What Coming Out as Gay Does Not Mean: The Final Post

Trials to Triathlon started out as a journey for self discovery. It was to serve as a vehicle of expression as I learned who I was throughout the difficult times of early recovery. Early recovery is defined as a time of finally growing after years of heavy drug and alcohol abuse that thwarted normal age appropriate growth.

Throughout normal age appropriate growth most people learn things about themselves like what they like to do (hobbies), who they are attracted to (sexual orientation), what they believe in (spirituality), and what matters most in their lives (priorities). For me, all of this stopped around the age of 12 when I started assuming other personalities and hiding from who I was with drugs and alcohol.

For 18 years I covered it all up and became who I thought I should be rather than becoming who I actually was. Hence my general discontent with everyday life and relationships. The drugs stopped working. Sex became miserable. Waking up was feared. Life itself became intolerable. Then, I took one step that set the train rolling in the right direction and that was recovery and triathlon. (These two are inseparable to me, so yes, they are one step. Prior articles explain how I wasn’t able to understand recovery without triathlon and vice versa.)

The step in the right direction meant two things. Either I stop walking down this path and go back to hiding myself with drugs and alcohol OR I keep walking this path and begin learning all the things about myself I never gave myself the chance of learning. I chose the latter and the learning happened quick.

My closest family members, especially my wife can bare witness. I went from lost to found seemingly in the blink of an eye. Some of the things about me I didn’t necessarily like once I found them and tried as hard as I could to avoid and push away. One such thing is the fact that I’m gay.

I didn't choose this. I didn't want this. I prayed my whole life for it to be taken away. I wanted always to be like the other boys. I feared so much the ache and yearning for something I wasn’t taught to be. I used drugs and alcohol and sex/relationship with women to hide it. I haven’t been a week without a girlfriend (or wife) in my adult life and likewise, before sobriety, I hadn’t been more than a couple hours without being high on some pill, booze, weed or some other drug. I was such a mess, y’all. completely out of control. I used everyone and anything to chase away the gay. It worked until it didn’t and now I sit here for the final post.

Why is this the final post? Because this is the final trial. This is the last piece of the puzzle lost in my abandoned adolescence and young adulthood. The first trial was learning I had a problem and needed help and what would happen once I got help. The second trial came from my inability to trust and my fear of intimacy. The third and final trial was fully accepting who I was and stepping out with pride and confidence and faith that it would all be okay. This is the final leap of faith of trusting who I have become through these trials. This is the finish line.

Throughout this process of recovery and triathlon I have learned how to be a father. I have learned how to be a husband. I have learned how to be a friend. I have learned how to be a Christian man with values and moral principals. Most of all, I have learned a thousand lessons in Integrity, the hard way. But now it’s time to take one more step in the name of truth. It’s time for me to finally come out of this rancid closet. (ICK! god, I’m so tired of being in there!)

So what does coming out as gay not mean?

Gay does not mean I’m leaving my family

Gay does not mean I don’t value my sons and the great women who bore them. Further, it does not mean that I desire to have nothing, or less, to do with them.

In fact, for the women I am now able to give them the value they deserve. Before coming out, I used them. They served as the ultimate mask for my gay inside. They weren’t women to me, they were tools and now they can be women as God intended and it feels so good knowing I’m not using them anymore.

For my sons I can finally be present. I can finally feel what they feel as they explore this wonderful world of beauty, love, and truth. I can express joy with them and feel happy with them. I don’t have to be fake with them, I can be authentic. I don’t have to lie to my own blood day in and day out. Trying to show them tooth and nail what it is to be a man’s man in this man’s world. Most important, I can teach them how to love a woman (or man) by instilling honesty and integrity and genuinely caring for the other person rather than being stuck in a lie thinking of how to use the other person to hide like I spent my life doing.

Gay does not mean I’m not a Christian.

I no longer have to sit in church thinking I’m a sinner and going to hell because 1) I know I’m a sinner and 2) I know I’m not going to hell because I believe in my savior, Jesus Christ has bore my sins for me. Sin or not is not a discussion I ever have to have again, being gay is no worse to my god than eating chocolate cake. However, lying and hurting other people to hide who I am kills my spirit and limits my effectiveness and destroys my mission.

Now I can finally sit in church and say, “Here I am God, this is me, head to toe. I hold nothing back. I hide nothing from you. Use me as I am for thy will. Let me be a channel of thy peace and shine brightly what is the good you have shown me so others may see. No one has to run from you. You are love and you love me. May thy will and not my own be done now, tomorrow and always.”

Gay does not mean I’m changing my lifestyle

Im sober, I’m a triathlete, I love to write, I love to watch movies, I love to dance, I love the forest and I love to dance in the forest under the moon. I love camping, I love skiing, I love adventure. I love WSMFP. I love Phish. I love bluegrass. I love romantic comedies and musicals and Ohhhh and yes, by the way, I do LOVE shopping and trying on clothes (I’ve just hidden this for a long time).

None of this will change. I’m not going to give up sobriety for ecstasy gay sex raves and I’m not going to give up triathlon from gay pride festivals and peacock feathers. However, I will most definitely dance a little more, most definitely go to gay pride festivals and I WILL most definitely wear peacock feathers!! If you don’t like that side of me, then you can just watch my triathlons.

So what does this all mean?

Well, sorry. This post is anticlimactic. Nothing changes. Everything stays the same. I’m just not lying anymore and I bid the 3 years of Trials to Triathlon farewell. It’s time to move onto the next chapter!

I look forward to you all reading the book after the long, arduous publication process ends.

Mark TurnipseedFebruary 11, 2020gay, addiction, drinking, alcohol abuse, recoveryComment

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