Going into this project, I really didn’t know what to think.
Here I’m a short, stocky, native dude that grew up in a small town on a
reservation; a humble guy that has a broad sense of humility. So when I was
asked if I would model for the project, my immediate thought was: “Who wants to
see pictures of that?”
You see, I spent most of my teen years and young adulthood
hiding in oversized clothes. I’d avoid
looking in the mirror, because I didn’t like what was looking back at me. And to compound that, I was so far in the
closet that I might as well have been sitting on Judy Garlands shoe rack
weeping into one of Patti Lupone’s evening gowns. I’d slouch in the shadows, so people wouldn’t
notice me as I wallowed in shame. Shame
not only for being gay, but shame as a result of thinking no one would ever
find me in the least bit attractive.
I have never told my family this, nor my closest friends
about how I felt, but I was on the verge of harming myself because of those
feelings.
I remember the day vividly where I seriously was considering
ending it. It was a frigid winter
morning. You know the type of frigid
morning where you don’t want to do anything but stay in bed under all your
blankets? Except my bed was a couch and
my blanket was a sleeping bag that I carried in my car. I was homeless and was struggling to find a
place I could call my own. All I could afford was food and gas to get me back
and forth from school and work. All necessary possessions I had fit into a huge
backpack that I would haul with me.
Needless to say, I was the epitome of the so called poor ass college
student.
But that particular morning I had it. The weight of my life started to wear on me
and the omnipresence of sexuality and self-hatred started to compound the
effects tenfold.
“Alright, look. If you do this, think of the grief that
you’d cause. Think of what it would do
to your family. To your friends,” I
thought to myself. “Ok. No. Deep breath.
You can’t do this. One step at a
time. Let’s get through school first,
and we can go from there.”
And that was my first step.
My first step to accepting who I am: a gay, native, man.
Step by step, I
worked on getting my life back under control.
Later that year, I graduated from college (Yay! Now I’m a poor college graduate! But that’s another story). A shortly after that I came out to my close
friends who, who I am glad to say, accepted me with tears in their eyes and
love in their hearts. I found a place to live, I was using my education in my
career, things started to look up.
All this was good, but I still had one more challenge. My crippling sense of self.
“Ok. Now I’m out. Well, not completely out, but
it’s a start. But I still can’t look
myself in the mirror. Why is that such a
problem? How the hell do I even tackle
this? Where do I even start?”
Little did I know, the answer was right in front of me. I was talking with my brother and he had told
me how he also felt self-conscious about his body and didn’t feel comfortable
either.
“Wait… What the?!?!?”
This came to me as a surprise as I had always considered him
to be the good looking one in our family.
He is lean, fit, masculine, and well, quite frankly, one handsome fella
(The ladies are oh so lucky to have him.
Yes gentlemen, he is straight as they come). So hearing this coming from him made me
ponder, “Why does he think that? “
That’s when I had a profound epiphany of sorts. Everyone has
body issues and it’s my own perception of my body that I need to overcome, not
what everyone else’s thinks. If someone
doesn’t like it, then they are not the right person for me. This is the only body I get in this lifetime,
and I best rock it while I got it. There
was no specific person that I feared judgment or shame from. I had finally met my biggest critic: Myself.
Ultimately, this resulted in me coming out of the shadows
little by little. I started sitting up a
little straighter. When I would walk
down the street, I found myself standing a little taller.
So, back to that question at the beginning. “Who wants to
see that?”
This project gave me opportunity to challenge myself, to
push the confines of my comfort zone. To expose myself and proudly answer it
with another question: “Who WOULDN’T want to see that?”
Yes, I realize that this comes off as a
little vain, and quite frankly, very narcissistic. But there is one thing I have learned on my
journey to getting here and it is that there is a fine line. It’s a matter of walking the fine line with a
dignity and a sense of humility. And as one of my favorite musicians so
eloquently stated: “For me, music and life is all about style” - Miles Davis
