LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Student CAMP: First Night |
by Kristen Minor |
Over the 4th of July weekend, I went to the YMCA Conference On National Affairs in North Carolina. This year was my last, and as I have the previous three conferences I met several gay people. When we were saying our tearful good-byes, I invited all of the gay delegates to come to Rehoboth. What can I say? I enjoy giving the grand tour of Baltimore Avenue. One boy from Kentucky swore up and down that he'd make the trip at some point in his lifehe's never been to a "gay town". The experience led me to remember my first time in Rehoboth. I'm not talking about the first time that I remember goingI've lived in Sussex County all my lifebut the first time I was introduced to the gay community. It happened four years ago and had a lot to do with everyone's favorite caf worker, Jason LeBrun. At the time, I was a freshman in high school, trying to combat the vicious gay rumors that were going through the rumor mill about me. I also had just recently broken up with the last boy I would ever date. Jason and I knew each other through an academic program, and one day I had seen his best friend playing with a rainbow necklace. I asked her if they were freedom rings, and she told me that they were Jason's. "Didn't you know he's gay?" she asked. As hard as it is to believe now, I didn't. Jason and I began to talk and he invited me to join a now defunct gay youth group. Jason became my "boyfriend," and one night he picked me up and we drove to the group. There were assorted boys there. (In all of my youth group days, I was the only girl 90% of the time. So much for meeting interested girls.) We talked about being gay, closets, and parents. The group leader asked if we wanted to go to Rehoboth and visit the bookstore. Would I be conveying how terminally ignorant I was at the time if I confessed that I thought he meant Browseabout? "No, no, there's a gay bookstore in Rehoboth," he told me. My world shook. In my angst ridden early teens, I, who attend church on Baltimore Avenue and live not too far from town, was convinced that I was the only gay person within 50 miles. Or at least the only gay teenager. Actually, if hard pressed, I would probably have admitted that I could have cared less if gay males existedI wanted a date. (I had yet to discover the joys of being a fruit fly.) I had read enough bad romance novels to sincerely believe that my crush at the time would miraculously either turn up at the group or confess her mutual love for me. That night, the group of us traveled to Baltimore Avenue. I walked into Lambda Rising for the first time, and I almost passed out. There was what I had been cravingpeople to accept me without question, people who had experienced what I was going through. Barry Becker was working at Lambda that night, and I think he was amused at my stammering as I bought a few rainbow stickers and tried to read six books at the same time. We happened to run into Glenn Pruitt, and he let us into a photography exhibit that showed gay and lesbian families. The pictures touched methere were honest to God gay people who had a normal family life, complete with children. Everything I ever heard about lonely gay people crawling around in bars, doomed to never find love, was shattered then and there. I don't think that I could rattle off specifics of the nightthe whole thing was a blur to mebut the thing I remember most is how, for the first time, I felt comfortable in my own skin. Even at 18, I find that I have a hard time remembering the hell of 11 through 14. I don't want to. That's something that disturbs me. I think that many gay people (oh, let's be honest people in general) are eager to forget their early teen years. Let's face it, no one wants to remember when they were an unmolded hunk of carbon still developing a personality. (This was a joke, younger readers.) How many people want to dwell on the anguish of realizing that there is no chance whatsoever of the pretty girl or cute boy that they like will ever like them back? When my first crush found out that I liked her, she didn't speak to me for six months. I'd like to forget that. My life changed in degrees after that first night in Rehoboth. I began to wear freedom rings under my shirt. I started to make subtle-as-a-brick-in-the-face hints to my friends, who were apparently quite thick, as none of them got the message. "Gee, I just thought you were the most pro-gay straight person on the planet," was the entirely serious comment of one of my friends after I told her. Of course, at that age, I still wasn't entirely sure I was gay because I didn't "look gay." In middle school you learn that any lesbian has to have extremely short hair, a deep voice, and be called "Mo" or some variation. Gay men, of course, set passing shrubbery on fire, while bisexuals simply do not exist. Such is the mentality of middle school. I imagined that the moment I called myself gay, I would have to start wearing flannel and stop menstruating. Imagine my surprise when I found out that all it involved was liking girls. On that beautiful night in Rehoboth, closeted and confused, I realized that. Kristen may be reached at kristen@youth-guard.org |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 9, July 14, 2000. |