The Serenity to Accept the Things We Cannot Change
By Andy Heath
Let me tell you a quick story of my horror when I was 19-years-old. I had recently attempted suicide by taking an entire bottle of pills I use for Tourette's Syndrome. I had been in the hospital for a week, and even the doctors there did not believe I was going to live. They thought, if I recall correctly, that taking that much of the medication would destroy my liver and that I would surely die. How depressing. In fact, I nearly tremble these days whoever I think about it.
But after all that had happened, I was sitting in the kitchen with my mother one night, both of us reading the newspaper, and I said, "Mom, I think I might be gay."
I could feel my heart pounding because she did not even look up from the paper when she responded, "Why do you think you're gay?"
My relationship with my mother had been somewhat difficult before that, but it was significantly strained for a while after that. I think she struggled with my homosexuality more than I did. I would go about shouting from the mountain tops that I was gay, and that horrified her. She never told me this, but I believe some of her friends actually began to alienate her and look down on her because she had a gay son. My humble humble HUMBLE opinion is that she is better off without such fickle friends. But I'm sure that did not make it any easier for her.
The fact is that straight people that find out their loved ones are gay go through their own period of grieving. All those fantasies my mother had entertained about bouncing grandchildren on her knee had dissipated with the blink of an eye. My brother is currently 28-years-old, and when this post is published, he will be 29. He does not have any children either. I think on some level that not being a grandmother bothers my mother.
In a way, I think having a gay son was part of my mother's spiritual journey on this planet. She has come to know what it is to suffer from being demonized by others. There are times that I get the impression that she has felt like a failure as a mother because neither my brother nor I turned out the way she would have liked. I am an eccentric, starving, gay writer that would just as soon live out of my car than to sell my soul to work in some crappy corporate management job and have a big house. My brother has had frequent run-ins with the law and has barely escaped going to prison on more than one occasion.
Once I had come out, however, I felt a weight lifted off my shoulder. I had a wonderful boyfriend for over three years, and my family absolutely adored him. My mother came to accept that there were some things she could not change about others and that the way others saw the world was one of them. I learned that being gay in the 90's and even into the new millennium means that often others will look down on me and view me as inferior.
So is this a happy ending? Certainly not, because there is no "happily ever after." But one thing about coming out of the closet and being who I am - and to hell with anyone that doesn't approve - is that there is joy in life even when things don't turn out the way we always wanted them to. I have found - and you probably have too - that sometimes things and even people in life disappoint us. And we disappoint others as well, but that does not stop us from living a wonderful, joyful, and meaningful life. We can stop ourselves from living such a life, but no one else nor any external event can stop us from such.
So the famous prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous must surely ring true with gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, questioning, and straight people alike. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, he courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. What a powerful and emotional prayer. We can all learn something from it.
Let us strive for the serenity part of that prayer especially. No matter what motivational speaker you listen to that would have you believe otherwise, there are some things in this world that we simply cannot change. We cannot change others. When it comes to homosexuality, we cannot even change ourselves. But we can change our misery to joy. We can sow the seeds of peace and love. Let us focus on these amazing things we can do in this world rather than those things over which we simply have no control.
