We built forts out of worn-out couch cushions, synthetic
pillows, thin cotton bed sheets, metallic folding chairs, the wooden
bunk bed, whatever we could get our hands on. They were the places of
imagination where war's only casualty was the fake death of a brother or
friend and mansions were an eight feet by eight feet square that you
couldn't even stand in. Anything could happen as long as you forgot who
and where you were and had a sliver of creativity. Even the creativity
could be forgiven, you could always play out classic stories or Saturday
morning cartoons, if you knew how not to be you. There were dragons to
slay, Princess Leia's to save, robbers to catch, COBRA to destroy,
murders to solve, Carmen Sandiego to fin. The scared, manic boy was a
fearless, reserved villain. The shy, quietly seething kid was a brave,
calculating warrior. The high energy, laughing youngest was a secret
weapon set to explode on either side. Worlds constantly transformed
before your eyes making the infinite seem possible.
But we all knew that while the infinite might seem possible, it was in fact as imaginary as
Transformers, and
He-Man, and
Scooby-Doo, and
The Jetsons. There was no Krypton or Gotham or castle. It was just two chairs with a blanket hung between them and me dancing in my
Batman underoos.
And while our imaginations soared, it was bound by the limits of
heterosexual masculinity. It was always a princess that needed saving, a
war that needed waging, a clear division between right and wrong.
In the land of fancy, I couldn't be a fruit.
The
dissonance between fancy and reality, villain and fruit grew until it
became harder to distinguish one from the other. Forts transformed into
hand-written plays casting me in the role of Jacob Wetterling and
Jeffrey Dahmer.
Batman underoos became invisible masks worn just
as frequently but with much less zeal. High school was as foreign and
faraway as Krypton. Manically happy and depressively sad looked exactly
the same.
One wintry night, a few years later, when the
snow fell in slow lulling rhythms, I could no longer tell whether they
were snowflakes or ashes. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a
familiarly unrecognizable face. I listened to the clatter in the
hallways outside my dorm room, and I heard the whispers of sexuality
telling secrets about someone that was supposedly me. I was lost in
limbo.
Shortly thereafter, I came out and in doing so
learned that reality and imagination are boundless and blurry. The
underoos, the masks, the forts, the plays are all reflections of self,
real and perceived. Neither one more or less significant. They tell a
story of truth. That was the gift of coming out: I no longer needed to
leave limbo; rather, I needed to share its story.
Labels: FORTS, GROWING UP, high school, IMAGINATION, LIMBO, reality, sexuality, the space between, TRUTH
