"Snap out of it, enjoy life, have a good time. Why do you sleep in until 12 in the day and get up and just mope around? What's wrong with you anyway?" this haggard and worn fat man would always ask me repeatedly. If you really want to know who that voice was and still is...that voice that put me where I am today, it's my father. He was a good man, just a little rough on the lazy. But you know what, the guilt he placed on my my entire childhood had paid off. I am free of it now aren't I? It's a great motivation to no longer hear:
"Why don't you like hockey bye? If you don't play sports your going to turn out to be a girlie man, a faggot!". He would say this with such an intensity every time I would hear the speeches of manhood, my stomach would cringe. Somewhere deep down inside I have a repressed memory of the birds and the bee's speech also, which was in my opinion delivered far too late in life. I think maybe at times he wasn't seeing enough action on my part so he may have thought I was missing some important information.
I stopped even thinking about the consequences of such questions. As a kid, I was quite good at repressing everything that could even attempt to make me think outside of the very narrow world I had created for myself. I swear it was only to survive. It was only to make it a few more years before I could escape. It was a scary feeling, to know that I could tell my mind I wasn't gay, and actually believe it. My first time consisted of just picking anyone, drinking heavily and letting go of all the guards (the mental guards) that I setup in my own inside world. At the end of it, I did realize that, yes I am a "girlie man", and next time I will pick a guy I actually want to be with...fuck what was I thinking?
My parents were typical Newfoundlanders. Sad to a fault, too dumb to know any better, and the most pronounced accents I could possibly hear throughout my life of travels. I on the other hand didn't buy into it. Newfies that ate the most unhealthy foods you could imagine (salt and butter galore), with bad taste, who bought over sized clothes, and who serioulsy impacted the life of a gay man who wanted nothing but to be trendy. It was a tough life I assure you, lol. Wasn't that bad actually...thinking back...wasn't that bad at all.
My mother would always ask me: "Why don't you have an accent bye? What's wrong with ya?" she would always question most everything, older and well lived, but innocent and depending on her only son (at the time mind you) for most of the answers to lives unanswered questions.
It's not that I was denying who I was, or for that matter my culture. I just really wanted to be able to speak coherently and I was a very bad conformist. I recognized the slang, and the way it caught on with the general public, but I could never bring myself to speak like that - being an outsider and all. In someways, I look back at my small community and the pour souls that lived there, and have to shake my head in disgust. Why me? I don't think a sheep could be any blacker!
I always equated feeling out of place with being above average in terms of intelligence. The smarter a person is, the more alienated he must be in these towns full of uneducated and sexist/bigotted/hatefilled fishermen. Mind you, it's not everyone, but the smart ones always leave, they can't handle it. There are no outlets for people that can think, for people who are accepting, for people that are more liberal. The remainder of the outputs are filled with people who are either not going to Toronto for work, fishing and/or on EI. They are a mix of badly breed genes and a poor taste for cultural nuisances.
My life...it only gets better.
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2 comments:
I imagine that I would have felt similarly if I had grown up in Saskatchewan with the rest of my Bowyer clan. Luckily the faiths had a different plan, and I grew up in the Middle East, but my mom tells stories of her dad yelling at her to "put away that damned book, and go do something useful for a change !". My grandfather to this day is a little embarassed that his daughter is still in school when she is in her early 40s. He doesn't seem to grasp the importance or relevance of her doing a Master's degree. But like you said, we cannot blame our families, they knew (and know) no better. Deep down they love us, and at least their intentions are usually good.
mkay, I take it back, don't write a book... just publish random blogs like this one. It would be GREAT!
If wish my life had something in it that might capture the intrest of strangers but alas... I'm suberbanite... which is so much more than were you live.
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