In a time where you can feel like a stranger in your own home and when the word home fails to accurately describe the place in which you live, friends can come in handy.
Like many others, I was raised in a household where broken telephone was the main form of communication. Somewhere between the Cantonese and English, I let one slip in order to try on another.
Begin the process of assimilation.
My mother tongue slowly began to fade away, rendering me helpless in arguments with my elders because I had no way of explaining myself, of communicating. My parents weren’t the ones to blame, because they never had the chance to learn English. They lived and worked within their own community, day in and day out, because supporting the family was all they knew. They both grew up in impoverished villages before moving to Hong Kong and meeting one another. When I look back through the old photo albums that my grandmother has kept all these years, I glimpse back into a past that I can’t even conceive of. If the imagination can only build from what you know… then everything that they lived through will forever be lost on me. I’ll never fully understand their lives, and neither will they mine.
I came to Canada at the age of four. My mother, father and older sister left when I was born to settle down in Canada.
When the day arrived, my father flew back to Hong Kong to escort my grandmother and I to our new home. And so, I sat through the 14 hour flight, vomiting from air sickness, holding onto my grandmother’s hand as I repeatedly traumatized myself on that airplane. My most vivid memory of that flight was looking out the window from the middle seat, past my father, staring out at the new world before me. I was a scared little boy back then and I don’t think I’m any different now.
***
Between my sister and I, growing up gay seemed to be a lot easier than growing up chubby. She went through a sort of hell that I don’t think I could ever have survived. I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to pull herself out of that hell. It wouldn’t be for another few years that I would learn the truth of her experiences, and wonder why that happened to her. What did she do? Why couldn’t I help? Why were so many of us so helpless to help each other in this family?
I on the other hand only experienced some mild homophobia in grade 9. I had a solid group of friends that were always there for me, and so throughout my high school career I was quite literally untouched. I secured social sanctuary by doing well in school and participating in every extracurricular I could fit into my schedule. In the end, I scored myself a few grad awards.
But lo and behold, the hell that I thought I missed out on would eventually come for me from deep within.
Suffice it to say, the first few years of post-secondary school weren’t my best. I was lost, switching majors left, right and centre and exercising some seriously destructive behaviour.
As someone who constantly requires approval and acknowledgment, being rejected from all of my top choices was a hard-hitting blow. York felt like a punishment. I did my best to push through, to make friends, to see if I could fight my way into the programs I wanted to be in, but once again failed. Out of four programs, I only got one interview.
I spent those years watching my friends move forward in their academic careers while I floundered.
Two years into my university career, I reconnected with an old acquaintance named Mark. We had both participated in a theatre conservatory a few years back, and unbeknownst to me he was going through his own journey of sexual self-discovery at that time (I had pegged him as straight jock). After “friending” each other over facebook, we met up at a Starbucks and we each proceeded to tell our stories. It seems essential for young gay men to be able to tell their stories; because for many of us, it seemed that our stories were all we had to give. Everything else was hidden.
Growing up gay in the suburbs was dangerous. For an environment designed to breed peace and tranquility, safety and reassurance, it was hostile and oppressive for anyone who veered from the “normative”. Self expression was limited to week-long events at local elementary schools, speaking in a language other than English was a punishable offense, and having these ideas beaten into your brains… conditioned for “perfection”… well, how do you break free?
With a little help from your friends, of course.
Between the ages of 6 and 24, I have had a singular group of friends, diverse in the most beautiful way possible, scattered all over the world, looking out for me and caring for me.
For a guy like me, my friends are all I’ll ever have, because in the end they become a part of your family. They end up knowing everything about you and they will continually love you for it. They will remember you when you leave, welcome you home when you return and care for you when you are ill, but most importantly and above all—friends are the only people in the world who can turn a house into a home.
