After a week off to celebrate the season (here’s hoping your Easter or Passover was a good one), I thought I’d continue my Sunday Boyfriend introductions. This week I’m sharing the love that is my Gay Sunday Boyfriend.
I’m not sure there is an appropriate or strong enough word that exists to define just how much I love my Gay Sunday Boyfriend. He is one of a handful of people walking around on this planet that I feel truly gets me (and I do my best to be the same for him). If you are lucky enough to know what it’s like to connect with someone like this, then go out right now and give them a hug. Because the older I get, the more I understand how rare it is to not only find friendship like this, but also keep it.
Maybe the word is cherish or joy or unconditional. These are good words, yet they still don’t seem strong enough. How do you accurately share how you feel about someone who has always been there for you? Sunday Boyfriend? Soul Mate? Rock Star? He is all of these distinctions and more. While I’m not sure I’ll ever find just the right word, I’m certain I always want him in my world.
My Gay Sunday Boyfriend and I met in college. Both involved with theatre arts, we had more than our fair share of family drama long before we met. I suppose part of our draw to each other is this bond of survival; the thought if we could make it through our childhoods, then we could make it through anything. Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea of an idyllic childhood is pure fantasy. I know everybody has/had something growing up that left an indelible mark on psyches. But my Gay Sunday Boyfriend and I had some similarities that made us able to understand why we think the way we do, why we react to things the way we do, and how we treat others. We clicked.
My Gay SB and I became friends long before he shared he was gay. When he came out to me, he asked if I would still be his friend. I replied would he still be mine if I told him I already knew. Being gay or straight didn’t factor into my friendship or the love I had and continue to have for my Gay SB. I could care less he is gay. He might as well have asked if I would still be his friend because he’s 5′ 6″. Can you imagine someone being willing to erase shared memories and end a friendship just because you’re short, or tall, or have big feet? I can’t imagine feeling fearful for being who you are. No one should feel this way. I’m sorry if he felt any fear over telling me, but hope he now knows he can tell me anything without judgement. I want nothing but the best for him.
Over the years, my Gay SB and I have lived all over the country. He’s now in Los Angeles living the dream as a working actor. He is a magnetic person. By this I mean he carries himself with the kind of graceful confidence that draws you in. I know you know this feeling. He’s the guy in the room you want to meet. And even though we lost touch during what I’ve called my “valley of pain,” I was happy to learn his core hadn’t changed while we were apart. Because let’s face it, there are plenty of things, events, moments in the world that can change a person. And he went through some tough stuff and grew, but at his core, he was still the same full-of-light-and-joy friend that I’d been missing.
What brought us back together was, sadly, a tragedy. A fellow classmate, a young man full of enormous talent, was killed in an accident. At the time we were all in our mid-twenties and still wrapped in a thin blanket of impenetrable invincibility. The shock was both numbing and igniting. Flooding thoughts of, “Am I doing what I want to be doing? Am I living the life I want to be living?” and “Why have I been waiting to do the things I told myself I would?” swam in both my head and my heart when my Gay SB gave me the news. At the time I heard from him, we hadn’t spoken in nearly six years. When I heard his voice, I instantly knew part of what made my “valley of pain” so painful was being away from the love and care of friends like him. I cried. Then he told me the news and we cried together.
At that moment, I instantly became aware of one of life’s truths: if you are able to let go and cry with someone, really get comfortable to expose your nitty gritty emotions with someone else, then they are one of your soul mates. I thank my Gay Sunday Boyfriend for calling me, letting me cry, letting me get to the point of learning what it means to be cared for, and allowing me the opportunity to show him the same.
Here’s hoping you allow yourself to not only experience the power of what letting go can do for you, but living in the light of what that letting go brings back to you.
As always, stay comfy and be good to yourself and your Sunday Boyfriends.
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