Momentous Decision

Sometimes, one comes to the point in time when one feels the need to make a decision. A decision of moment.

Is like has been in the last few days.

Yesterday, I made the decision. Today, I am calm, I know I made the decision and will not go back on it. Has taken me some years, and some thinking and some hesitation. Till at last I knew it was time, and now, the decision was made.

Cryptic?

Sure. Reminds me of the time that I decided that I was gay.

Yes, decided. Because there was a certain moment in time when the evidence was so overwhelming that it was either I face it, or I don’t.

It took years. First was the inkling that I was different. Different without knowing how different different was. Then came, after years, the shocking recognition that I was homosexual. Different meant that I was attracted to men, as in romantically. There followed years of denial, of a seemingly perverse, uncontrollable curiosity, and a thirst and desire to know what this difference meant. Denial as in embracing the ideals of religion which promised redemption, and the self deception that followed.

But there came a time when the evidence had accumulated. I realized that what I was, is what I am. And that I am, and was not going to wish it away, or to change myself.

Like I remember the moment of time I fell in love with poetry, I also remember the time and place that I made the conscious decision. Curious, it was not in bed, and I had experimented and had sex with a few men before that moment. But I was still in denial, and I would banish the thought after sex. And, more curious, it was in the same kind of place that I fell in love with poetry, when I read and was floored by Shakespeare’s 18^th Sonnet.

That moment of decision has crept onto me.

And I have made the decision. Now, to carry it out.

Oh, no suspense here. It is not going to appear here. Too open a forum, and the fact is that it is too private a decision! And I am risking much. A lot.

Just that I was reminded of the time that I made the conscious decision that I was gay. Very different from the time that I realized that I was homosexual. In fact, a number of years later. When I consciously reached out to embrace a fact that I had known and dodged for years.

That was some time ago. But I still remember.

And I remember the fact that it took me years to actually accept that decision. To understand that despite the evidence to the contrary, being gay was not a curse. But a very curious, unique blessing.

I have passed another such seemingly innocuous decision moment. Happy that I have done that. And likely to regret the decision a few times in the future.

But then, that is life, isn’t it? What is life without challenges?

It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon here. Still. Overcast. Promising some kind of storm in a few more hours. Or not. But it is a beautiful day.

GayUganda