The Letterbox: a Coming Out Story

The Letterbox: a Coming Out Story

by Jules Stapleton Barnes
Published in Brig Newspaper 15/02/2017 

I’d written the letter in many different ways and on many different days before. I had never quite got around to sending it.

I lived across the bridge in the 60’s breezeblock accommodation named A.K Davidson Hall.

On the brink of a new millennium I had big aspirations and a colourful imagination, but everything in my cell-like room was a dull brown and off-white.

White thick, brick walls, brown carpet and a brown mattress about as thick and comfy as a piece of toast.

I was not long into my new life away from home for the first time and despite the striking similarities to a prison, my new environment felt liberating and full of possibility.

One morning, prompted by a free schedule and a flurry of brave feelings, I began scribbling the words that I had written a thousand times before:

“Dear Mum and Dad,

I have to come to know and accept, and finally celebrate, that I am gay.”

Stirling University campus was sheltered and protective, cosseting us with picturesque vistas, hills rolling up the sides and a loch that reflected everything.

Dumyat hill was like a friendly old relative, nagging you to get up and get more fresh air.

It loomed over your curtain-drawn bedroom as you slept off the cheap booze and thrills of student life. The path around the loch provided a well-trodden route for all kinds of conversations; dates, break-ups and blips of loneliness.

That morning, I took bold strides across the loch bridge, making a bee-line for the shiny red post-box waiting at the other side.

This iron box, was solid and reliable, packed with news, requests and revelations and words to connect us students to far-away friends and family. What goes in never comes out the same way.

Gripping my letter I wondered how far I would get this time.

It was so comfortable in my hands, my words, my news and I wasn’t quite ready to let it go.

I told myself it didn’t matter if I never let it go, I knew what the words meant, and that surely could be enough.

I could even hold it close to the dark gap in the letterbox, with no intention of letting it go.

Tempting myself with the possibility of pushing my revelation out into the world, never to be returned to the confines of an envelope again.

But a sharp fear of reality would pull me back, time and time again.

I would feel the weight of it in my hands. The honesty leaking through the paper as if just being near it brought everyone closer to the truth.

I couldn’t imagine it being in anybody else’s hands.

As I praised myself for braving it this far; over the bridge and standing just centimetres from the letterbox, a breezy acquaintance sprung up beside me.

In one swift move, a person whose name I cannot remember snatched the letter and posted it straight through the dark gap and down into the cast iron box.

“Post it already!” she chirped. “What was it anyway?”

“Oh my God,” I said.

I remember blinking hard and hearing my lashes crash against my eyelids.

Off it went. There it goes. Out of reach and on its way to changing everything.

The Rise and Fall of Hope

Piece written for Sunday Assembly on 1st April, 2018
[Edinburgh’s secular congregation, meeting regularly to celebrate life, build community and help everyone live life as fully as possible.]

"I’ve been in a quandary over what to share this morning, as I had something else sort-of prepared. I initially wanted to share a blog I’d written on grief, and more specifically the energy of grief, but then life happened, in all it’s challenging glory, and something else is on my mind instead.

I’ve been compelled to think about hope this week, and I wanted to share some thoughts around that, some of things that happened this week, and in particular when it’s harder to feel hopeful.

My wife and I are 4.5 years into a long journey of fertility treatment to help us have a baby. We had some more disappointing news this week, which has made me question the purpose of hope more than ever, even from my very privileged corner of this world.

For me, this journey has been a rather manipulative process, with nurses, drugs and my own body conspiring to generate hope whilst also leading us to these crescendo moments of disappointment. And in the moments, days and weeks that follow, we need to somehow find hope again.

In my working life, I organise events and support for the LGBTQ community, and work lots with trans and non-binary people. Yesterday was Scotland’s first ever Trans Pride, and over 400 people marched, came together in dismal weather conditions, in solidarity. Before the march, I hosted a breakfast social event for about 70 folk, and spoke with a woman I know, who told me that doctors have discovered a minor heart condition, that will delay her previously imminent access to reassignment surgeries indefinitely.

The help she desperately needs, to feel some peace and comfort in this world, seems very far away. She’s already waited a very long time, and through that journey, has built up a lot of hope. She was tired and upset, but she came out in the rain and marched.

So it makes me wonder, how do we learn to trust and have faith again, when hope has come and gone. Is its purpose to set us up for a fall? Or is it nature’s way of helping us get up and keep going?

Hope for me, is a tenacious, crafty little light saber of a feeling, that finds the cracks of the fortress I’ve begun to build and defends my right to keep on keeping on.

The woman from yesterday and I, stood together and simply agreed that finding hope can be hard, even when we’re doing our best. In that simple moment of shared understanding, I felt comfort.  I felt grateful and I was gifted some perspective.

It was a reminder to me, that we’re all vulnerable at times, but we all have this incredible ability to find connection and commonality with each other. By being there yesterday morning, despite feeling like I hadn’t much to give, there were unexpected moments of healing and comfort.

When I was feeling the weight of the disappointment this week, I reached out to my little brother, who lives 500 miles away.  He is my go-to guru when I need a pep talk. Just to finish, I wanted to share with you, some of the words in a voice message that he sent, in case you, like me, could use some encouragement at the moment.

“Sister B, I’m really sorry to hear things didn’t work out this time. I’m not really sure what to say, other than it doesn’t seem fair does it? You’re trying really hard; you’re doing all the right things. But I guess, you’ve got to keep having faith in life.  It has its twists and its turns and the journey isn’t written yet. We only know what’s going on right now, and that’s just happened for you, but you’ve already moved on. Life is a flow. Keep loving doing the things you love, keep loving the people you love and the joy will catch up with you”

He then got self-conscious and made himself laugh and it made me laugh to listen to it."