The dilemma of Lot’s Wife – To look back or not!

17 Jan 2015 4 Comments

by OutTales in Courage and Vulnerability, Faith, Holding On and Letting Go Tags: , , ,

Ade FBOne of the tales that has always stayed with me from the “Sunday School of my childhood” is the story of “Sodom & Gomorrah”. Now, it would be easy to base this on the fact that I am gay, and that the story of Sodom is often used by fundamentalists to chastise gay people. But, that is not the case. Long before I knew for sure that I was gay, I knew about the story of Sodom.

More specifically, I knew about the story of Lot’s wife. It was a story that our Sunday School teachers would come back to, time and time again, and it was certainly the most haunting of the bible stories from that period of my life. I was fascinated by the story of this woman who was turned into a pillar of salt! I guess the story felt like it was straight out of 1001 Arabian Nights or Greek Mythology – two other delights from my childhood. More

Conforming, in order to be accepted……

25 Feb 2013 5 Comments

by OutTales in Holding On and Letting Go, Reflections, Relationships Tags: , ,

…….. well, that’s just too high a price to pay!

Ade FBWhenever I reflect on the relationship that I had with my father, one of the things that I regret was that I never fully showed up in our encounters. I was so busy trying to be the person that I felt he would like me to be that by the time he passed away on 27th January 1995, I was completely out of touch with the person I was.

I recognize now that in my longing for acceptance and love, I had suppressed so many emotional wounds developed from feeling different and not fitting in.

With my father passing, I vowed not to repeat that pattern with my mother, and others who were part of my life. Over the years, this has proved to be ever so challenging and not so easy to implement. Conforming to be accepted had become such a learnt behaviour, that doing something different, like honoring myself sometimes felt unnatural.

The first conversation I had about my sexuality with my mother happened about a year after my father died. It was heated, raw and painful.  I broke contact for a couple of years, as it was too painful to see the hurt in my mother’s eyes. The second conversation with her took place 15 years later and it was just as painful, if not more. Again we broke off contact, during that period she passed away. More

I Know A Few Things About Waiting

07 Aug 2012 3 Comments

by OutTales in Holding On and Letting Go Tags: , , ,

I know a few things about waiting,
you see, for a long time that’s all I did.
Waiting for that tomorrow where I’d be welcomed
and embraced by benevolent witnesses.
Yes, I know a few things about waiting.
Waiting for that storm to pass, for the waves to settle.
Yearning and longing. Dreaming and hoping,
for the life that I had imagined to finally begin. More

Holding onto a fantasy, letting go of a dream

30 Nov 2011 2 Comments

by OutTales in Holding On and Letting Go Tags: , ,

We had not seen each other for many weeks, which was unusual for us, as we would normally hang out most weekends. I had been the one to initiate recent telephone contact, during which I felt the intimacy gone from our conversations.

I felt something was amiss and did not know what to say or do. I wanted to address it, but deep in my heart I knew I was not ready to hear those words ‘It’s over!’ All I did was cling, afraid that letting go meant abandonment, an old childhood wound which had been reactivated, during those many weeks of not seeing each other.

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Letting Go

23 Nov 2011 Leave a comment

by OutTales in Holding On and Letting Go

Some time ago, a good friend of mine called me up. She wanted to tell me about a friend of hers who was beautiful, well-educated and available. She did this because she knew I was single, having just broken up with my girlfriend of about a year. I knew this friend she spoke of and she was indeed a good catch. Our families would be most compatible and she would make a good wife.

I have not called this her friend yet. I don’t think I will, because it will just be the same story all over again. I will befriend her, get her to love me and then detest her for doing so, because I can’t tell her everything about me. She will do all she can to make things work and it will never add up. My emotional unavailability would upset her and she will think it is her fault. She may suspect, but she would never know why. More

The Ultimate Letting Go

11 Nov 2011 6 Comments

by OutTales in Holding On and Letting Go Tags: , ,

I woke up this morning to an email from a cousin informing me that our grandmother had died; his father’s mother, my mother’s mother.

As I stood in my kitchen glued to the words in the email, I remembered the last time I saw my grandmother. It was over 9 years ago, during a visit to Lagos, when I had travelled there to face the ghosts of my past. We had not seen each other in over 15 years, and when I entered the crowded room she was in, she immediately burst into song. Even though she was well into her 80s’, she was fully alive in every way. She was frail and could not walk unassisted, and yet she swayed as she serenaded me with her words; summoning the spirits of our ancestors and thanking them for guiding me back home.

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