Coming Out: The Agony And The Ecstasy

[Butterfly]

Coming Out: The Agony And The Ecstasy
The Bilerico Project
Filed by: Dr. Jillian T. Weiss
October 11, 2010 2:30 PM


http://www.bilerico.com/2010/10/coming_out_the_agony_and_the_ecstasy_1.php


Coming out of the closet is a process, not a moment in time. And yet, there are the moments. There was the ecstasy: times when I came out joyously and exultantly. There was the agony: times when I came out shamefully and against my will. Some of the moments are glorious, as when I went out into the street dressed in a skirt for the first time, rejoicing like a prisoner who had been let out of solitary after thirty-five years. Everything looked new: the steam escaping from the hot dog vendor's cart as he put the frankfurter on the bun, the construction workers descending into the manhole with monster-sized tools, even the stacks of commercial garbage on the curb awaiting the sanitation workers.