GAY BOY ON CAPE COD . . . Part TWO

GAY BOY ON CAPE COD . . . Part TWO

When I was 15 years old I had my first gay sexual experience. I had been dealing with my queer feelings and desires. I had a couple close friends and we talked together about our feelings and searchings, our sexual development, and all the usual stuff kids talk about and experiment with.

In high school I was a good student, involved in various activities and intra-mural sports and also on the school track team. I was a runner and participated in marathons. My running partner was a senior, two years older than I. We got along well socially and I felt attracted to him emotionally and physically and we enjoyed hanging out together.

One fall afternoon we were late returning to school. There was no one in the locker room or showers. We started undressing and he began some friendly contact, nothing out of the ordinary. In the shower room we continued our banter and faux-boxing. It was obvious we both liked what we were feeling. I am sure things would have gone further but we heard a locker slam so we hurried and dried off and got dressed and left.

He drove me home and on the way turned off the road into a wooded area we call "The Enchanted Forest". . . .and without resistance he unzipped my jeans, slid them down. . . and we engaed in homosexual activity. The rest of the year was quite an "education" and I am a quick and curious learner.

My reaction to this? I liked it; felt mostly comfortable with what we were doing.
Sex felt normal to me and I didn't have moral guilt about it. I am Catholic and with my parents I had talked about the position of the Church on sexuality in general. And I felt comfortable with myself and a lot of my feelings.

One evening my parents and I were alone, as most of the time we were. My brother is married and has two sons. My sister also is married and they have a son and a daughter. We are a close-knit family and we all come "home for the holidays" - religious, civil. This was an evening for family chat.. . Mom, Dad and me.

I was a tad nervous but not afraid, I had decided it was time to tell them they had a gay son. So I just simply told them I had been doing a lot of thinking about my feelings, my beliefs and what I wanted to do in college and in life. Then I just said "Oh and I want you to know I am gay. I am emotionally attracted to other guys. . "

Very gently Mom said "We know, honey, we know. Your father and I have felt you were and were wondering when you would be ready to tell us. . . ." We talked for a long time that evening and it was good. It was very good.

My parents have been and are very understanding and supportive of their gay son. I am indeed fortunate and blessed with my parents and their intelligent, loving and supportive attitudes.

My friends are always welcome in our home and treated as one of the family. When one of my friends stays overnight it is never a big deal or something to arouse suspicion or disapproval. One of the commentors on my blog has told me
I have been spoiled. . . gifted in so many ways, with great opportunities and privilege.

Personally I do not feel conflicted being gay and Catholic. My way of expressing this is quite simple: I believe and have been taught that we are created in the image and likeness of God. . . .and all God created is good and sacred. I also have been taught by my Church that in my Baptism I was identified with Jesus Christ.
We talk a great deal about identity. . . .well identify comes from two Latin words: idem (the same) + facere (to make). . .so in Baptism we are made the same as Christ. . . we share in divine life. This happens to all baptized. . straight or gay.
This is not an emotional trip; it is an intellectual statement of the Church's theology of Baptism. This isn't my concocted justification for being gay; it is theological fact. . . .which too many church people totally overlook.

God doesn't make mistakes. Our human sexuality and sexual orientation is part and parcel of who we are.

What follows is my own reflection and accommodated interpretation of the creation of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis.

++++ And God looked at all He created and saw that it was very good. God looked at the Man he had made and reflected. . "It is not good for the Man to be alone. . .therefore I shall create for him a helpmate like unto himself." . . .So male and female He created them, straight and gay He created them. . .And God saw all He had created was very good and God rested from all the work He had done.

As a gay boy created by God a "helpmate like unto myself" would need to be gay also. Since being gay is part of who I am, then being gay is God's gift to me and
what I become and do with who I am is my gift to God.

I have been "in love" a lot. . . .have these crushes and 'loves' lasted? No. . .but they were important for that period in my growth. Am I in love now? You bet your buns I am. . . .I love many people, some more than others, and two guys in more special ways. . . one is a special soul-mate and "flying mate" whom I call Peter Pan and the other is my love/heart mate named Peter. Peter is a baker and a fisherman, part of family business, a gorgeous guy my age, from a large family of Portugese descent.

(If you are curious, go back to my blog in July under the title "The Three Peters in my Life". . or something like that for details and photos.)

This, briefly, is my story of coming OUT, hinting at some of the journey I am on.
If any of you want to ask me more about any aspect of my story please feel free to ask your querstion on the Ugly Duckling site and I will try to respond as well as I can.

If anything I have shared is helpful to you, I am grateful. If not, ok. . I still have a LOT to learn.

ciao ciao, bambini. .

justin o'shea

Coming out in High School

This was not and official response to this blog but definitely worth a look

Catholic College coming out.

This was not a response to the this blog but it is a great video and a great affirmation.

GAY BOY ON CAPE COD

"Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived." I found this quote some time back in the writings of a contemporary existentialist writer on spiritual realities name Adrian van Kaam. It stuck in my mind and I've thought about it and pictured the images he suggests. . .like each of us being a mystery which gradually unfolds and reveals the meaning to life. . . my life.

I remember my 4th birthday party and I can still see a scene that has stayed with me these last 17 years. The kids are all sitting on the living room floor, and next to me is Peter, I am opening his gift: a wind-up duck, something like the Afflack duck, which flapped and made that noise. I can still see him next to me. . . .thick longish brown hair, shiny dark brown eyes, very tan from summer on the Dunes. Peter was special, important to me, and I had nice feelings about him. At 4 years old I was having my first crush on / with another boy. And it was very good. When I think of that event and time I still have warm thoughts and happy feelings.

My name is Justin O'Shea and I am a gay boy, aged 21, with the same brown hair and dark brown shiny eyes as Peter. I was born and brought up in a large white house, with a wrap around porch, on the dunes, on the outer or ocean side of the Cape. Cape Cod is like an arm bent at the elbow, extending out from the mainland of Massachusetts, in northeastern USA. Our home is near the elbow, about a 20 minute drove south of Provincetown which is along the inside hand of the Cape.

I have written about a lot of this in my blog JUSTIN DUNES which I started last
July 2009. http://www.justindunes.blogspot.com if you are curious.

I am in my second year of grad school in psychology at a "prestigious Ivy League"( aren't they all?! LOL) university where I did my undergraduate studies. I plan on a PhD in psychology and hope for a service career as a psycho-therapist. While I think I would "mainstream" my service career I want to be of use to young gay people especially so as to help them weather through and allow to unfold that mystery of being gay people. I would hope I could help in some ways to make this mystery-unfolding easier for them and they people they love.

Where I come from is very important to the telling of my unfolding mystery, my story of growing up as a gay boy. My Dad is a government lawyer and Mom is a literature professor at a community college. I am the youngest of three: my brother is 12 years older and I and my sister is ten years older. A long gap before I appeared in the O'Shea family.

I wondered about the long space between me and my siblings. I asked my parents about this when I was about 10 or 11. . in one of our regular chats. . .I asked them if I was a mistake on the calendar. . .[growing up among older people all my life, I asked those kinds of questions] Their immediate reaction was "Oh No, honey, you are the baby we chose to have and came as a special gift from God when we thought we couldn't have another baby."

This was then the occasion for one of our chats about live and loving which happened when I asked the right question and gave them the opening to talk more about "the birds and the bees" and the mystery of living and loving. We always had that kind of open free relationship where I always felt free to ask questions, make comments, tell them how I felt and what was going on.

I know I was born gay nd have always been gay. . . that is the way God made me. . in His image and likeness, like all of us, gay or straight. I guess it's fair to say I have always thought that being "the way I am" is totally normal and ordinary. Oh, I didn't have then the clearer ideas and vocabulary about gay orientation I have so far today, but I soon found out I was "different" or felt I was different.

I had my second crush in the first grade. He was a curly red haired freckled-face boy named Roger. We sat next to each other. One day when the class was going to go somewhere in school the teacher had us line up, two by two, just as we had done in kindergarten. When I reached to take hold of his hand, as we did last year, Roger pulled away, with the look in his eyes which told me boys didn't hold hands. But I wanted to hold his hand and his reaction 'hurt' me and I wondered why he did that.

Bit by bit I discovered there were other things boys didn't do. I didn't talk about these but I wondered about them. I do not think though that these stifled my open and spontaneous reactions to life. . . . I just became more selective where and when and with whom. There wwere other kids who seemed "like me" and I figured this was all natural and normal. I grew up in an affectionate and demonstrative family and that has remained part of who I am, more so today.

Another factor in my growth as a gay man is the religious traditions of the O'Shea - Bouvier families: we are Catholics in the Roman tradition, which means we are Catholic in the RC line. My father's family came from Ireland once upon a time, and while still there, got mixed up with some European Gypsy bloodlines (not the Irish "Tinkers". My mother is a Bouvier ( not to be confused with the Jackie K or Princess Radziwill line) from France via French Quebec, later moving also to the Boston area.

We are regular Sunday Mass goers and have always been involved in our parish life. I would class my parents as liberal progressive Catholics who, after St Paul, "render to God our rational service". When they were running together in the 1960s and getting involved in life issues they also had serious dialog about the Church and how they see things and fit into the way of following Jesus and the Gospel. These dialogs continued in their married life with each other and with their children. So growing up I was always part of this as we definitely were not sheep being lead by the grain bucket.

So in the midst of all of this growing up I had my first guy-guy gay sexual experience. Also around that time I came out to my parents: I told them I was gay.

(To be continued in Part Two. Stay tuned. . . . )

Official Welcome to the Ugly Ducklings Project

Don't Wear Other Peoples' Garbage

Way too often, for some reason, we allow people to dump their garbage on us and we too often wear that garbage for a whole day. . . or, sadly, for a life-time. We allow them to do that. . .to tell us who we are and how we feel about ourselves. Here is a piece about Garbage Truck Philosophy.

Hello! I am Justin O'Shea, a 21 yo university student, from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, northeastern USA. My mate, Shannon from Australia, invited me to join him in this project.
I will tell you my story in my next post.

ciao ~ justin

Subject: LESSON OF THE DAY.......IGNORING OTHER'S GARBAGE!!

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly. So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck'. He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so ... Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't. Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it! Have a garbage-free day!

Welcome to the Ugly Ducklings Project

All around the world young people are struggling everyday with their sexuality. As young people it can be hard to find messages of hope and affirmation in the world today. Too many young people take their own lives because they feel lost. They feel unloved. They feel worthless.  

They feel like the ugly Duckling.  

Within every ugly duckling there is something amazing, something that should be nurtured, something that deserves to be loved. 

A friend once said to me,

"if you have any ideas that could help change the minds of kids thinking as you did....please offer them to them. who knows how many swans weve lost."  

So this is it. This is the Ugly Ducklings Project. This is a place for anybody to speak. Leave your own story, make your own video. Add your own messages of hope and affirmation or leave a tribute to a lost swan.

Share your story so that others may read it and know that they are not alone.

I will begin with my own story.