To my amazing, wonderful, funny, smart, and sexy girlfriend,

I know the exact moment that I knew I could fall in love with you. I know I’ve told you before. I also know you won’t mind me telling you again.

It was our second date. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited (and nervous) for a date. I picked you up at your house. I watched you walk up to my car. You looked beautiful. You got into my car, and the way you looked at me sent ripples through me. You smiled at me and said, “Hey!”

“Hey,” I smiled shyly back.

I looked down at my hands. You took my chin in your hand, turned my face to yours, and kissed me slowly and sweetly. It was as if you already cared about me deeply. My heart said, “I could fall in love with her.” My brain said, “April, you’re screwed.” My heart told my brain to shut up.

This weekend is our first anniversary. What an amazing year it has been. I feel like each day with you is an adventure. I feel like finally, for the first time in my life, I am living life and not just getting through life. I watch how you experience life every day. You live with such passion and enjoyment. You’ve taught me how to live the same way. Thank you so much for that.

I wasn’t sure I would ever find someone to spend my life with. I spent countless hours trying to convince myself that I would be okay with that. Honestly, I never was really Okay with it. It’s like my soul was inside of me twiddling its thumbs while my brain and heart fought over my opinions on love, then the very moment we met, time stopped and my soul said to yours, “There you are! Finally!”

My heart is so full of happiness and love that I’m quite positive that it will explode. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have such a wonderful person in my life. The love I feel for you and your boys is so amazing that it sometimes brings tears to my eyes. I thank God for bringing you to me.

Happy Anniversary, baby. I know our future years will be just as great. I love you so much.

Love,
April

I’m searching....I know I can find it. I’m quite certain that the cars that pass by the house are wondering what that crazy woman is doing walking in circles around the yard while looking at her feet.

I really don’t care what they think. I’m determined to find the perfect four-leaf clover....

According to the Old Wise One (a.k.a. Wikipedia), it’s good luck to find one. Especially if you find it while not looking for it. But this isn’t for me. It’s for my girlfriend. I thought it would be the perfect thing to give her on St. Patrick’s Day.

While searching, I think about this past year. What a great year it’s been. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year. We’ve made plans for our first anniversary. This year has been full of moments that take my breath away, and I’ve realized the famous quotation is right. Every kiss, every look, every time she touches my hand touches my heart and makes my breath catch.

I am so very lucky.

I bend over to get a closer look at a patch of clovers. I’ll stay out here all day if I have to....

Then, just as I think about searching for a four leaf clover all day, I see it. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. Just like her.

I carefully pick it, walk into the house. She looks at me and smiles when I hand her the clover.

My heart leaps, and I say, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.”

I’ll never forget the first time I saw two girls kiss on TV. My body reacted to the kiss in a way that my brain didn’t understand. I wasn’t sure that I liked it. Accept that I knew that I liked it. At 21, I had never been on a date (I don’t count my prom date on account that my mom made me go with a boy I had never met before.), I had never been kissed, and I had very limited knowledge on what the word “gay” meant.

After freaking out for a bit on what it could mean that my body reacted in this way to two girls kissing, I decided that I liked the kiss because it was romantic and I was a sucker for romance. Then I decided to forget about it. (Except that I was so completely hooked to the girls’ storyline.)

The next 5 or so years is when the internal war began. Every day at work, a girl who is gay would tell me I was confused. I knew what she meant and she knew I knew what she meant. Almost every day, I had a “friend” that would confront me and ask me if I was gay. Rumors at work floated around. I felt tormented. Sure, women were sexy, but I was not like that girl who kept telling me I was confused. I was not gay.

Except that I was gay.

A few years after that, I admitted that I had an attraction to women. I didn’t want to act upon it because that’s not what God would want. I was raised that being gay was wrong. I would shame my family. I couldn’t openly live a life that would shame my family. I just couldn’t.

Then one day, while sitting at a red light, I said the words, “Dear God, I’m gay.” It wasn’t an exclamation. I was praying. It was the first time in a long time that I had prayed. Through my tears I confessed to God that I was attracted to women. That I wanted to find a woman to spend my life with. That I was sorry if He was disappointed in me, but I couldn’t change this part of me. I was born like this. My whole life finally made sense to me.

What I felt after that was something that words cannot describe. I felt so warm and loved. It felt like someone had taken their arms and wrapped them around me and said, “I know, child. I know.” I realized right there in that moment that God wasn’t disappointed in me. He loved me very much and that I should love myself, too.

Right there, in that moment, my faith had become stronger than ever, and for the first time in a long time, I felt strong.

Recently, a friend and I were having a discussion about God. He wasn’t sure that God loved like humans do. I told him, God is like the wind. I can’t see Him, but I feel Him and His love every day. I can’t explain it, I just know it. And that makes me smile.

Sixteen years ago, I had grand dreams of being married with kids in a beautiful home with dogs. I still have the floor plans of the dream house that I wanted to share with my spouse and kids. I had my dogs picked out, named my children, and after I accepted my Emmy for "Best Guest Performance" on Friends, we would settle in for a quiet life. In my seventeen year old brain, life was going to be perfect.


Then my twenties happened. I fought a war within myself. For most of my adult years, I battled my attraction to women. I didn't want to be gay. Being gay would ruin my image of my perfect life and after the one boy that I had every fallen in love with chose another woman, I gave up the dream of that beautiful house and those beautiful children.


Last week, my girlfriend and I were in the car. After a few thoughtful moments, she said, "If we have a boy, we should name him Jackson. We could call him Jack." She then went on to say how the 6 year old would love to have a little brother named Jack.


All of those years ago, when I named my children, Jackson was my little boy's name. "Jackson" is a family name and in my dreams, I always called out to Jack to come to the kitchen for his daily snack. There is no way my girlfriend could have known this was the name I had chosen. I never talked with her about it. When I told her that I had always thought I would name a boy "Jackson," the smile on her face warmed my heart in such a way that I have no words.


My life is changing in a big way. In a way that I had given up hoping for. Now, dreams that had faded into the depths of my mind are beginning to resurface. I dream of a beautiful home, with my beautiful wife and our beautiful children. And our dogs and cats and birds. I dream of a nice, quiet life that isn't without the little adventures that we like to take. I realize now that being gay didn't ruin that perfect image. Denying who I really was did. Though now that I think about it, it wasn't really ruined. It was just put on hold while I figured out, accepted, and loved who I really am.


And that's the best prize of all.

Sometimes it's when we're driving in the car.

Or when we're in the kitchen and trying to get dinner ready.

Other times it's when we're watching TV or when we're simply alone at the end of the day.

Whatever it is that we're doing, it's that moment that she stops. She looks at me. I look up at her and she's smiling. I smile back. Sometimes the look in her eyes makes me shy even after all of these months. Her smile grows when I smile. The look in her eyes is so intense sometimes that I feel like she's looking straight into my soul. Feelings like that used to unnerve me. With her, they just make me warm inside. I feel like I have been waiting my whole life just for her. For these exact moments. I can have the worst day ever, and that one look turns it completely around. Whatever is wrong with the world, she makes it right in my world.

Sometimes she reaches and touches my face, other times we just sit there staring into each other, lost in the moment. I know what she's going to say and my heart races every time as if it were the first time she has said it.

"I love you."

My closet is collapsing. Quickly.


Apparently my closet was never really stealthy to begin with. When I come out to people, most say, "I know." A lot make it about themselves.


"I just don't understand why you didn't feel you could trust me?" "Did I do something to make you feel like you couldn't tell me?"


Others don't understand why I just don't come out already. I mean, everyone already knows anyway, right?


Obviously, I can't speak for every gay person who has been in the closet, so I'll just speak for myself. I thought the closet was my lifeline. I thought I needed it. There was a time, not so long ago, that I thought that I needed to hide this part of me for the rest of my life. I felt like I could be gay as long as no one close to me knew. I thought that I could never date someone in my same city because *gasp* people would find out. I was afraid that if some people in my life found out, that I would be physically harmed because I grew up believing that it is not okay to be gay. So, I tucked myself firmly in the closet and decided that I could be happy there. The world is scary. My closet was safe. I mean, security blankets are a good thing, right? The closet was my security blanket.


Except that it wasn't.


Oh, at first it was. I felt happier than I had been in a long time because I had admitted to myself that I liked women and that was okay. But the more and more that I discovered my true self and strived to become the truest version of myself that I could be, the smaller my closet became. I didn't like hiding who I really was. So, I made a decision...


I would tell a few people. That is what I would do.


With a few people knowing, my closet didn't seem so small anymore. I could breathe again. There were times now in which I could be myself and the other times, I could just hide out in my closet and I could be happy with that. For a while, it was all I needed. I was once again happier than I had ever been. Until that wasn't enough anymore. Once again, my closet was suffocating me.


It had become my prison.


I knew at that time that I couldn't stay in the closet. I had to come out to everyone, including my family. And exactly how does an analytical coward do something like that?


She makes a game plan. Slowly but surely, I began to come out.


I'm still coming out.


Right now, my parents do not "know." I say "know" because I know my mom knows. And I think that she knows I know she knows. I just haven't said those three big words. Despite all of the reassuring words that she's given me and the fact that she loves my girlfriend and the fact that I know she loves me and just wants me to be happy, I just haven't been able to come out with it. I'm a wuss.


Here's the thing about coming out (for me anyway)... You have to feel safe. You have to know that all is going to be okay before you put yourself in a possible life changing situation. I didn't always feel safe. In fact, for a long time I was so afraid that I thought I could never come out. I thought I had to deny myself love. All it took for one person that I thought would reject me to tell me that "it's part of who you are" and "of course, I still love you" for me to know that everything was going to be okay. When I look back on this past year or so when I began to make my game plan, I feel.... proud. Yes. I'm proud. I've come a long way to that scared woman who didn't think she would ever be able to be her true self all of the time. I know that I need to completely come out and I know that the longer I wait, the harder it may be in certain situations, I also know there is no "perfect moment" in this situation. But, I will come all the way out of my closet. I can see the light, and for right now? That feels good.

While watching TV on my couch, I look down at the six year old who has firmly planted his head in my side while playing the DSi. How he was able to maneuver his body so that he was able to lie down between me and his brother is beyond me, but he did it. He's such a sweet boy. When you look into his eyes, you see a boy who loves life to the fullest. In one minute, he's trying to figure out how to play checkers, and in the very next minute he's trying to fly because he's wearing a cape, and all superheroes with capes can fly, right? He amazes me with the wisdom that oozes from his six year old brain and his laugh is so very infectious. He cannot sit still right now, and I smile because I am reminded of something my great-grandmother would have said. "He's wallerin' me to death."


I look over at his brother. His eyes are glued to the TV. He's sitting on the edge of his seat as we watch Ghost Hunters together. His eleven year old eyes can be so serious at times. He reminds me a lot of myself at that age. He's sensitive and when you first meet him, you'd think he's a quiet child. When you get to know him, is when you see his full personality. He's an actor, a cartoonist, a movie maker...an artist in the true sense of the word. His talent puts mine to shame, and I'm so very proud of what he's accomplished already. I love teaching him what I know and seeing him take what I've shown him and develop his skills. I have no doubt that one day, he will be teaching me things. His smile warms my heart.


They are both so different, yet I love them both so much.


I smile again. In these past eight months, this has to be one of my favorite moments. I've lived in my house for seven years, but now, I am truly home.


I look over at her, our eyes meet, and we communicate without words. She whispers, "I love you so much." She tells me how warm her heart feels right now in this moment, and I know that she is feeling the exact same thing that I am.


As I turn my attention back to the TV, my heart says, "Welcome home."