I stood at the edge of the cliff facing Penrith. The city’s lights sparkled more like lights on a tree rather than the stars in the sky. Up in Lapstone, I could see more stars than I could down in the valley. I felt so small, so far away and so alone.

But not as alone as I had felt back in the house. I turned around and looked through the trees. The light from my phone showed an empty pathway. I knew it would lead back to the paved road that led to my friend’s house. We had met in university over ten years ago. He sat next to me because I had a superhero notebook. I was writing stories to squelch my nerves. He drew comics and from that moment we sat next to each other we were inseparable. The last few years after I had ended my long term relationship, he had invited me over for Christmas. He called me brother. His parents called me a son they never had. His brother kept hugging me and telling me he loved me. He was 17.

They didn’t know though. None of them did. Not even my friend of almost eleven years. They didn’t know that after my relationship ended with her that I finally accepted the fact that I didn’t another another one. Well, I didn’t want another her.

I wanted a him.

I knew I should walk back. They’d wonder where I’d wander off to. They’d want to play Smash Brothers again. I’d win and even if I didn’t, I’d say something that would ignite their competitiveness and they’d demand a rematch. I had fun. I loved being around them. I just didn’t feel like I belonged. I wasn’t really their family as much as I wasn’t a part of my biological one. They already knew. Despite conversion therapy as a teen. Despite reinforcing girlfriends in high school and trying to set me up with coworkers when I was in college. I still ended up what I always was meant to be.

Me.

But how do I tell them? The family back in the house who drew me into their home and called me part of them. They were religious. They’d make homophobic jokes without even realising it. Some of them, in their little prayer groups in the living room while my friend and I wrote and drew comics together, would talk about trying to convert a gay back to being straight. Sometimes I thought they were trying to out me.

This year was different because it was the first year my friend had a wife. She knew. I could tell. She’d try and drop hints. She’d try and out me. It was none of her business nor theirs and I was still trying to figure myself out. It was why I was at the edge of this cliff looking across the city picturing Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. Trying to figure myself out.

I knew who I was. I just didn’t know how I was going to be it. I picked up a stone and chucked it over the edge of the cliff and waited to hear it drop. And so did my stomach as I decided to go back to the home, put on that smile and act like I belonged when I knew that if they really did know me…

I wouldn’t.

2011 ended with me standing out on the porch of my friend’s house as he kissed his wife in the living room. Fireworks flashed in the sky. Dogs howled and barked. I could see a possum stare wide-eyed as it clutched at the trunk of the tree. I wondered if the kissing couple inside would notice if I took a walk down the road. I wanted to traverse that path in the dark and find that cliff I had found a few Christmases ago. This Christmas my friend’s family had kept me close, but now that I had a bit more freedom, that cliff sounded like a perfect escape. Perhaps I’d be the stone this time.

I took out my phone and wrote poetry instead. I wrote about the tears that welled up behind my eyes but didn’t flow. I talked about the loneliness that clutched at my heart. I was going to have to quit my job. I just knew it. I had told a few co-workers that I had been dating. His name was Blake. A couple of them were excited that I was finally being me. But I trusted one of them when I shouldn’t have. The witchhunt was beginning at school and I could feel my job getting tighter and tighter around my throat. They wouldn’t be able to fire me for whom I loved but they could make my job a living nightmare so that I would leave. But not yet. I was stubborn. I had something to prove. I’d fight back. I might not win, but I was going to fight.

But not right now. Not on that porch looking out at the lights of Penrith again. I didn’t see tree lights this time. I saw reminders of a community I didn’t belong in. After all, I was a gay American that even though had lived there for over a decade wasn’t a true blue Aussie. I was reminded of that every day.

And if I told my friend and his wife what I was dying to tell them, I knew I wouldn’t be a part of his community either.

I heard them laugh from the couch. They were so cute. They had told me to bring whomever I was dating, but I had just called it off with Blake. He wasn’t a good fit and guy before him was even worse. I needed a couple of years to relax. Not search for love until I loved myself. And how does one love themselves when most of their life they were taught to hate it? To fear it? To run away from it and let the Lord’s Light Shine Through, whatever the hell that meant.

I found the possum again and shoved the phone in my pocket. I hated the sounds of the kissing inside now. They had it so easy. They could just walk down the street and hold hands without sneers. They wouldn’t get bashed in the carpark of a shopping centre because one of them flirted with the wrong person. They wouldn’t get kicked out of a community. Pushed out of a job. Their family was congratulated.

I was shunned.

I pulled the car over and looked at myself in the rearview mirror and wondered what the hell I was doing. I should turn the car around and go back home. 3 hours for a date? With a guy who I barely knew? I wasn’t the prime steak of gay guys. I learnt that quickly in the dating world. The gay community shunned the chubby, bald guys just as quickly as my biological family had done. Worse. Because I kept having to back into this community that supposedly should accept me to find a date. Unless I was just going to live alone for the rest of my life. Which sounded a lot better than going to this date.

I called Deb. She was the first person I told after I told a pigeon. The pigeon didn’t care. It just flew away, but Deb, she just hugged me and told me she loved me. One of the best co-workers I ever lived with. Darren was another one. Without them pushing me to be me, I would have found that cliff again.

Deb answered abruptly. Without me even explaining to her what was going on, she told me to keep driving and go on that date or she’d drive out and find me and take me herself. I laughed. She would, too. The phone call wasn’t long. She didn’t want me to be late. She even threw a few swear words in for good measure just to make her point clear. I promised her I’d go on the date.

My therapists words echoed in my head. All the fear. All the hesitation. All the parts of me that wanted to run. I needed to put it in a box. Envision a fancy lock to it. Picture a unique one of a kind key. Stuff that box full of all my insecurities and lock it. But the box in the backseat of the car and put the key in my pocket. I wasn’t to unlock it till the end of my date.

I locked the door of my car and stood in the middle of Stockland’s carpark in Nowra and stuffed my keys deep into my pocket. I was to meet him at a bench across from EB Games. We were both gamers. It was our place to go. A comfort zone. It was also public. Too many people for me but that would only mean I’d want to walk somewhere. To a cafe. So I could talk. See if I could make him laugh. Study his body language and see if he was interested in me. Gauge whether I’d go all in or not or if I’d just put up my walls and not give him a chance. I closed my eyes. Took a few breaths and weaved my way through the cars.

It was January 12th, 2012. I saw him sitting on the bench. He was messaging me. We were excited. I saw him and grinned. He was so peaceful sitting there waiting. He didn’t look nervous like I had felt in my chest. He seemed patient. Something I was not too good at being.

So I took a few large steps and slide next to him suddenly and quickly said an abrupt hello. He nearly jumped out of his jumper and I laughed. He laughed. I said I was sorry but I didn’t mean it. He was laughing and it was comforting. His brown eyes looked into mine and I blushed. He called me a bitch and I said that was a fair assessment. I decided to be honest with him. I decided I was going to have fun. I wanted to laugh and just enjoy being out of my comfort zone.

I just needed to be free.

I told him the crowds were getting to me and he agreed. He only came into Stocklands to get food and step into EG Games. We chatted so easily. He hid his face away from me at first behind the hoodie. I didn’t say anything. I wanted him comfortable. We walked across the road and turned a corner. Laughed at the sex store we happened to come across. I told him not on the first date. He laughed again and allowed me to look into his brown eyes again. They had a softness to them. There was also a light and I wondered if he ever let anyone see it or if he was only just letting me see it. He told me I had beautiful blue eyes and I looked away. I changed the subject. I didn’t want to hear the compliments. I didn’t want this to turn awkward, so I made a joke to get him to laugh again.

We were seated in a cafe at table 12. I made a joke about it. Table 12 on the 12th of January, 2012. We laughed about it and shrugged it off. Started to talk again about likes and dislikes. We had already talked over twitter for a few months. Trying to figure out how we apparently met before. A mutual friend told us to add each other on twitter. Apparently we had met a comic book store and hit it off but neither of us remembered it. I wanted to remember. It bugged me that I couldn’t. We ate our food. We had a lot in common so the conversation was easy. Smooth. As if we had been talking for years and so we decided to take the date to a nearby park. He told me it had a beautiful lake with ducks and swans. The grass was nice to lay on and stare up at the sky. It even had a gazebo. I grinned at the idea and skipped a bit.

We walked slowly to the gazebo. He didn’t talk much about his family. I tried to ask but he would downright refuse. It was the only part of the conversation that halted, but I didn’t mind. It meant that I didn’t have to talk about mine and he didn’t really ask.

When we found the gazebo, I took his hand and pulled him quickly towards it. I explained that I always loved gazebos since The Sound of Music. He laughed lightly. He seemed amused by me albeit quietly. He stood at the entrance of the gazebo that I had dragged him to. He didn’t seem impressed with it, but he lived here so he probably saw it all the time. I squealed at the benches that were inside and said it was perfect. He giggled and asked me what it was perfect for and so I decided to show him.

I climbed up on one of the benches and proceeded to sing from the Sound of Music. I am sixteen going on seventeen, echoed through the gazebo as I leapt from bench to bench until I made it all the way back round to him and ran out of the gazebo squealing and spinning as if it were raining. When I finished, he stood there in the gazebo watching me as I approached. My cheeks stun with the realisation of what I had just done. On a first date.

I felt the keys in my pocket and thought of the imaginary box locked in the backseat of the car. I had to fix what I had done. I try to hide my face from him. I averted my eyes. My mind raced as I reached him back in the gazebo. He was grinning. A laugh escaped every now and again. When I dared to look into his eyes, I could see that sparkle of light and it scared me.

It scared me because I didn’t want to lose it.

So I did what any reasonably embarrassed guy would do in this situation. I asked him if he wanted to see my superhero underwear and pulled at the edge of it just enough so I could point out that it was Marvel.

He couldn’t stop laughing and the light in his eyes was so bright I couldn’t give him eye contact anymore. If I continued to look at him, I’d want to kiss him.

But I didn’t want to rush it. I wanted to take it slow. I wanted to do this right.

Nice start.

My husband and I sat side by side on the couch together. We were going to celebrate our eighth year together in a couple of months. Marriage had just become legal not that long ago. We had plans to get married. A honeymoon. I thought about returning to the gazebo but Nowra just had too many bad memories now. His biological family disowning him. Friends abandoning him. All because he grew confidently in who he was a person and whom he loved. We let that space go.

But Joel had been fired. Wrongly so. 8 years of finally getting our life heading in the right direction and his job fires him for depression, anxiety and being gay. Depression and anxiety that stemmed from the bullying at the workplace. From the horrific marriage debate. Gay men being able to give blood. Adopt. Walk out on the streets holding hands without fear of being yelled at or physically abused. We held hands. I looked into his beautiful brown eyes and he looked into mine. He still had that light in his eyes. Followed by that smile. That one smile he only gave to me.

I kissed him. This time I didn’t ask. We weren’t laying in the grass looking up at the sky finding shapes in the clouds. I had leaned over, wanting to kiss him, asking him if it was okay, a whisper of a yes and our lips lightly touching before I leaned away and giggled mischievously. He laughed and pulled me back in.

This time he pulled me in as well. Our lips pressed together. I tasted his tears. Christmas was going to be hard. They hadn’t paid him correctly. They were being awful about the firing. He was planning on taking it to court. The kiss wasn’t for passion. It was for comfort. He needed to know it was going to be okay and when we finally pulled away I told him that we got this. We were a team. The last eight years proved that. We were survivors and fighters and we were at our best together. Hand in hand. Our words uniting.

It wouldn’t be until our third date before I told him I loved him. Just before he filled his mouth up with food. His eyes widened. We both knew we wanted to say it. But we both wanted to take it slow. To do it right. But as we sat across from each other at table 12, a table we had randomly been put on, I saw the light in his eyes and he had given me that smile before he decided to take a bite and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I love you.

It took him awhile before he could finish his tears before he could speak. He found comfort in my kiss but also within my arms. It had been a year since he had been fired. He was finding it hard to find joy in the holiday season. CoVid had hit making it even harder for him to find a job again after working through his mental illness. His biological family would hit his thoughts around the holidays. It’s a grief we never get rid of. It only softens.

My books weren’t selling as well as I would have liked. He believed in them more than I did sometimes. He fought for me. He pushed for me. And I him. Just the two of us now. Our own true version of a family. A real one.

We are a team. Nine years and going strong. Side by side in smiles, laughter, joy, love, anger and tears. We fight through together. No more standing on a cliff looking out over a world and feeling as if I’ll never belong. He’s my light.

And though I no longer have that friend in Lapstone, because I had been right about what the truth would bring, or worked at that job that made the last couple of years a living nightmare for me, I have him and every day he makes me feel like I am in a gazebo, spinning around singing my heart out, watching him give me that one damn sexy smile so that I ultimately ask him if he wants to see my superhero underwear.

Merry Christmas, Joel. May this gift I give to you last a life time. And may those who share in this gift love this Christmas Story as much as I love sharing it.

Keep that light in your eyes.

Keep that smile just for me.

Would you like to see my superhero underwear?