My name is Daniel Bailey. I’m a ‘normal’ 15-year-old boy with ambitions, hopes and dreams. Or at least that’s what society portrays me as. I use the word ‘normal’ carefully and place it into quotations because how are we meant to define ‘normal’? However, I have something which I am very proud of and something I’m glad to be. This thing makes me who I am meant to be, it may be considered as ‘different’ but this thing is that I’m gay. And this… is my coming out story.
“There was more to me than meets the eye and I was not like every other male child”
In my personal experience of growing up, it was strange. Most male children were filled with ideas of football and sports and even in high school they still are now. Whereas on the other hand, I couldn’t even kick a ball, which was a great start to trying to fit in. People in my primary school seemed different to me and somehow I was the unusual child, trying to find this way through everyday life. I’m not implying that I was bullied because I was not like the other boys but I knew deep down that there was more to me than meets the eye and that I was not like every other male child, I was unique.
Little did I know I had something special waiting for me, something that would change my life forever, in the best way. Growing up became hard, the older I’ve got, harder times have hit me and affected me in multiple ways but these chapters in my life contributed to my coming out story in one way or another. So here is a list of a couple of these chapters:
When I was aged 9, my mum and dad split up. It affected me a lot and I was convinced that I wouldn’t have as close of a connection with my dad when we left home. During the short term, many tears were shed but now I have come to understand the reasons behind their decision and my connections with both of my parents are the same as they were. Hopefully, they will remain to be.
This so called scenario, as I like to think of it, made me realise there are always reasons to every story, no matter how bad the story is and once we get older we understand and reflect on those reasons. And you will see how that is important to me and my coming out story.
Aged 11, I remember when I first started looking out of my window and realising the beauty of nature and it reminded how lucky I was to have a chance to live on this crazy world, which was created by all those particles that just happened to combine at that very moment, and to have the chance to take it on and do what I want to do with my life is amazing. It reminded me to be grateful for who I am and what I am, the fact that I even get a chance to live, meet great people, have a loving family and most importantly to love.
“Love is love, it’s a wonderful thing and we should all value it and keep hold of our loved ones”
Love is the root of all things good in this world, love is infinite, you’re surrounded by it and when you love someone endlessly, isn’t that forever which is what infinite means. Love is love, it’s a wonderful thing and we should all value it and keep hold of our loved ones, I guess late night thoughts are beneficial.
Aged 12/13, support was everything to me. I had supportive friends, a supportive family, supportive teachers, everybody cared about my decisions in my life, by this time I realised I didn’t like the opposite gender. Instead, I liked my own gender, males. With the support I was already receiving I had to make one big final decision, do I tell my story to the world or keep it contained and concealed within my thoughts and feelings?
Then we get to the start of year 9, with the huge amount of support I was given and with noticing that love is love in my earlier life, I announced my story. I expected for everything to change, for some of my friends to not keep in touch, for some of my family to not understand what I felt or for them not to willingly support me but I stepped out of the box and I built the courage to say the three little words that have incredible value, “I am gay.”
“People understood the reasons to my story and everything was perfect”
In fact, nothing changed. People understood the reasons to my story and everything was perfect. Don’t get me wrong, people did say stuff at the start and may still continue to today but I quickly gathered I wasn’t different but actually I was f*cking perfect, excuse my language but we all are and we should cherish that.
We are all incredible people who are ‘normal’ not different, we are being ourselves and is that not what normal is? And these labels that we are given don’t make us different, they make us even more ‘normal’ than people think it makes us ourselves. So when you are down, just think, you’re perfect because you have put yourself out there and you don’t care what people think. You are You. Love is Love.
