Last night as I was scrolling through Facebook I saw this tweet that got me thinking.

Pardon the anachronism. The original tweet isn't around any more, but this one is nearly identical.

Before I continue, you have to know I’m not the only gay child in my family. My next-older brother, Kyle, also gets that distinction.

Now, my parents deserve recognition and high praise for the amazing job they’ve done supporting me and my older brother as we forge our own paths. But this tweet is still somewhat true, because no matter how much our parents love us there are some things they’ll never understand, and some things we’ll never be able to really tell them.

While I was miraculously ignorant of the connection it had to me personally, Kyle was dealing with the full implications of California’s Prop 8 campaign. He had already come out to our parents and been talking to them about things for some time before I had my self-realization and joined the club.

A few weeks into my own journey and a few days before Kyle and I were going to visit my sister in Washington, D.C. for Thanksgiving he called me up. He was calling to tell me he was gay and that his new boyfriend would be visiting him over Christmas, so he wanted everyone to know who this random guy would be when we called him up on Skype. So I told him I was also gay, and he became the first of my siblings to know.

But while my first exposure to Kyle’s experience was him suddenly having a boyfriend, my immediate reaction to my own news was to stay the course and avoid any such relationships. I had been through the temple and made promises of chastity. Everything I thought I knew about being gay came from the church (which didn’t talk much about it in the first place) and the media (which didn’t have much variety in its portrayals yet). I knew that I didn’t like the way I felt about viewing porn, and I thought that were I to have a boyfriend of my own it would be “purely physical” and couldn’t possibly have the same depth of power and satisfaction I was looking for from God.

So I dipped my toe into the LGBTQ+ universe to test the waters, but told myself I couldn’t jump all the way in. I found YouTube channels, television shows, movies, and Instagram accounts for queer people. I started learning the right terms and gathering my own little catalogue of favorites. In real life I went to North Star events and met other people like me. I started talking about all these feelings I had kept hidden or misunderstood my whole life. It took me a year or more to consider my emotions “back to normal.”

I had found stable ground. I would be a celibately gay Mormon. Open and proud, but holding strong to my convictions. I absolutely had no disgust towards those who did find same-sex relationships – I finally understood why they loved each other and what they were getting from it.

Then the universe moved me to Seattle.

It was here that you know the rest of the basic story. I started realizing that I wasn’t happy and looked for a counselor thinking I might have depression. I found the best counselor, but didn’t get what expected. He shattered my supposedly stable ground, but gave me strength to start building my own.

Then unexpectedly that strength of honest self-evaluation and defense made me question the faith of my fathers. Did I truly believe all of it? Or any of it? What bits of doctrine belonged in my new stable ground?

I settled on a belief in the soul, a hope in life after death, and acknowledgement of the possibility that their doctrine is correct. But no longer was it a central guiding principle of my life. I gave myself permission to have a relationship, and while I still go to church I don’t claim full belief in it.

This reevaluation of belief hurt my parents. Their whole universe and a lifetime of effort was all about raising an eternal family, then two of their five children break away from the path and start heading down roads they can’t follow. They don’t want to lose us, but there’s nothing they can do except hope and continue along.

For my birthday a few weeks ago, this is what the birthday card they gave me said:

Just remember, wherever life takes you, whatever dreams you follow…
…you will always be my son, and I will always love you.

In our weekly video calls, we talk about work and food. And when I finally manage to date someone, I’ll tell them about him. I know it frightens them, and I’m sad to be the cause of such pain. But I also know that they love me despite this fear, and they will never let anything get in the way of that.

So yes, there are things my parents will never understand about me. And there are things I’ll never tell them. But I am eternally grateful that I have the parents I have. I love you.