Secrets

Dear Sentry,

Tonight I write on secrets, Sentry. I write about them as one who has not learned his lesson. See, shortly after I graduated from high school I was told I see the world through rose-tinted glasses. This came about when a friend was telling me that I had a crush on a pothead and wasn't seeing him for what he was. While I hope I have improved some in the six years since that event, I know that I am still a very naive boy.

I accept that I see the world through idealistic lenses. I've known this for a long time. I try to see the world just as it is, Sentry, but I fail so many times. I want the world to be this way so I pretend it is and than I am jarred back to reality when the truth of the situation or situations seeps back in again.

Sentry, the worst secrets for me are the ones that are about relationships. I hate when men that are married confess their unfaithfulness to me. I hate when women discuss their disgust in their partners and express longing for others. I am tired of knowing these lies and carrying them, Sentry.

Now, I know that couples are not perfect. Not all husbands and wives are faithful. Friends are not always honest. Moral individuals can be liars, leading double lives. Evil often is not committed through grand acts of show but in small, secretive acts. This I have come to understand a little more.

Over the past year I have met husbands that profess faith in their churches, love for their wives and children, but are unfaithful in their marital beds. I have met men and women in relationships that express love with a kiss on their lover's cheek or lips and then slip off to kiss another that is not their own. I have met individuals that stand up for so-called righteous causes but come the still of the night express their hearts in a different manner.

Secrets.

They intertwine with every aspect of the fabric of society, Sentry. I fully accept the fact that nothing that I have written is anything new or shocking. I accept that it is I who must change in this. I am wrong about the world around me. I am wrong in how I have chosen to perceive the world around me. Those that I have looked to as role models or even simply as people that I thought fit my model of a good person have let me down. This, Sentry, is to be expected.

So why am I writing any of this? I mean, honestly, gays are notorious for keeping secrets. So many of us hide our very identity from ourselves or masquerade it in word plays such as same-gender attraction, temptations, weaknesses, and so on. We play the roles that families, friends, religions, and societies try to demand of us. Some continue their secrets until more lives are entangled in it. Sometimes we hide from the truth for decades and decades. But as always, we have our secrets. And we are not alone. No one person is somehow immune to this. I have my secrets.

So why am I writing this?

I am writing this because it breaks me heart. My idealism tells me I should be honest about how I feel and think. I should be honest towards others. People should be honest towards me and others. But we are not. We cannot. So, Sentry, I accept that reality is not as I wish it to be. I accept that I am the one that must change. I must yield to reality.

But know this, Sentry, I am tired. I have learned one thing in all of this, one tiny shred of learning: I want to one day marry a man that is honest.

So for now, Sentry, what do I do to accept this real world. How do I find a way to live in this world where secrets intertwine with so-called reality? I already know I am a coward and weak. But these two things do not help me to cope, adjust, and find a way to live in such a way as to accept the world around me and try to do what I think is right.

So I ask, Sentry, what answers can you give me?

Your friend,
Traveler

P.S. I feel like this song is most accurate (from Jekyll and Hyde):