Intimate worlds. It was not easy for me to accept that I am gay. Only at 27 I talked to my parents and their response left me sad

Rodrigo Cabrera

02/14/2020 - 22:01

• Clarín.com
• Society

Dad went looking for me somewhere between his house and mine on a Saturday afternoon in October, after calling me very early that day to demand a coffee as soon as possible. In that conversation on the phone, short but intense, I noticed it accelerated, with an urgent need to see me and clarify some things.

I kept reading

The damning silences

Society

At first I was afraid, very much. A few days ago I had left the closet with my mother and, although I had not anticipated any positive results at that time, I was still thinking about her absolute silence in the face of my confession , in her lost gaze, in the cups of cold tea on the table and in his dry kiss goodbye at the door of the house. A few days ago I had no news of her, and now it was my dad who asked me to meet them for the first time in my life. I knew it could not be for another cause. Despite the fear, I agreed to see each other that afternoon.

Of tiny. Rodrigo still didn't know the dilemmas he was going to face.

The first thing he told me when I got in the car was that he had been worried about me for some time, but that he sensed that something really bad was happening after seeing Mom without strength or desire to get out of bed. He asked me what I had done for him to be like this, assuming that I was to blame for that unrecognizable sadness . He was angry, his tone was high. He asked me for an explanation.

"Good dad, ready," I said, already a little tired. Your real concern is not about mom, it comes from the other side. You are afraid because you imagined it a while ago, but it is impossible for you to ask me out loud. Do not even consider it as an option. I will make it easy for you, even if it is not what you want to hear. Pa, I'm gay. I like skinny ones, and I'm happy with that.

Diploma. When they gave him the title of lawyer, he was still silent.

He kept driving without telling me anything. I don't know how much time we spent quiet and still, until he pulled a bundle of cigarettes from the glove compartment, lowered the window a little and lit one. The last time I had seen him smoke it had been on a New Year's Eve about ten years ago , when a little for the excitement and a little for the wine, he had started talking to each of his nine brothers in the front garden from the summer house.

The silence continued for a few minutes, until I realized that we were climbing the highway.

–Dad, where are we going? What do we do here?

- We go to Luján, to the basilica. I have to buy some candles to take your grandfather to the cemetery, and I want to bless them there.

–Are you fucking me?

- Look, if you want, you will accompany me and we will continue talking. If not, you can get down here and return to your home.

He had just told him out loud, perhaps, the most important thing he could have ever said, and in return he received a hard tone, a ridiculous imposition of authority that he felt he did not deserve . I tried to keep a calm tone and my voice was firm, but sure, and I told him that I was not getting off that car and that now, that he had not given me a choice, I would have to listen. I needed to talk.

I don't know since when I'm gay. I also don't know if I was born gay or I am by choice. Many times I was involved in the debate but there were few who reflected on the subject. I would rather not do it. At least now and after such a long time, I am content to recognize myself as such and enjoy it without guilt, because it was not easy. I may not have grown up in the most conservative environment of all, but in my case it was enough for the closet in which it was hidden to remain closed .

I went to a Catholic school but not a fan, of those who do not require much more than to pray in the morning, study catechesis and go to Mass once a month. I went through baptism, communion and confirmation, in that order and with parties and souvenirs. My parents are moderate Catholics. They take pride in going to Mass on special dates like Easter or Christmas, or every time someone close dies; they don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent, they are fans of Pope Francis and they are against green scarves. As for homosexuality, it was always such a taboo subject that I have almost no recollection that it has been seriously debated at a family table, except that time when, entering adolescence, I had heard at a dinner words like family, procreation , disease and nature .

I put a lot of me too to keep that door locked, and I even imagined a possible heterosexual life. I aimed to enhance a normative hetero-cis image to the point that no one could doubt my heterosexuality, not even me. I decided to study law at the Universidad Católica Argentina and without realizing it, I became a conservative Catholic, one of those who today we call PPF (Homeland, Property and Family).

During my university years, I opposed the law of equal marriage and went to a spiritual retreat in which one afternoon I thought I saw God. I met girls and invented liars, and I had clandestine experiences with men that I thought would be temporary . I was also part of a bioethics group, where we discussed with other PPFs about Christian medicine, law and morals, and judged the surrogacy of wombs and assisted reproduction. I didn't get to play the guitar at Mass just because I don't know how to play the guitar.

I had made, very slowly and unconsciously, a resistant, waterproof shell that ended up breaking when, with the excuse of going to study outside, I distanced myself for a year from everything around me. Far from all that duty to be self-imposed, I opened myself to other experiences and made new friends, who little by little and without imagining that I was gay, they showed me that the fact of being so was not something serious, neither unnatural nor shameful .

I learned to celebrate the different regardless of the cause of that difference. For the first time, I was beginning to really think myself. Everything was enhanced once I returned to Buenos Aires and found the old environment, the one I had left on hold for a while. It was a shock for the one who was not fully prepared, although neither were those who at the time had grown up with me. They noticed that something in me had changed and they were right.

Once I took the first step, it was impossible to stop. Opening that door was a one way way. First I told my friend M. one summer night on the terrace of the house, and she hugged me very tightly. M.'s embrace was followed by many more, all with the same strength . As I was exposed, I felt less heavy, as if I were buying a fee installment.

On the one-way trip to Luján, I told my dad about all that. I also told him of the fears of the beginning, of feeling different for a long time, or at least different from what was expected of me. From fear of rejection and discrimination, of self repression. I reminded him of his old words like those of that family dinner years ago, but they had always been updated in my head. I also told him of the anguish, of the knocks on the wall of my room, of crying in unexpected moments and how uncomfortable it feels to cry because I grew up thinking that men do not cry.

I didn't let him intervene at any time and I kept talking to him even when we arrived in Luján and blessed his candles. In silence we entered the basilica, crossed himself and sat down to pray on one of the benches in the background. I felt I had nothing to do there. I went out to take a breath, and while he prayed, I kept talking to three boys of about four or five who were asking for money on the steps of the entrance. I ended up sitting with them, sharing some alfajores and some sodas. After a few minutes, Dad left the basilica and returned to the car. We still did not speak.

Just around the corner, again on the highway, he spoke to me again to tell me that there was something he regretted.

- I know it's your decision, I don't share it, but it's what you choose. The only thing that makes me sad for you is that you will not be able to be happy. And that is the only thing a father expects for a child.

–You are wrong, dad. Happiness is relative, and it does not depend on my sexual choice . Actually, I don't know what it depends on, or if it depends on something. I don't even know if it exists. I don't know if I'm going to be happy, but I prefer this to stay locked up. You, for example, are heterosexual, are you married, lead a life that you consider conventional, and are you happy?

He did not answer me. Instead, he lit another cigarette.

We hardly talked during the rest of the trip, nor during the weeks that followed. The little dialogue between Dad and I was reduced for a time to a cordial and cold greeting in family gatherings, to which I kept going so as not to lose contact with the rest of the family despite the discomfort and tension generated by my presence. My younger sister, with whom I had been estranged for years, became a key supporter at that time. It was one of the first people to understand me and to repeat myself until I was tired that everything would be fine.

The almost null interaction with Dad made me find out later of his inconvenience, and once they became pain. One February morning, an internal bleeding caused by a clot caused Dad to end up in the hospital in intensive care. At that time, I was not in Buenos Aires and I became a micro early morning from a wedding in La Pampa thinking that I could not see him anymore. When I found Mom in the waiting room, she looked at me relieved and asked me to enter the room because Dad hadn't stopped asking about me, even when I was almost unconscious.

It was in those days that we learned about the tumors. First in the liver, then in the pancreas. Scattered, and of uncertain reach. The doctors intervened urgently, and removed the cancer and much of his digestive system.

Dad started with chemotherapy a few weeks later, and from the beginning I stayed with him. During the months that followed, he lost several kilos, became paler, ran out of strength, looked down. On the contrary, I began to eat healthy, to do a lot of sports, to meditate. To live my sexuality without hiding, to try to enjoy it without prejudice . One afternoon, while we were walking through the park together, it occurred to me that I was robbing him. As if every gram of life, every kilo of muscle, every breath of his own, was taking over. A thought without much meaning but that reflected the imbalance in the balance of an unfairly asymmetric nature.

"I see you well, champion," he said, when we reached a shadow and stopped to rest on a bench.

"I'm fine, pa," I smiled, and patted her shoulder. And you will also be fine. Go on, I want to see that stamina.

I shook his hand, he stopped and we kept walking.

In all this time, we talked as if nothing had happened, as if the trip to Luján and the conversation about my sexuality had not existed. He greets me with a hug every time I visit him at the clinic or at his home, and thanks me with a smile when I fire him. Enjoy whenever I arrive and grieve when I leave. A couple of times he told me that he loved me very much. In our time together, we play chess in the hospital ward of the cancer pavilion, or watch a movie in the living room of his house, and sometimes we even dare to debate politics as in the old days.

Until now, we didn't talk about happiness again.
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Rodrigo Cabrera is a lawyer and actor in process. He studied law at the UCA, completed a master's degree in London and was a university professor. Despite his career in the field of law, his true interests are diverse and beyond the law. He studies acting and since 2019 attends a creative writing workshop. In his spare time he likes to play sports, keep up with the latest series and movies, write and read; He is particularly interested in dystopian novels and his favorite is "1984" by George Orwell. Enjoy quality time with friends and the nights of Buenos Aires. The beach, always. I would live traveling. He is a collector of simple data.