I have often said that members of the GLBT community are the best actors around. Most of us played a part for at least some of our lives after all: a few for most or even all of it.
I’m not so sure it was acting though, in my case at least, and I can only speak for myself.
I don’t know what it was, and I have never tried to write about it before so who knows what sense it will make.
But here goes.
I’m tempted to say, I was two people, but that’s not quite right; not what I understand, and admittedly that’s very little, schizophrenia to be.
It was not that I had more than one personality and they were interchangeable, coming and going on some undisclosed schedule.
They certainly were not equal partners.
Rather, my body was off doing its own thing while the real me, whatever form that took, was separate, flitting about somewhere, watching what my body was up to.
I mean, how weird is that?
I have described this, verbally, to a few other GLBT people, but have yet to hear anyone say
Oh yes I know exactly what you mean …… it was just the same for me ……. anything like that.
But anyway ……. Back to my body and soul. Not that I pretend to grasp the meaning of the word soul but it’s the best I can do given the situation; something other than, quite apart from, my body.
My body went on its merry way: working, marrying, raising kids.
I watched. Rather like watching a play.
I didn’t judge.
I didn’t advise.
I observed.
I felt nothing.
That body was not me. At least the life it lived was not.
The bodily me was not unhappy. The bodily me felt very little.
It was not happy, neither was it unhappy.
It just was.
This continued until around forty, when I was swept away in an avalanche of emotion and came out.
To myself, and that was all that mattered.
I will never forget that moment when I knew, unequivocally, what and who I was.
The two parts of me came together.
They had never been joined.
Not as long as I could remember.
Now they were.
Now we were.
I have been one ever since.
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