (because even at the ripe age of seven I couldn’t be bothered to do homework on my own). My mom gave me an answer to one of the questions, and I asked her, “How do you know that?!” My mother answered, “Because moms know everything.” Well, that was enough reason for me! The next day I went to school, and we were reviewing the answers for the homework. Finally we arrived at the question which my mother helped me with, and I was extremely eager to answer the question since I was absolutely POSITIVE that my answer was correct. My hand shot into the air, and my teacher called on me. I gave her my answer with a proud smile on my face. She replied with, “And how do you know?” I smugly answered, “Because my mom told me, and mom’s know everything.” I distinctly remember her breaking out into laughter, but she, too, was satisfied with the reasoning.
There’s nothing I would change about this memory…. well except for one thing. I wish I could go back and tell my SUPER GAY 7-year-old self to remember this: moms really do know everything. So then when I was older and I was blatantly aware of how gay I was that I wouldn’t try so hard to hide it from my mom. Because she knew.
What were the signs?
Let’s revisit them, shall we?
1) I LOVED SPICE GIRLS MORE THAN ANYTHING. More than I loved Johnny Bravo… which is really saying something. I always wanted to be Sporty Spice. My sisters and I would watch Spice World on REPEAT and we would dance along. Clearly, I knew all the words. Clearly, I knew NONE of the dance steps, but show me one little gay boy that NEEDS choreography to bust a move! Please, I was dropping it like it was hot all over the carpet. But that’s not it; the story gets GAYER. For my birthday, I asked my mom for platform shoes like the SPICE GIRLS. On my birthday: I opened my presents and found BLUE PLATFORM SHOES. (My mom has been pro-gay for a LONG while.)
2) I have three sisters, and I’ve always thought they were all so cool. They always got to do fun things like paint their nails. Well, I wanted to paint my nails, too, god damnit! So my mom helped me paint my toe nails one night after school. And the next morning she helped me take it off before I left for school.
3) I ran into a wall once while deep-throating a plastic tent-pole. I went to the emergency room where they ended up giving me a frozen popsicle to deep-throat. Looks like I WON that WHOLE DAY.
4) I used to lie on my bedroom floor with my best friend Dalila and SCREAM along to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. (There was no singing; just screaming.) When the song ended I stood up, rewound the tape, pressed play, lied back down, cleared my throat and continued screaming.
5) I loved the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. I would regularly say things like, “If I was a girl, I would totally like this JC Chasez. Reeeeeeeal smooth, James.
6) I looked at gay porn on the family computer, and I’m the only boy. Cool. It also took me a while to learn how to delete the history, and I’m pretty sure my mother was certain it wasn’t my father. This was back when we had that landline internet, and once the computer called Africa… while I was trying to look at more porn. I guess I wanted to be well-rounded; I didn’t want to discriminate against African porn. My mom was pretty mad when she saw the bill. My explanation: “I was trying to play an online game…?!?!” Lying has always been one of my strengths.
7) I can’t say with 100% certainty that I didn’t scream with joy every time a Bowflex commercial came on.
8) I brought boyfriends home and they were HUUUUUGE fags. I’m totally kidding; just one of them was a huge mo. I’m totally kidding. They all loved the dicks. Alright, that’s enough.
I’ve been gay for the loooooooongest time. Forever. Of COURSE my mother knew. I was terrible at hiding it, and it was written all over my face. I started as a young fairy who dated boys, and now I’m an older fairy who runs from boys. And my mother has loved me the whole time, even when I slander her name on my blog by falsely accusing her of being a harlot.
For the record, my father is totally cool with it, too.
But this is a love letter to my mother.
I’m grateful for you, mommy, for cultivating my inner-gayness. That you for loving me so fiercely that I could grow into the skanky mess I am today. Thank you for loving me even when I blog about cleaning out my asshole. Thank you for loving me even when I don’t love myself very much.
I love you, mom.
Also let the record show that my father has this picture of my mom on his CapitalOne credit card. He is very proud of it, and he shows it off often.
James
James Follows His Dreams 