My Legs Were Too Short

Anthony

My legs were too short.

I was five years old, just started school. Plodding home up the dusty track from the school bus I could not keep up with my sister (just turned 15). She disappeared around the bend in the road ahead of me, and I dragged on in the heat and the dust.

I couldn't kick a football.

It was Grade 3 and the boys and girls were now segregated in the school-yard. The teacher gave daily lectures about what she would do to any boys caught playing with the girls. The other boys disappeared after their footies each lunch-time while I surreptitiously talked to one of the girls. My big brother played football when he was home from Adelaide on the week-ends, but didn't have time or patience to teach us 'little ones', ("little shits,") to play.

When I was 10 years old I had a crush on another boy. His name was Rene, he had a perfect tan and glasses. I was so besotted I started writing a diary describing what he wore to school each day, and recording our very brief conversations. I begged my mother to let me have my first ever birthday party- just so I could invite him home. I had the party, but he didn't come. I realised that my feelings were 'different' to other boys.

One school holidays my mother and I saw a man wearing make-up and carrying a hand-bag in the main street of my home town- not a common sight in a country town in the 1970s. We were laughing about it over the dishes that night. My father said, 'I don't EVER want to see you dressed like that!'. That hurt - it still does. I have often thought my father knew all along that I was gay, and maybe blamed himself for it.

From my early teens I started having crushes- on teachers, school mates- none of them ever knew. For over twenty years this was the state of play for me. It was all a deep, dark secret, I dreaded to think what people would think of me if they knew about my feelings for other men.

Then, when I was almost 30, I told my closest friend- he said he had always known. He was incredibly supportive. I told one or two other friends, including two sisters I knew. I had to tell the second sister when I could see she was pretty obviously thinking I was boyfriend material.

At age 36 I met my first boyfriend- at church, of all places. Our friendship was developing and we found we had more than just religion in common. We were both bowled over- I was walking around a few inches off the ground. He was older than me, but I was his first boyfriend too. We went out for six months. I met two gay friends of Rodney's who put me in touch with the Bfriend project at Adelaide Central Mission.

It took a lot of courage to phone up Desmond at Bfriend, but I felt at ease as soon as I walked into his office. I met other men at a dinner. 'They all seem normal!' I said on the phone to a friend in Canberra. He laughed, 'Well Anthony, you're pretty normal yourself, you know!' It was 2000- an exciting new millennium. I went to workshops and dinners, and to the Uniting Church 'Daring' conference on the Queen's Birthday week-end. I felt I had found 'my own people' at last, that I had never felt so at home, so completely myself.

I said to Rodney, 'You have opened up the world for me.' I am very glad I told him that, because a few months later he took his own life.

After this event I began to care a lot less about 'what people might think.' I just thought, bugger it! I began telling my family, work-mates, new people I met. It felt good. A counsellor who was helping me with Rodney's death and other issues said, 'You are coming home to yourself', 'At this rate we are going to have to burn that closet,' another friend said.

Some people were surprised when I told them I was gay, some were not. An old man genuinely wanted to understand, 'You know, heterosexual men have a roving eye - they are always looking at women.' Lowering his voice, he said to me, 'Is it like that for you- only it's other men?' In this same very public (church) forum, I made a statement: 'I am gay and I am a Christian.' Afterwards I said to a friend who is always encouraging everyone he knows to be very out, 'Is that out enough for you?!'

One day at church I ran into someone who years and years ago was in my youth group. 'So, have you got a girl?' he said. I took a deep breath, 'No - actually I'm gay.' 'Oh - I didn't know that. Well, have you got a boy?' It was beautiful. Short legs had not scarred me for life after all. Around this time a friend at work even taught me how to kick a football.