141. Follow up...

Well, I’m in the airport in Philly, waiting for my flight to Ottawa. I had a wonderful time in Bermuda… spending time with my sisters, my dad, and my Bermuda family. I’m a little sad right now, but it is an expected sort of sadness, I miss them, that’s all.

So, I thought I’d use my 4 hour layover to update on my recent blog posts… man, I’ve posted a lot recently. What’s up with that? Sadly, there’s no free wifi in this airport, so I probably won’t post this until tomorrow, but hey, you’ll just have to get over that.

First, I did not manage to get together with my gay relatives. I called them on Boxing day, and it turned out the brother was leaving the next day… I never did get to speak with the sister, but I heard via an Aunt that she had tried to call be back but had lost my number. Oh well. It was a nice idea. Maybe next time.

In more significant news, I did come out to my dad. We were alone in the car and he brought up the subject of ‘this boy/girl thing’ (his actual words), trying to encourage me that it would happen one day, not to get anxious about it. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, I somehow ended up talking about my friend in Scotland, who is gay, and my dad made the very true, but odd observation that ‘gay people are people too’… I’m really not sure why he felt the need to say that, it was a bit bizarre. I decided to come out at that point, and started to brace myself… took a deep breath, opened my mouth and… loud reggae music interrupted us (preparations for the New Years Eve celebration in town)… that has happened to me many times. I’m about to tell someone I’m gay, literally, my mouth is open, the words are about to come out and something loud interrupts. It’s odd. Anyway, I had to steel myself again, and waited until we were out of earshot of the reggae music and opened my mouth and said it – “Dad, I should tell you something… I’m gay.” There was silence from him, and then… laughter. I think he really didn’t know what to do, and so that was his response. He did that a lot. He didn’t react badly at all, he did ask the question I find so annoying because really, it’s just a ridiculous question… the ‘how do you know?’ (which he worded ‘and what makes you feel that way?’)… but I understand I guess. He asked me if I had a ‘friend’, to which I said no, but told him about the few dates I’ve been on (which made him laugh again). He seemed mostly concerned with how my mother has reacted, wondering if we have fought about it a lot and how she feels about it. He seemed to be preparing himself for a conversation with her (which I have tried to discourage, and have enlisted my sisters as my allies in… I think having my dad talk to my mom about this will only enrage her and bring a whole mess of stuff down on my head that I may have to deal with if I ever end up in a relationship, but is completely unnecessary right now). He also told me to be careful with letting my employers know (which is just old-school-Bermudian… I let it go, because I don’t think he’ll fully believe that honestly, it’s not really a problem in Canada… at for the most part.) and to be careful ‘going into those places where people like you meet’. That one I tried to explain to him… first of all, I’m not really a ‘hang out in bars’ person, wouldn’t be if I were straight either, and besides ‘those places’ aren’t the dingy, back-alley bars that they have to be in countries where people are forced to hide. All in all, it was a good conversation, I think. I hope he’s okay. I’ll be checking in with my sisters to see what he says to them about it.

Well, that’s it… I’ve killed maybe half an hour writing this out so… now to wait for my plane to start boarding. Happy New Year all!