The library saved my life.

TW: suicidal ideation

Life as I knew it, or at least how I wanted it was over.

That’s what I told myself that day as I gathered up the library books that I knew needed to be returned.

I was at least going to be responsible before ending my life. I had always been meticulous in my planning. From deciding which college I would attend to the type of woman I would attract to be my mate.

My life was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

I can’t really pinpoint exactly when or even how my world started to unravel. I had my graphs and spreadsheets laid out. My budgets were good, my calendar was always full of social events, my kids were top in their class and I was absolutely miserable.

I felt trapped.

Trapped on a carousel of constant that I desperately wanted to get off on. Trapped in a job that I hated. Trapped as the husband that I always dreamed of being and now realized that I should have never become. Trapped as a father to beautiful children that rarely felt like they belonged to me.

The only place I felt human was at the library. I don’t know if was because of the dark-haired librarian that took my breath away every time I walked in. I refuse to admit that a man takes my breath away. I denied it as a teenager, and I still deny it to this day. Homosexuality is wrong. That is what they pounded into my young brain as the child of a Baptist Minister. That is what my coach preached in the locker rooms when two of my teammates got caught in a compromising position. That is what my girlfriend, now wife, told me in college when she told me she thought I was gay the first time she met me.

I had always felt feminine. I remember wishing I could wear my sisters’ dresses each time they came in, swishing their skirts and flipping their long golden curls. My stomach would tighten in knots when dad told me it was time for us to go get our manly haircuts. I didn’t want a manly cut. I wanted to grow my hair.

In high school, I used the excuse that all my friends were growing out their hair. My parents didn’t care. “If your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too?” That was always my dads’ reasoning.

If only he knew my answer would be ‘yes’.

I guess if I was being truthful; I have wanted to end my life for many years. My over-planning was a way to distract my mind from the thoughts that never stopped. Holding my wife at night, I went through the motions of making love to her. Watching porno to learn what I was supposed to be doing to please her. Telling myself that I was only watching porn to learn, I certainly received no enjoyment from it. Except for the few instances when two men were pushed together.

That is when my groin reacted. I mean the kind of reaction that I heard in the locker room. The kind I saw in the porn videos. I fought that reaction, sometimes pinching myself to a pain point to make the reaction go away.

The first time I walked into the library, I saw him. He looked at me in a way no one had ever looked at me. My groin reacted immediately. I quickly fled into the bathroom, my breath catching in my throat.

Calm down, I told myself. This is a public place, and that man is just being friendly like he does to everybody.

After a few minutes, I regained my composure and made it back to the self-help section. I was in a dark place. I laid in bed at night and thought of ways to off myself. I had my life insurance at the maximum amount it could be at. My family would be well taken care of once I was gone. But would they?

They would feel my absence. My position in my company would be hard to fill, especially since I hand-picked my team personally. So maybe the answer wasn’t offing myself. Maybe it was to find a way to accept myself. And that is how I ended up at the library checking out self-help books.

At first, it was just one. But when I returned the book, HE was there. Our hands gently grazed each other as I passed the book to him. Was that electricity that I felt? Nothing had ever hit me like that before.

So here I was planning my last trip to the library. Would he be there? Would he miss me when I no longer showed up twice a week. Once to check out a book and then to return it. He even questioned a couple of times the type of books I checked out. I almost stuttered as I answered him. “There is always room for improvement, right?”

There it was, that smile. My God, did he have a clue how he made me feel? The books didn’t help. Nothing helped. I prayed, I cried, I screamed. “Why?”

The only answer I got was silence. And a longing desire to be someone I knew I could never be. The image that lived in my head had nothing to do with the image that glared back at me in the mirror. So today, after I returned the last self-help books I would ever read, my plan was simple. I had bought a bottle of tequila and a bottle of sleeping pills. There was a lake not too far from the town I lived in. One side had a pretty good slope to it. I was going to down the pills with the tequila and once I felt them working, I was going to put the car in drive and sink to the bottom of the lake. I had a note that my wife would eventually find that explained all the financial details she would need to know. There was no reason to upset the family with the truth of why I was ending my life.

I entered the library with feet that felt like lead. And of course, he was there. He watched me make my way to the counter and smiled that amazing smile that melted me to the core. I noticed he sorta pushed a book towards the edge of the counter nonchalantly just as I reached it, but didn’t make it seem like he was trying to give it to me. As I pushed my returns toward him, I looked down at the book now inches from me and gasped as I read the title; ‘How to be ok with being gay.

Did I just read that right? My hands shook as I reached out to pick it up and dropped it as if it burned as soon as I did. Reaching out, he gently placed the book back into my hand.

“It’s ok,” he said. “I am gay too. I was once where you are. I think this is the book you have been looking for.”

I won’t lie. I teared up. I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t. Not now, not ever again.

“I get off work in ten minutes. How about a cup of coffee?” He asked, looking at me with questioning eyes.

Coffee, I thought. Coffee or suicide? Those were my options. At this moment, looking at that smile, my option was clear. Today I was having coffee. Holding out the book for him to scan, I weakly nodded yes. He gave me an address and told me to go and get a head start on the book. He assured me he would be there in less than 30 minutes. Walking out of the library, I felt different. I felt seen for the first time. Clasping the book to my chest, I also felt validated. Someone recognized me. The real me. Today my life would not end. The opposite was actually true. Today my life would finally begin!