I sat there in my bed worried and contemplative. I could hear my mom coming towards my room, as she does every night before I go to bed. This was the time to tell her. I sat there debating with myself whether or not it was the right thing to do. She raised a son, and her dream was that I would grow up, find a wife and have children. My life was not going to happen that way. The sound of her footsteps approaching my bedroom door became more imminent, and for those slight moments, everything slowed.

I had always thought it was unfair that she expected my future to unfold like those of other boys when my childhood was anything but. I didn’t grow up playing sports or having clear societal gender roles inflicted upon me. We had just moved from our home country of Viet Nam, and while my parents were busy relocating us from one home to another, I spent my childhood finding security and a connection with my sisters. I played with them and their toys, instead of learning to throw a ball from my father or connecting with my brother. We were always moving and we did not find a stable home for quite some time. For those reasons, I never had the opportunities to do things like join a neighborhood baseball team, nor did I have other boys like me to play with. Perhaps all of this contributed to who I am. I knew it would devastate my mother to know.

She came into my room, and sat on the side of my bed. I was shaken to the core, and my mind was a complex myriad of thoughts and emotions. I took a deep breath and with my mind in all different directions, I could barely recall my exact words. It was just something I had to let go of. I didn’t seem to care how it would affect the people around me, I just had to say it and so I did. That was when I told her I was gay.

Moments after that came the soothing silence, the psychic chaos; it was all calming and therapeutic like the resonating aftermath of a cymbal crash. Like on the battle field, when both sides have ceased fire and all one could feel was the sizzling of the guns and the debris floating in a quiet surrender above the ravished earth. Except in this case, all the things physical was emotional, and the only shot came from me. To this day, it has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. To this day, it was what freed me from the person that I felt like I had to be.

It really didn’t matter to me what her response could have been. This was the single most pivotal experience that I had to go through in order to learn what is important to me.  From overcoming my fear, I learned that in life, you must be honest with yourself and with the people you love. Being honest about who you are enables you to start peeling away the superficial layers of those people in your life who are only there for fun and convenience and you truly begin to see those who will accept and love you unconditionally. Most importantly, it was only when I was honest with myself that I could finally be happy with who I am. Being gay was never the most important thing about me and it never will be. In fact, it is one of the least significant things about who I am as a person. One should be judged, as Dr. King said, “by the content of their character” and that notion is something I strongly agree with. What should matter the most is my personality, my intelligence, my morals, and my ambitions, all of which I would say, are pretty outstanding.