Bottled Up Secret by Brian McNamara

Author:Brian McNamara [McNamara, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626392663
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2014-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

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The next week at home is tense, to say the least. My mom and I keep our talking to a minimum, and when we do speak, our words have a hint of passive aggressiveness. Fortunately, she doesn’t bring up the gay thing at all. I’m not sure what else there is to say at this point. She made her feelings crystal clear the other day.

This whole situation would be so much easier if it weren’t just her and me at home. If only one of my sisters still lived here, she’d be able to buffer the situation without even realizing it.

Being the youngest sibling in a family is great in many ways. I was spoiled and babied when I was younger, constantly getting attention. I was also a bit overprotected, but in a caring way. My sisters tell me how my dad used to always call home from work to ask how I was doing. They joke that he didn’t care about them—just about his baby boy. I felt a constant wave of love.

But as I got older, I noticed that the attention was still on me, but in a somewhat overbearing way. I’m sure my sisters look at me as a naïve seventeen-year-old who needs guidance and advice even when I don’t ask for it. They will always be older than I am. Therefore, they will probably always think they know better than I do.

For a little while, I was considering majoring in musical theater at college. Performing Arts is my strongest passion, so naturally I was considering whether I could make a career out of it. Ultimately, I determined that it wasn’t the right path for me, but instead of letting me figure that out myself, my sister, Phoebe, told me I was making a mistake. Her approach wasn’t delicate, either. It was blunt and direct, making it seem like I was stupid for ever thinking that theater would be a good choice.

Maybe I’m being oversensitive. I wish my feelings and thoughts weren’t automatically dismissed because of my age. I would have appreciated her input if she had said, “Have you thought about this?” or “What if this happens?”

I’m not saying that being the youngest is the hardest. Being the oldest actually seems even worse. I think about how my sister, Sarah, had to step up when my dad died. She had to help my mom plan the wake, the funeral, and God knows what else. Luckily, I was shielded from all that. Plus the oldest one seems to have the strictest rules because the parents are paranoid. As the youngest, I’ve had barely any rules. Unfortunately, I get the sense that that might change now that my mom knows I’m gay.

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