What Would I Have Traded?

If you could go back to when you were a teenager, what would you have been willing to give up in order to be honest and open about being gay?

This is a question that perplexes me. I was truly blessed, or perhaps just lucky, as a teenager. I had great friends who I know loved and cared about me. Our lives centered on each other and the Church. We were our own little support group. An island of Mormon kids in a California sea of nonmembers. At my high school, the Mormons kids stuck together. That loyalty and support ran across grade levels. From the youngest freshman to the "so close to a mission you can almost taste it" senior. We spent almost every free moment together.

Even today we remain friends. I won't pretend that we see each other or communicate all that often, although I do stay in relatively frequent contact with a few of them. And one is my dentist - we go to lunch every six months when I come to his office to get lectured about how I don't floss enough. But, in my heart I know that they care about me. And, as I think I have mentioned before, I have given them every legitimate reason to run like heck.

To sum it up, I will simply say that from my teenage years until the end of her life, my mother regularly commented on the wonderful friends I had growing up, and how happy she was that they were in my life. After teaching youth in Sunday School and Priesthood for years, I realize how rare it was to have friends who stayed such even when they neither approved of me or found me convenient.

So, and this question is complementary to the thoughts expressed in my July 17 post:

Would I have given all of it up to be open and honest about who I was in my teenage years?

To have been honest, I believe, would have cost me their friendships. Not that I think that, with few exceptions, they would have been mean or cruel in any way. It's just that, given the religious culture and social context of the early/mid 1980s, my being openly gay would have been more than they, or their parents, could have accepted. I've heard more than one of my gay Mormon friends here in the blogosphere observe that they would likely be homophobic if they weren't gay themselves. I count myself in that group. So, I'm not judging my friends or saying they were bad people. I just recognize what would have happened.

On the other hand, I believe that my life could have had significantly more meaning and happiness if I could have simply realized that I was gay and become comfortable with myself when I was a teenager. I am convinced that, while my disasters and bad acts have been of my own doing, I could have avoided them had I been in a setting where I could have been myself. So much pain. So much hurt. For so many people, including myself. All because I refused to deal with who I was.

Life is funny. The thing that is most obvious so often seems to elude us. Simply put: Life is a series of mutually exclusive choices. To have been openly gay would have come at the cost of the friendships, love and security I felt among these good, fine people. Enjoying those friendships did come at a dear price - the cost of peace and contentment with who I was.

I recognize that the past is the past (from the movie the Reader: "It doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what I feel - the dead are still dead" - shhh, don't tell anyone it was rated R), and I have already answered this question by choosing my friends over openness. However, I believe there is profit in examining this choice since I will doubtless face the same decision again.

And, for the record, if I had to do it all over again, I think I would have likely made the same choice - friendship over openness. That's how much I gained from the relationships.