My Family Part 3

Read Part1 and Part2 before heading into this post.

Over the last 2 years, I have been progressively wanting, more and more, to end the cycle of lying that stems from me hiding the fact that I'm gay from my family. I want them to know more about me and I want to feel confidence in them. I want to care. I'd like to be interested in their lives and not just indifferent. When I think about it, it's clear that part of me cares for them - if I did not feel for them I would have just disappeared from their lives and become unreachable.

Only recently did I actively feel that I needed to make a change. Oddly enough, it stemmed from a conversation I had with my Mom. We were talking about my cousin and the approaching date of a party to celebrate his too-soon engagement to his girlfriend:

Mom: Your father and I think it's a mistake, but we are going to attend because he's family and he wants us to be there.
Me: I understand it's important to him and I am going, but I still think this is a waste of time. Remember the last time he got engaged and it just fizzled a year later?
Mom: Ya, of course. And honestly? I think this is a mistake. But in the end, the only thing you have is family. We need to support each other.

I had a response for that last sentence, but I'm glad I didn't open my mouth. What I wanted to say was "I don't think you can always count on family. If someone's always trouble, I wouldn't be there for them even if they're family."

Over the next day I kept thinking about the conversation and what I had wanted to say. I came to think thought that I want to believe what my Mom said. I want to know that I can fall back on some people and they will be there to help me. I definitely feel that way for some of my friends, so why not for my family?

Re-reading the previous two posts, I see a clear conflict in my views and feelings for my family. I feel contempt and a rather coldness for them sometimes. That is more of a vestige from my younger, completely-closeted self. At the same time, I know they're good people and I do genuinely like my family. I'm pretty sure this is the outlook of the "new" me that stems from a few more years experiencing the world, as well as being strong and open about my sexuality.

My close friends have listened to me talk about this subject. They understand my dissociation from my family, and they think I need to tell them I'm gay soon because it's the only way to attempt to rekindle our relationship. I definitely agree, but I always respond that it's so much harder than they think: to put yourself so completely out there and wait for their judgment. When I had this exact conversation with Xav, he looked at me and said:

"You know, it's only 3 words. It's not that hard. Being scared changes nothing."

I really liked that he was willing to challenge me on my fear of coming-out. Every other person would just accept my statements as truth, since they're typically not gay and can't personally understand. On the other hand, Xav wouldn't let me get away from the "I'm gay and you can't understand how scary it is to come-out" line.

I'm not exactly sure where to go from here, but I know it involves me finally coming out to them. To refer back to the dramatic end of my first post about my family: I want them to know my personality, my past troubles and the great things about me now. I don't yet know if it's too late - if they've lost me or I've lost them. I have no idea if I can break that wall I spent so many years building up, to really reconnect with them. I also don't know if they'd accept me if I was gay or after so long of not caring enough about them. In the end, the people you can count on, according to my Mom, is family. The only thing I suppose I can do now is try.