Tell the Truth...

Big day coming up this weekend. My best friend, F, is visiting, and I'm going to come out to him. He'll be the first.

I've known F since I was nine years old (he's a year older), and I've always looked up to him and valued his opinion - more than anyone else, including my parents. He's always been good at really listening to people - an all-too-rare skill, and one I try to emulate. In fact, after encouragement from myself and other friends, he decided to change careers, giving up a high-paying high-tech job for, well, a not-high-paying job in social services. :c) But it's not about money for him; he genuinely wants to help people, and it shows.

I've talked about F with Dr. S in our sessions, and how he's the one person I've always known I could tell absolutely anything. I've told him things that I have literally never told another person, and he's never judged me or been anything but supportive. I have a lot of good friends - I've been absurdly blessed in that regard - but a friend like F is a rare gift. And I count my blessings that F, and all of my other friends, are part of my life. I feel very, very lucky. I hope I've been 1/1000th of the friend to them that they've been to me, particularly F.

 

When I told Dr. S I was going to tell F, she thought it was an excellent idea. In fact, she thought it wouldn't be a total surprise to him, which, upon reflection, I agree with. I suspect that's going to be the case for many of my friends when I tell them. I've been thinking back to conversations over the years, and in retrospect it's clear that they always sensed I was... different, even if they couldn't quite put their finger on it. I'll write more about some of them in the future, because in restrospect they gave me clues to unravel the mystery that I couldn't (or wouldn't, for a long time) bring myself to solve. In any event, as I said, once the initial shock wears off, I suspect in many cases they'll feel it was... well, maybe not obvious, but not totally out of the blue. But we shall see, I guess. :c)

Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, I'm not anxious about telling him. In fact, I've been SO, SO much calmer since I decided to call Dr. S. I was always so... angry all the time before that. More than angry - furious. And over the most trivial, meaningless nonsense in most cases. Now, I'm not skipping through my days handing out daisies, but I'm also not on the verge of a coronary when someone spends an extra ten minutes on the treadmill at the gym either. What a relief.

But I digress. (These little jaunts down the tributaries of my thought process - such as it is - will be a regular feature here, alas...) :c) As I was saying, I'm really not freaking out about telling F. I'm pretty sure it won't always be that way for everyone I tell, but it's still surprising how calm I feel. Maybe that will change as Saturday approaches. But for now, I'll take the welcome sense of calm. It's a nice change from the constant... pressure I felt for most of my life. And it sounds like this is a common feeling, based on the blogs of other girls. The truth really *will* set you free, as it turns out. Too bad it took me so long to realize cliches are cliches because they're true. But then my friends call me Captain Oblivious for a reason, I suppose... :c)