I Haven't Given Up on This Blog Yet

You thought I'd gone and died, didn't you? No such luck, at least not yet. I'm not usually a lackadaisical writer; my personal journals are updated more or less daily, but my first year of college has proven to be more stressful than I thought it would be. There's so much reading that it seems I do nothing else. You know when the last time I got drunk was? Last month. Do you have any idea how shameful it is for an 18-year-old to go a full month without being shitfaced? My older brother David says that I'm imposing this on myself, but David is also 24 and living in a rehab while my parents tell all their friends that he's "on vacation." So maybe he isn't the best to be doling out advice.

Not that college isn't going well. I've started making some cool friends, and one of them even wants me to come record some music with him and his bandmates, which I'm stoked about.

And what's strange is that all I have to write about is grades and music and making friends. Such mundane things, right? The same things any other 18-year-old would be thinking about as he began college. It'll be a year ago in two days. A year ago when all of the mundane things almost ended forever. See, there's the meat of this blog, or at least my reason for starting it, but I'm not ready to dive into that yet. Not now. I think that a year later I'm still processing what happened to me. Be patient as I figure out how to say it. I am, after all, young and vain and foolish.

Like I don't have enough going on in my life now, right? I still don't have the faintest idea how to come out to my parents--both of whom, by the way, make a total mockery of marriage but who would regard my sexuality as inexcusable. I don't think they'd particularly care themselves, because I don't think they care about much of anything, but the hole in the image they've shown the world could never be tolerated. So there's that.

But hey, it's not like I'm making any progress on the man front, anyway. I am surrounded by young men whose beauty astounds me, whose splendor leaves me in a state of near constant lust and awe, and, for some reason, distant sadness. Maybe it's because I'm too frozen by fear to approach any of them, but maybe it's because I recognize how transitory this is for all of us.

The leaves in Virginia are changing now, from the emerald of summer into the blood scarlet, sunlight gold, and inferno orange of fall, assuming in decay a glory that will soon fade to brown death. Aren't any of us the same? And I don't mean that in some abstract, pretentious college-freshman way, but in a very practical sense: I am a beautiful boy. At 18 I am stunning, and I know it. My face is fair and flushed, more pretty than handsome. My eyes are deep green and bright. My hair is long, golden, lustrous, and full. My body is a masterpiece of sinew and lean muscle. Sometimes I stand naked before the mirror and just stare. I am 5'10" and weigh 120 pounds.

But how long until my moment is over and I fall from the branch? In five years I will be 23, and surely not as captivating as I am at this very instant. You must remember, I have an older brother and knew his friends. I've seen how this goes. When I was 12 and they were the age I am now, I used to secretly lust for them. One of them was named Henry, and on some occasion when he and David were going out he gave me his cell phone number so I could be in touch with them. I wrote it down on a napkin that I kept in my dresser drawer, and on occasion I would pick it out from amongst the socks, trace the numbers with my finger, and dream of Henry and his lovely face and blue eyes and golden hair. I used to pleasure myself to him. And today he has a beard and a belly and the hair that mesmerized me has long since turned brown and been cut short.

It's unfair that we're given so brief a window. I live in terror that I will not find someone while I am still in it.

Speaking of brothers, James and I are at my grandmother's house for fall break! He's 19 and a year ahead of me in college, so we just headed up to Philadelphia together (our grandmother is from Virginia but lives in the city--it's complicated). Tomorrow we're expecting two cousins and their parents.

One of these, Rose, is much older than we are--she's like 40--and already a doctor. Then there's Andrea, who is, despite his name, a boy. My Uncle Jake married an Italian broad--Aunt Francesca!--and in Italy Andrea is a boy name, so that's what he got named. He and I went to the same boarding school until I graduated in June and I haven't seen him since--he's 17 and still in high school for another year--so I'm quite excited. Well, kind of.

You see, my father's family is great and terrible for the exact same reason: they're perfect. All of them. Rose is a doctor and her sister Kate is a corporate vice president. Andrea is, to sum it up, flawless. Track star, perfect grades, tons of friends, great looks, yet so down to earth that he's impossible to hate. And he gets that he's a walking cliche, and actually cracks jokes about it. I mean, come on. And his parents are also insanely accomplished, just like mine, and that's better than being from a family of crackheads or something, but it creates a little bit of pressure, too. Like, if I want to sit out on spending my weekends working at a soup kitchen for developmentally disabled Ethiopian landmine orphans and instead maybe, say, watch Netflix, I might be seen as bringing down the group average or something.

But sometimes I just want to be gay and watch Netflix.

I feel like I'm not saying this right and it's coming off as rich-kid whining. So, if that's the case, I'm sorry. And never you fear: I will be back to share more. Thanks if you've hung on this far. Why do have a feeling that none of it will end well?

An Introduction

Why am I here? That's the question you're asking yourself, if you're bothering to read any of this. To be honest, I'm not sure why anyone would; angsty 18-year-old starts college and searches for his identity while listening to sappy music (tonight it's Trove Lo, in case you were wondering). Not the most original thing that's ever been done.

But it's my story, so I suppose I'll tell it. Maybe. The truth is, I've tried a few of these things before and have never had the heart to keep up with them, but maybe now that the whole personality crisis is reaching critical mass I'll actually have something to say.

We should start with a couple of ground rules:

1. You will never see my face

2. You will never know my last name

3. You will never be privy to exact details of my life, which just can't be given

4. I will be unflinchingly honest

The first three conditions are there to honor the fourth. Sort of hard to bare your soul if any old person can look you up on Facebook. And in my situation, that would be a very bad thing. My family has an image thing. Don't ask.

So, who am I? I am Cyprian. I am, as previously stated, 18 years old, and as of August 25 I am a freshman in college. It's sort of funny, the way that worked out; I spent a lifetime swearing I'd get out of Virginia, and then I went to a college an hour from my house. Maybe I wasn't quite ready to make the jump. I'm not sure why. I mean, I don't even particularly like many of my family members, though the ones I do care for are amazing.

And what a mess that whole arrangement is. I'm tempted to leave it for another post, so for now it will suffice to say that I am the third of four children. There is 24-year-old David, the bane of my existence; 19-year-old James, the pride of my mother; and 11-year-old Catherine, the light of my life. There really aren't words to describe how wonderful that girl is. And it's pretty remarkable given who she has for parents.

My family is not what a family should be. And I have to be honest, that I'm shaking as I write these words, because my parents would be so furious to know I was penning them. If they ever found out, I don't know what they'd do--cutting me off would probably be the least of it. I'm committing the cardinal sin that can never be forgiven in the House of V: airing the dirty laundry. It's tacky. It's undignified. And damn it, I have to do it. Because the weight of pretending that everything is perfect, that I'm perfect, is too much for me to handle without imploding under the pressure. And even if no one ever reads this, and even if some anonymous page on the Internet is the only place I'm ever able to do it, I'll still know that somewhere, at some time, I told the truth.

And that somewhere really has to be here, because where else could it be? There's no friend who can be trusted not to tell, no classmate who wouldn't hear my last name and be texting my secrets away before I could even finish revealing them. The secrets. So many secrets. When you're raised among them, you think they're normal, which is probably why hiding my sexuality came so naturally. My father and oldest brother are away at a "leadership summit" that is actually a rehab; my stepmother has a "colleague" who is actually her lover, and she thinks no one knows when they retreat to my father's bed; I am a "straight boy" who actually yearns for another boy's touch, and have for years. I've known since I was 12. And I've known to hide it since I was 12.

My father is where he is, after all, in part because of denouncing people like me as immoral, as misguided or abnormal or divergent. And maybe he hasn't agreed with the people who say we're hellbound, or possessed by the devil, but he hasn't disagreed with them, either. See how that works?

And all of this is quite fitting, because he does not love me. Now, I know what you're thinking: "That's crazy. It's natural to feel disconnected from your parent at your age. All fathers love their sons."

You're wrong. And you don't know how we are.

I nearly died a year ago next month--long story, and for another day--and he was completely unmoved. Like, to the point that people commented on it. In private, of course. In public, he was the picture of a concerned parent. Then again, in public I had pneumonia. In public, there was no suicide attempt.

So I'm gay. I'm hoping that, now there's some distance between my family and me, I can explore my sexuality a bit and fulfill these desires that have gone unmet for so long, but I always have to advance with caution. I tried, once, with a boy at my high school, and got badly burned. And the long arm of my family lurks everywhere. In this community. In this state. In history.

Gosh, we're an awful group of people. I'm haunted all the time by the fact of my birth. That I came from them, sired from an amoral father upon an insane mother. That I'm descended from a group of people who passed the whip from one generation to another, and ever terrified that one day it will fall into my hands. Do you get to decide what you are? If you're born to evil, do you have to be evil?

And on that happy note, I need to go to bed. If you made it through that, there will be more to come.