I Remember When I First Realised or:

I Am, Finally, Too Tired Of Holding Back Truth

My family would always sing to me when I would go to sleep. When I was a kid, I mean. My nan would tuck me & my brother in and sing us old-timey war songs, those of Vera Lynn and The Andrews Sisters, which is, for lack of a better phrase, funny to look back on, but also very loving and sweet and will always reminds me of that house in Forest Hill. The one my mum was born in.

My mum, well, she always sang, at all hours of the day. It was very rare that music wouldn’t be heard coming from the window of wherever my mum was. Especially her car. My mum sang “Dream A Little Dream of Me”. I don’t quite remember this, to be honest, but it makes sense, and my nan remembers it so fondly that she cried when I played it, the day before I moved out of her house, when I was getting ready for work and she was in the garden. My memory to that song is, however, attached to my mother in a different way.

A random day in the old flat. The one I spent my most formative years in, I remember it being sunny. I would’ve still been in secondary, but not at all matured, so I will say, for the sake of story, I must’ve been 12. I’m sat in the front room with my mum, and I hear “Oh! Beautiful Thing is on.” I don’t know Beautiful Thing, but me and my mum always shared a relatively secret love for movies. I say secret because I didn’t really acknowledge it until I turned 16, when I started actually being a human, and because of all of this, and fate, I suppose, I stayed, sat next to my mother.

And when the two boys fell in love, the boys from Eastenders & London Bridge, and my mum began to cry, and when the two boys begin to dance, surrounded by the high southeast London council flats, to Dream A Little Dream of Me, without caring what those around think, I finally realised. I realised that boys could like boys, and not just like, but love.

My uncle is gay. He’s not even my uncle, he’s my mum’s best friend, and that’s how you know he’s family. I have always known him, he has always been ever present in my life, so I knew what being gay was. I knew that men were with men sometimes, and there was never anything wrong, and their relationships were just like the other relationships I knew. But, I suppose, it simply didn’t connect the wires the way it was meant to, or maybe, perhaps more likely, I needed my own story.

And the mother in Beautiful Thing, Shirley from Eastenders, reminds me of my own, so much that I think I saw myself for the first time. I don’t know if my mum would appreciate that comparison, there’s not an ounce of homophobia in my mum, it’s more the southeast upbringing, but as such I won’t pretend it’s a comparison that is spot on, but the circumstance, I think, matters more than anything. I needed that comparison, to finally connect, and to finally realise.

So, when I see these two boys fall in love, I realise that I could, too, fall in love, and maybe it would be with a girl, but it could also, possibly, be with a boy. And it would mean something, but the same, either way.

And then, I remember Frank Ocean. This was before I watched Beautiful Thing with my mum who was, funnily, the first person to introduce me to Frank Ocean. And maybe it was my brother who introduced my mum to him, but we had a channel ORANGE CD in the car, which I want to note isn’t a rare piece but would be cool to still have now, if it hadn’t inevitably been lost to the switching of cars as they broke down. We had the CD in my mum’s car, so my mum was the one who introduced me to Ocean. My mum’s favourite was Pyramids, it still is, even as we’ve introduced her to Blonde and his other work, and boy she really loves a couple songs off Nostalgia Ultra. But no, it’s always been pyramids. I heard that song in the car as we drove to my nan’s more times than I care to remember. But what I remember, too, is Frank Ocean’s coming out letter. The one that released to his tumblr, just after Channel ORANGE, but one I didn’t find until I was about 16.

“Whoever You Are, Wherever You Are… I’m Starting to Think We’re A Lot Alike”. I think this is the second time I was seen. Or I saw myself fully. Another time I realised… and I was so impacted, I named my next screenplay after one of the lines, just praying someone feels seen by it, or can finally see me, praying that this screenplay would be my way of telling the world. And I suppose this is another of those, too. But this time, unlike before, I’m ready for it.

I always told myself that I didn’t care about telling those close to me, that I would never care whether my brother, or my mum, or my best mate knew. And I suppose a lot of people already know, I don’t scream football with the lads & I have an eyebrow piercing, but I have also been branded “metrosexual” as a joke before, so I must’ve also kept the secret relatively well. I am tired of keeping the secret now. Finally, I am tired. So this is what follows. And I will not send this article to my brother, or my mum, or any of the people I haven’t told directly before, so I suppose I still haven’t exclusively told them, but with this piece I will undoubtedly be living in my truth. My brother may see this, and my mum may see this, and I will be happy if they do.

I feel like a free man. If I listen closely… I can hear the sky falling too.