I made a list.
- I need to shave my face.
- Do skin care.
- Pick out a make-up look that would make me feel my most “gorg” self.
After watching all 13 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race as well as the 5 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race All-stars, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to have a “beat face” and a tiny waist. After all this was gay culture. (Beat face- When the make-up applied to a person's face is so powerful and amazing that it makes them look truly stunning, according to Urban Dictionary.)
I pondered the thoughts every single day. I wanted to know what that feeling was like, I wanted to be just like the people on my laptop screen and I wanted to look like them, Drag glam.
I wanted to feel “pretty.” Not just pretty though. I wanted to feel hott, sexy, GLAMOROUS. Most importantly I wanted to feel different.
My life was boring at the time so I was hoping that doing this would make me feel better or, brighten my spirits.
I texted a good friend.
“Hey girlll, what are you doing this weekend? Because I really want you to beat my face. I want to feel like a clown,” I messaged. I used the word clown because I wanted to make the message more light-hearted just in case, she wasn’t comfortable. Then I would be able to laugh it off.
“LOL, yeah I can do that, come over Friday and we can watch TV, hangout and I’ll get you glam,” she said.
Seeing that response sent a rush of excitement through my body. So, I planned out what all I needed to do to get ready for that day. I was about to enter gay culture in a way that I couldn’t imagine. I am going to be a star.
Childhood Flamboyancy
Like many gay people in this world, when I was little, I always knew something was different about me. I didn’t like “boy things.” Sure, I played baseball, football and basketball and was damn good at it. But it wasn’t my everything. My everything was to be just like that little girl on TV with a blond wig and a microphone, Hannah Montana.
I was obsessed with her. I used to jump around the living room singing “Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days.” That 2007 hit masterpiece, ‘Nobody’s Perfect,’ ran through my veins.
I used to craft microphone stands out of plastic pieces from a bookshelf in my room taping them together so I could strut around the room yelling, and I mean yelling.
‘Next time you feel like it's just one of those days.
When you just can't seem to win
If things don't turn out the way you planned, figure something else out.
Don't stay down, try again.’
My dad even tried to convince my mom to let him build me a stage in the backyard, so then I could live out my full fantasy. Or because he was just tired of hearing his SON screaming hit songs by teen pop idol Hannah Montana (aka Miley Cyrus) instead of George Strait, Travis Tritt, or Kid Rock.
I was a gay little boy, so gay and there was no hiding it. But I didn’t know what gay was. No little kid knows what gay means. And I'm glad my family never made comments at me about how I needed to stop acting that way and be more “manly” — they just let me be me.
It wasn’t until I was 13 that I really realized, “Wow. Maybe I am gay.” Even though I knew the most verses in a Nicki Minaj song, or the fact that I used to slowly walk down the men’s underwear aisle, or obviously the whole Hannah Montana thing.
Middle school was tough. Falling asleep at night I would lay there staring at the ceiling watching the fan go around and around, telling myself horrible things.
“You’re not gay, stop thinking that. It's just a phase. You are supposed to like girls.”
Those were genuine things I used to tell my pubescent self; it was so damaging.
The meanest things I ever heard about myself came from me.
In the fetal position, I would cry all night wondering why I was the way I was. It took a whole year of that until I realized, wow, maybe I am a faggot. (It's okay. I can say that you can’t.)
“I AM GAY!” “I’M GAY” “GAY, I AM GAY.”
I came out to myself, which was amazing. But in the back of my head, I still had to come out to my family. At this point in my life, I had grown out of my Hannah Montana phase. I was way more conservative around my family. Never talked about my social life, hibernated in my room all throughout middle school and high school, and never spoke up about anything. Because I was afraid, they would clock my gayness, afraid they could smell the flamboyant-ness radiating out of my skin. I hid.
Middle school came and went, High school came, and I was way more open but not around family, I was open at school.
Strutting down the hallways feeling my Blair Waldorf fantasy, or so I thought. I didn’t come out until my sophomore year. Although I never really came out, I just started dating a boy and no one ever said anything, questioned me or gave a damn.
Being out at school was fine but once I came home, I shut down. Didn’t speak to my parents at all. I hated the idea of sharing my life or expressing myself to them.
“How was school today?” Mom asked.
“Good,” I said.
Shuts bedroom door.
I was so mean. I would make my mom cry. I shut her and my dad out of my life. I had such little life left with them until I adventured off to college, but at that time I didn’t care. I was mean.
Exposed
But high school came and left, and college was now here.
My dorm was cold. I had my tiny fan sitting right on top of my mini fridge blowing cold air onto my face and playing the role of a noise machine to help me sleep at night. I was groggy, my eyes were heavy after a good night's rest, I felt rejuvenated.
This day felt like a typical morning, and just like any morning I reached out for my phone to check my notifications and browse through social media just until I had to get up and get dressed. When I noticed a text from my sister which was strange, she never texted me this early in the morning, I clicked the notification.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM, SPLAT! My heart fell out of my chest, and onto the floor, my eyes welled up, and I stared into the soul of my phone.
“Hey. Moms’ coworker's daughter Brianna told her mom you were gay, so her mom told our mom that you were,” said the text.
I had no words, I stared at the text reading it repeatedly trying to make sure that I was reading it correctly. Who is Brianna? I thought, I don’t even know who Brianna is, I am not even friends
with Brianna how would she know I was gay.
With utter frustration and anger filling the room, I sat up, went straight to Facebook, and looked up the mom. It turns out I went to elementary school with Brianna. She was a year above me and I had never actually spoken to this girl before. She had no idea who I was; she only assumed what I was. So, I just assumed she was an automatic bitch. But she was right, I was gay.
Having my secret out there was the worst feeling, I remember wanting to throw up at the thought of going home that weekend, to do laundry.
Having my secret out there was the worst feeling, I remember wanting to throw up at the thought of going home that weekend, to do laundry. The whole drive home I dreaded walking into the house and having all eyes on me. When I was younger, I always thought I would have attention on me, but this is not what I meant.
That time home I just remember staying in my childhood bedroom doing homework, ignoring the time that would come where my mom would awkwardly say “hey… can we talk?” That nauseous feeling just kept resurfacing. Then it happened, the dreaded, “hey… can we talk?” was no longer a ‘what-if’ but a reality.
Even though I was anxious and scared of what she would think about me it went surprisingly well.
“I just want you to be happy and not be afraid to be who you really are around your family, because we do love you,” she said.
I was so relieved and then the part I was anxious about, my dad, was the easiest conversation.
“Just know this won’t change anything between us… do you need gas money,” dad said.
Glamorous
Friday finally came. All the anticipation and excitement led to this very moment. I sat on one of those wooden kitchen chairs, that looks like it would be at your grandma’s dining room table. I sat in the center of the room right in front of a big flatscreen, watching TV while my face was getting the full treatment.
My eyebrows were getting blocked out to hide my manly eyebrows, the most gorgeous green colored eyeshadow was being applied to my eyelids. I was feeling what I finally wanted to feel: different, a change, something exciting. It felt amazing.
As the finishing touches were being applied all I could think about was, “I’m so nervous, I really want to look like a star.” Then I heard what I had been wanting to hear the whole time.
“Wait… why do you look so good with make up on?” she said.
The way my friend talks, she never lies. She would have either clocked me for being the ugly stepsister from Shrek or she would tell me how good I looked. And to my surprise she told me I looked good.
She pulled her handheld mirror out, held it up to my face, and then time stopped.
“What the fuck… Bitchhh I look fucking hot,” I yelled loudly.
I had this newfound confidence, something I had never had before. I just stared into the mirror, obsessed with myself, looking at the mirror and then back at her. I was in shock, I didn’t know I could look that hot, sexy, GLAMOROUS.
I sprinted to the bathroom and for 45 minutes just stood there taking picture after picture trying to savor the moment. I knew the feeling wouldn’t last forever but I knew the memories would.
That little boy who used to prance around the living room screaming out Hannah Montana, that little boy who would cry for endless amounts of nights about feeling different, was healed. I found that excitement, I healed my inner child. I was a star.
My love
Six months after I found my newfound self, I found a boyfriend. And from the moment I set eyes on him I was attached. He easily became one of my favorite people and ever since we met, we have been inseparable.
He has always believed in me, supported my dreams, and catered to my every need. If I want to achieve something he is right, there next to me helping me and this was a big deal when it came to drag.
He knew what drag was, so it wasn’t some left field topic that he didn’t know about; it was something that he knew the history about, knew the work and he knew the outcome of it.
So, when I told him I wanted to test it out more and perform, he 100 percent supported me. And I mean staying up to 1 a.m. crafting a gown and spray painting an old blazer from Goodwill.
For my 22nd birthday he went all out, giving me a Taylor Swift birthday party with my closest friends and family.
I remember sitting on the stoop of the fireplace while friends and family monitored me on the couches in front of me. I opened gift after gift, making sure to say thank you as I went to open the next.
Then my hands reached for a smaller box, in a rectangle shape. It was a weird weight; I had no clue what it was. When I pulled back the wrapping paper, I was faced with the company name and I knew exactly what it was.
Opening the packaging there it was my necklace, the necklace that encapsulated who I was and what I wanted to be. A star.
