More than a grin...

Life sure is funny.  It just makes me smile, not from ear to ear like a disoriented putz, but that sly sort of reaffirming grin that you know brings a tinge of red to your cheeks.  The type of smile that lifts just one corner of your mouth, you know, while keeping those pearly whites hidden.  It usually comes with a sense that, "Yep, that's right," or "Damn, you caught me,"  and for a brief moment your smile lets your true emotion escape or in the very least, displays your concession.

That's the type of smile I find creeping across my face an awful lot lately.  And I'm glad.  If you had asked me that 5 years ago, there would have been a gravely different response.  Hell, if you asked me that 1 year ago you would have received a bitter retort.  Why, you might ask?  Because, as the entire free world knows, and apparently has known for quite sometime, perhaps even since my birth into this world, I'm gay.

Maybe it's just the sense of relief from 25 years of hiding who I am, but I can't help but don that goofy smirk. I'll bump into an old friend, or catch someone on the phone that I haven't talked to in a while and we will chat back and forth.  Topics ebb and flow and always trickle over to my freshly announced sexuality.  "I've known for years."  "I've just always known."  Those are the most common remarks.  Cue the smile.

It's safe to say that no matter who you really are, no matter what you believe, no matter what you profess, at the end of the day, it doesn't take a proclamation to make it known.  Those that surround you, the ones closest to you, and most times people that interact with you frequently or simply on occasion will already know who you are.  But, if only for the sake of feeling that satisfying smile creep across your face, best announce who you are and what you believe.  Trust me, I am still smiling, aren't I?



(Sidenote:  I promise that this blog will deal with more than my coming out -- every time I say that I still remember the Levi's commercial for low rise jeans with the singing belly button -- all in due time.)