Sven

Paris, June 2010

Checking the knuckles of his fingers sitting on his bent knees  giving birth to the muscles of his calf muscles didn't help me realize.

Studying the beauty of another man's ankles on top of the mountain of his instep following down onto his toes and I still didn't understand.

All my night dreams and my daydreaming didn't settle the idea in.

My most obvious desire to kiss his lips and hold him tight in my arms didn't help me accept it.

Then, I got a taste of it. I touched the object of my desires, so intimately familiar but so terribly intriguing. I caressed his body. It's construction was easy to recognize but it used to be so unattainable before.

I had a taste of others. All different, yet all so similar.

Yes, I love men. I like to look at men, listen to men, talk to men, touch men, allow men to touch me.

So, I finally decided to give her a hint.

She received no warning.

She didn't really understand why I wore her dresses and high heels, why I used her make-up, why I dreamt of being a little princess.

Nothing. Not even the fact that I was only friends with girls and we used to play with dolls.

She thought I was being creative.

I had to tell her.

One summer night, after a long walk in Bratislava, she already slipped into her bed. The lights were off. We were only illuminated by the street lamps. I stayed in her room to talk about all things, like we used to when I was still a teenager, living at home with her.

Somehow, we approached the theme of homosexuality. She lightly said:

"I think could never get used to it if one of my kids were it!"
"Yet, you might need start getting used to it! " I said e coldly. 

"No! That's not true! That's impossible! It's an error!" she said shocked just before burying her head under her cover.
"I don't know."

I left her room. We followed up the conversation years later.

I left her room full of doubts and misunderstandings. Is it true? Am I wrong? No. It was another door closed. One more accusation of misjudgment on my behalf. An accusation of a wrong choice. A refusal. A rejection of what I am.  A repression of the truth.

My mother didn't want to accept my homosexuality in the beginning. With time, she showed more understanding at a price of a certain remorse when I talk to her about my loves.

In the end though, the longest and hardest thing that I had to do was to accept my own sexuality myself, more than make others accept it. Is it done yet? I know not. Facing my education, religion, the rules of normality imposed by our society ( mostly, this annoying desire to be normal), the talks of others. In front of all this, I had hard times accepting who I was in opposition to the majority, misled of the right way of the general stream.

Being one genuine self is, unfortunately countercurrent in our global society but totally in line with the life and we are on Earth to live.