On the Thought of telling your Parents

I've recently thought a lot about telling my parents that I'm gay.  Sometimes I wish they would stumble across my blog, or my journal, or one of my friends would slip, just so I wouldn't have to muster up the courage to tell them.  The dam would break without any effort.  Is it sad that I fear it so much.  It wouldn't be the end of the world, just the end of my relationship with my parents.  I know what they'd say, how disappointed they are, how they tried so hard to raise me right, but I just had fuck up everything (like always). I  think as long as there wasn't a gay person in the family they were totally cool, but I just know they could never live with the thought of there only son being gay.  It's sad because I know they would lack compassion.  They would try to humiliate me and guilt trip me out of it, like I have a choice.  They would use all my relationships against me, just because they think that would make me change.

There would be no place for me in my family, because at least I was tolerable when I was successful.  But being gay would be the last straw, ready for the stack to be burnt.  All of my achievements would mean nothing, become sub-human, tainted in the minds of my loved ones.  I do love them.  That's ultimately what holds me back, the anguish that it would cause them, the thought is unbearable to me.  Most people think, well do if for yourself. I can't. The thought of me even attempting something selfish hurts, there's no way I could go through with it consciously.

I guess I just ask what would change and would it be better.  And I honestly can say things would change and they wouldn't make things better.  I can't escape, because there's nowhere to go.  I can't run because there's nowhere to hide.  And I can't answer, because there's no truth I can tell.  As long as I'm miserable everyone is happy, and is it worth my happiness to forsake theirs? Because I'll have no one but myself to blame for the retribution.

Living in fear isn't living, it's dying. At least for one day, I would like to be myself, for all the world to see. To love or to hate. To feel alive. But I'm afraid I forgot what I look like.