Читать книгу Hineni: My Walk Into Beautiful Life - S. Joshua Mendel - Страница 7

It was less than a year after "hearing" The Voice that It piped up once again. And on a very big issue: my sexuality. This may take a bit to set up, so bear with me. . .

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My first and only sexual experience with a girl/woman was G. I cannot remember how we first met; she was in my high school graduating class but I had never met her before. We started dating when we were both 19. G. worked in Cleveland while I was an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky. For the next two years, we dated during my weekends home, holidays, and summers. The bulk of our relationship was letters and phone calls. (Remember; no cell phone, no internet!) We were not sexual for the first two years of this relationship and I cannot recall any big make out sessions.

So what was G. doing with a closet case like me? I have guesses about what she was getting by being with me. But I know what I was getting: I was enjoying the illusion of being normal. When you were my age living in that age, you went out socially and you were supposed to be dating—women. My father highly approved of my dating G. I gained something to speak about. . . lie about. . . with my companions at college. I wasn't sexual during my college days but perhaps subconsciously, I had an excuse for not being so. In short, G. was my "beard".

We should have broken up far earlier than we did. But we didn't and so I move forward to September, 1976. G. pushed to come down to Lexington for homecoming. And she informed me that she had started on birth control pills. I don't remember being frightened—or sickened— by the thought of having sex with her. G. came down for the weekend and that night, we went out to dinner with my college companions and their girlfriends; a straight fantasy of sorts. I use that word ironically, because afterwards, we took in Walt Disney's "Fantasia" at the campus theatre! A segment of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (No. 6) was part of that film. I owned a record of the symphony and put it on when we returned to my apartment. And while the first two movements played, we moved to foreplay and to bed. My mind moves back to that night when I hear that symphony. . .

One of my more unique realizations about life is that some of the most important aspects of being human involve holes and tubes: breathing, drinking, eating, shitting. . . fucking. In my humble opinion, people make too much fuss about the holes and tubes we use for sex, as well as the biological sex of their owners. I may be gay but when we were together that night, both of my heads were into the experience! I thoroughly enjoyed the sex.

But sex changes a relationship. It gave G. expectations. . . fantasies. I heard her speak more and more about her friends getting engaged. G. did not demand it outright, but I definitely felt pressure to propose to her once I graduated. G. was adamant that she come down with my parents for my graduation. I thought her goal was to force that proposal. I was nowhere close to considering the issue of marriage with anybody. I felt horribly trapped.

One night I was sitting in my apartment thinking. . . worrying. . . about G.'s demands. It was a Grace on my butt moment. I heard The Voice:

"You can't marry that woman; you don't even know who you are!"

Once again, I was shocked at hearing a Message. It was a revelation to me to take in Words with such clarity and surety. The portion of this miracle for which I still have wonder is that I was obedient. In my closet of denial, I couldn't have truly grasped what those Words meant! They were Spoken some 14 years before I was "Reminded" I was gay; 17 years before I had the courage to come out. I was still very much a fear-filled person. Yet despite who I was (or wasn't) at the time; somehow, somewhere, I knew I had to end the relationship. And somehow, somewhere I knew I had the courage to do so.

I needed that courage. I told G. the relationship was over a week before my graduation. But she refused to accept my decision. She lied to my parents and came down with them! My entire graduation experience was marred by her presence. I suffered a night before and eight hours the next day in my car with her, listening to her alternately plead to resurrect our relationship or turn on me when I refused. (My parents drove in a separate car and were oblivious to all of this until after I came home and told them what had happened.)

The Voice saved not only me here but so many others. G. and our families were saved from a painful marriage that would surely have ended in divorce. . . at the very least. If G. and I had had children, other innocents would have suffered for my inability to live my truth.

Amazing Grace, indeed!