Squareface @ 31°North

Yes, I’m way behind in getting my hands on this since the book was launched in August 2006, and I only bought and read it today.

It’s a very easy read, very colloquial, which makes its form very apt for the content, for the stories [sort of like True Singapore Gay (coming out) Stories] are very very real.

It’s not pro-gay, but pro-acceptance — of who you are and who the people around you are. The stories also demonstrate how allowing others the chance to accept you as you are may prove to be the best thing you can ever do to make your life fulfilled, instead of building the mountain of lies like the one I’ve been piling up on these years to protect the truth about Sam and I from my parents and the extended family.

“…in ten years time, I’ll be 38 years old, not young anymore. And [my father]‘d be 68, well into his twilight years. If by then, he can’t acknowledge me and my other half, if we can’t all be happy together, then that’s just sad.”

I don’t know if it’s the easy way out for me to shrug it off and postpone telling my parents until after graduation, because I can jolly well postpone it to after I find financial stability, after I find a place of my own, after this or after that — will it really make a difference to their ability to come to terms with it?

I don’t want them to leave this world without my being honest with them.

So now, I can either leave the book on the living room table to speak volumes on its own, or stash it in some corner of my cupboard hoping they won’t (or will?) pry when I’m not around.