In any case, I was saying that every person, to me, falls into the bell curve. A number of people, mostly mildly crazed religious fundamentalists, believe I am a monster. But I know for a fact that they believe anyone without white skin is a monster too. I like my healthy tan and multicultural parentage so who cares what they think.

A vast majority of the people I know don’t know about me. And I’m content to keep it that way. I am out, but really, that does not mean I have to declare it to every single person I know – including persons who might harm me for that very same reason. I am content to be myself, with no need to explain myself to anybody. So far, most of the people I have actually told respond quite well, considering everything. But the point of a story is to talk about something out of the ordinary, which is why I will be telling the stories of the best and worst things that have ever happened to me when I came out to somebody.

Naturally one enjoys hearing most about enormous disasters so I will begin with one.

If you remember my previous post, I mentioned that after all the fuss about my forest trip blew over, I got myself together and found a job. Now, one major problem with that was the fact that I was still transitioning at that stage in my life. And being young and optimistic, I neglected to mention that fact to the recruiter. One would have thought it obvious from looking at me at the time ( mullet and leather jackets, anyone? ) but apparently it wasn’t, judging from my eventual employer.

He was a very kind man, even so. Of all the people I have ever worked under, I must say that he was one of the best. He had absolutely no problems with me. For a year I worked at that banking firm very happily, bought a car, didn’t break up with my girlfriend, didn’t get lost in the mountains, and generally leading a healthy, productive and wholesome life.

Then I met my boss’s wife. She was young – no more than twenty seven – and while her husband was a wonderful man, she later confided in me, he barely paid her any attention. Not to be boastful, but I think she fell in love with me. That presented quite a problem. She thought I was a man. And I, young, arrogant and pumped up nearly daily with T, didn’t care to correct that opinion. We began an affair. Thinking back on it now, it was a phenomenally foolish thing to do. My best friend told me so at the time, but I didn’t care enough. To be honest, I did not actually care for her in particular, so it was strange that I persisted in the affair.

It took a while for her to realize I was not quite who she thought I was. All in all I have to say that she took it quite well, but of course, our relationship was over. It didn’t hurt me, but I did briefly consider quitting my job, since I had done something rather awful to my boss. But the car loan outweighed my sense of morality and I shelved that idea, even though I did write a resignation letter and asked around about job openings, just in case. It turned out to be a good thing I did.

I honestly did not think she would tell anyone about what happened, but she did. It started with her sister, and mostly likely included the promise not to tell anyone. So of course her sister told her mother, and included the same caveat, and it gradually spread from there on while the promise, as they tend to do in these situations, faded away with every retelling while the legend kept on grewing. It completely destroyed my boss’s reputation. I felt so awful about it, even though my name was not mentioned, that I handed in my notice barely a month afterwards. But my feelings for her were so inexistant that I felt far more annoyed at the fact that I had to search three months for another better job, and nearly lost my car because of all that.

And now, for the more pleasant story.

About four years ago I became involved in a mentoring project for young GLBTQ teenagers in highschools. If you do not know what GLBTQ means, it stands for Gay, Lesbian Bisexual, Transgender and/or Queer and clearly represents gay, lesbian, bisexual transgender or queer persons. For at least ten years previously I had been attached to the organization by name only. It took a long time of deliberation and procrastination for me to come to the decision of taking a young person into my care. I finally signed up with the organization and was promptly assigned to a young man (at the time) who was still in high school, as either a junior or senior, if I am not mistaken.

Because I was particularly busy with work at that point in time – twelve distinct loans to process and wrap up – I did not manage to look into the mentor file that they sent to me. I did not even know my mentee’s name on the day I was told to go to the school to meet her. And to my pleasant surprise, I found out upon entering the room that my mentoree would be the younger brother of my best friend whom I had known ( though not very well, admittedly ) for at least fifteen years.

On the other hand, I had not known that she was queer. At the time I had believed that she was a perfectly normal young man, excellent grades at school, star soccer player and semi-professional long distance runner training to be part a quintessentially manly tradition – a fireman. I knew because her older sibling and my best buddy was very prone to bragging about her, especially after a couple of drinks. And so I learned, not for the first time in my life and most certainly not for the last, the importance of not judging a book by it’s cover. This youth, physically male, had always, unswervingly believed that she was a woman. And there was no argument, certainly. I mean, I had always believed as well, from birth, that I was a man, no matter what I might look like. And who can judge one other than oneself? Perhaps there is a higher power who may judge us but man? What is man to pass judgment upon another?

Going back to the post, I met that day her on a sunny Friday afternoon. I had known that this was the school she attended and so, since I had arrived early, I decided to go visit. She was training for an upcoming soccer match so I only hung around the field observing the kids having fun. She saw me early on and waved, so I waved back. After practice she came over and talked to me a little about her family, since I hadn’t met my best friend for a while. Then she told me that we had to go now, and I found it a little strange, but sure enough, it was time for me to meet my mentoree.

We both made our way to the small clubroom where I would meet my mentoree, and essentially parted ways there as she excused herself to speak to a teacher. I entered the classroom and waited for a moment. A few minutes later, she stepped in and introduced herself properly, and I was quite literally taken aback for a long time afterwards, spending the first half of the meeting stunned and barely coherent.

I finally snapped out of it when she told me that she had never suspected that I wasn’t born a man. That was quite pleasing to the ego, actually. I replied that I had never thought that she didn’t want to stay a man. She shrugged and said she was never a man in the first place.

We hung out a lot after that. Since I had some experience in strength training I liked to take her out to the mountains whenever her siblings couldn’t give her a ride and give her some tips, not that she actually needed any. It was always bizarre to me how she could strive for two so completely different things, training to be a firefighter with insanely hard physical endurance sets while taking hormone replacement therapy – estrogen and a whole cocktail of other hormones. How she managed it I still don’t know, but the day she called and told me she got the job was one of the proudest days of my life.

Having her as my mentoree has taught me so much that I feel more like I have learnt much more from her than I taught. It has given me the chance to know at least a little about what it is like to be a parent. One of my regrets in life was having to give up what was most likely my only chance at parenthood when I was young – about seventeen. At that time my best friend truly rescued me from something that could have been the worst event of my life, and to be able to return the favor by taking care of the dear girl – I am truly thankful for the chance.

In the summer of 1982, I was a fresh young twenty two year old, and had just graduated from college. Armed with a degree in finance and without my perfect job in sight, I was completely aimless. I was running out of money and my girlfriend at the time had left for summer to provide running water to a poor village in Zambia. There was nothing to do at all. This was back in the days before proper Internet existed, and the Gameboy hadn’t even appeared yet ( it came out in 1989). So I decided that I would go on a peaceful retreat to commune with mother nature and perhaps figure out where I was in life and what I should do next.

Preparing was easy enough, I had done it a million times before. A sleeping bag, enough cans of food, both light clothing and a good jacket, a few flares and a first aid kit, my best knife, my multitool, tent, waterproof matches, lighter, Swiss Army knife, a good length of cord, whistle,  fire starters, flashlight, fishing line and hooks, mirror, map, compass, sewing kit, safety pins, survival blanket, tarp, water purifying tablets, duct tape, some emergency medicines,  Ziploc bags, slingshot, cooking tin and snare wire. Just about prepared, I put it all in my waterproof backpack, said goodbye to my roommates, and set off.

The park was only a few miles away from where I lived, close to the university. Back then there wasn’t much management or regulation in the area, so all I did was march in and start hiking. The first day went very well. It was very relaxing, and thinking back, perhaps it might have lulled me into a false sense of security.

On the morning of the second day, I packed up my gear and after checking my map and compass, headed out. Now I have to say here that I was very familiar with the entire park area because I had camped and hiked through it throughout my days as an undergraduate at the university. But I will say this now – if you are not experienced or trained in survival, do not ever go off the trail alone. Even when you are not alone, try not to venture off the trail unless you are completely certain that it is safe – and even then, you go at your own risk. Many lives have been lost from careless mistakes or foolish confidence. Let it not be yours.

And fool that I was, I decided that I wanted to explore some of the wilderness around the park trail before I returned. Leaving the path, I made my way to the river, thinking of catching some fish for dinner. I did not really notice the markings, otherwise I would have been warned and I would have left. I had carelessly strayed into the territory of a black bear.

It was nearly too late when I noticed. A roar gave me enough warning to turn and see a huge bear rumbling in my direction. I would have tried playing dead, but I was knee deep in water and not planning to drown. I did the next best thing I could do, which was head for shore as calmly as I could. But I didn’t make it. The bear crashed into my back and practically sent me flying into the river, where my pack, which had absorbed most of the impact, weighed me down. I was washed at least half a mile down the river before I managed to make my way to shore.

Exhausted, it was all I could to to pitch my soggy tent up and go to sleep for a while. After a few hours I woke up and forced myself to get things straight. The first priority was to check for injuries. Other than some cuts and bruises I had somehow twisted my ankle, but not too badly, even though it was beginning to swell. I cut up a shirt and wrapped it up securely with duct tape, then tended to my other injuries. After that, I managed to dry myself off and change. The tent was mostly dry from the sun so that was good. On checking the things in my backpack I found that almost everything was damp, but usable. Except for my compass, which had a huge crack in it and was waterlogged and my flashlight, which I supposed was no longer salvageable. I considered poking a hole somehow in the compass and letting it drain. That I would do later. For now it was probably a good idea to get a little distance from the river, since wild animals need water to drink and I wasn’t fond of the idea of another bear encounter.

So I packed up and painfully moved to set up camp at a safe distance from the river, finding a rocky outpost just off the forest. Built a fire, laid out my things to dry and hung out my clothes. Just about every piece of clothing I had was soggy, which was rather inconvenient, but after a couple of hours all was good. Using my knives and tools I managed to pry the entire glass cover off the compass and after it dried it was working again, though a little shakily.

There wasn’t much I could discern from my worn out map; it had taken considerable water damage and was barely readable. But because I was near the river, all I had to do was follow it downstream and I would reach some kind of civilization eventually. Considering my ankle, it would be possible, but slow.

The other option was to wait for help, but my roommate expected me to be back in five days. I would have to wait another three days for her to notice I was missing, and then wait even more for the rescue team to arrive. The injury was not major enough to warrant that kind of wait, so I decided that I would hike following the river’s path downstream and eventually make it out. There should be some settlement approximately twenty five miles down, so it should take me about two or three days to make it there.

Water would not be a problem, since I would always be close to the river. The biggest risk was running into animals but I was now a little more ready for it and kept my knife and whistle at the ready from then on. Food might be trouble in a day or two, so I planned for rations over three days and I would get the extra food I needed from fishing and foraging. With everything planned for I broke camp, cut myself a cane to ease the strain on my ankle and began to hike downstream.

I kept on walking through the day, pausing only for lunch, then continued onwards until I arrived at a good area to set up camp. Fishing was quite successful, and I managed to get a store for tomorrow’s lunch. Dried the fish out by the fire and packed it up in an airtight bag. A word of warning: bears are attracted to the smell of food, so it’s important to keep your food separate from your regular gear and to store it somewhere so the bears can’t get to it – like tying it up a tree, or putting it in a bear-proof container. And of course, it’s not too smart to camp near where you cook or store your food.

The night was uneventful, and the next two days as well. I foraged for berries and fished when I could, and generally spent a rather pleasant time, considering the things that had happened to me. Hardly any animals showed themselves and I safely reached a homestead and borrowed a telephone to call a cab. When I got home and told the story to my roommate she basically burned a couple of years off my life and made me go to the hospital, where I was treated for some dehydration and had my ankle properly wrapped up. The doctor was a very nice fellow who prescribed some antibiotics, vitamins, a crutch and plenty of rest, gave me a pat on my back and sent me on my way.

Then I went home, and discovered that my roommate had told just about everybody who did care about me about what had happened, so I got to be burned all over again at least five times by my parents, my girlfriend, a couple of buddies ( still remember one who came over from three states away with a baseball bat and a bottle of wine. We’re still friends to this day) , heck, even my favorite college professor came over and gave me a long, long lecture about the value of life. By the time it was over I had decided that I really needed to get my life together again, so I did all the dirty work, got myself a job, and have never looked back since.