“I traded fame for love, without a second thought. It all became a silly a game, some things cannot be bought. I got exactly what I asked for, wanted it so badly. Running, rushing back for more, I suffered fools so gladly…”
Yes, those are lyrics from Madonna’s Grammy Award winning album Ray of Light. During this era of Madonna’s career (1997-2001) she completely reinvented herself a couple times over.
This part of Madonna’s career produced some of her best material. However, it is the hardest one for me to go back and listen to.
Take the song Drowned World/Substitute For Love for example. In the song Madonna talks about trading fame for love and never looking back. The year this album was released was my senior year of high school and I related to those lyrics very much.
I had recently found out that my father was gay, and given the fact our town was biased against anyone who didn’t fit their mold, I had tried to convince myself that my attraction to men was something I would outgrow.
Instead of looking for open and honest love and acceptance, I chose the path of least resistance. I did what was expected of me and started dating girls.
I lost my virginity to a girl. I never really cared for the sexual aspect of it, but it did make the kids at school stop using ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’ as their weapon of choice. In a way I had found my substitute for love. When a friend of mine offered to set me up with a girl who wanted to date me (Gloria), I reluctantly gave her the chance. (This post explains that a bit more).
Gloria and I would enter into a five year relationship. Madonna would provide much of the soundtrack. During this time in my life, Madonna starred in a film called The Next Best Thing with Rupert Everett.
Madonna played a character who had a one night stand with her gay best friend and they end up raising a baby together. As a tie in for the film, Madonna remade the classic song American Pie and released this video:
The video features a lesbian couple kissing at 02:34 and a gay male couple kissing at 02:50. Both the video and the film were complete flops commercially.
The subject of the movie hit home for me then as my dad was gay and Gloria was open of her dislike of that. Her views on my father’s sexuality was often the catalyst to arguments between the two of us.
I remember one night, the two of us were at a party with friends of ours. Gloria and I got into a huge fight and she started calling my dad a faggot and all kinds of other derogatory terms. I had heard enough of this from her and finally told her to fuck off and broke up with her.
Madonna’s song The Power of Goodbye still brings back memories of those days.
The break up didn’t last long. By the end up that summer, the two of us were back together. A month or so later she was moving in with me.
I cared for her. I can even honestly say that I did love her. But it wasn’t a ‘let’s get naked and do it’ love, it was a friend type of love. As Madonna said in the song, she was my lesson that I had to learn.
Gloria had stopped ridiculing my father and we seemed to be getting along pretty well. By this time it was November of 2000. At the end of the month I would be turning 21 and we had made plans to party like rock stars that night.
At least that’s what I thought we did, the night is still a blur to me. I remember Tequila and waking up in bed naked with Gloria. I was incredibly hung over and went back to sleep. I slept most of the day.
Once we had managed to recover we both went about our normal business for the next couple of weeks. Friends and co-workers couldn’t believe that we were back together. I really couldn’t either. I was not happy, but felt this was what I must do.
One night, just as I walked in the door from work, Gloria called me into the other room in a rushed voice. I had hoped that she wanted to have sex because I had closed the restaurant with Aaron, one of the sexiest men alive and I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
I took off my coat and dropped it on the couch. By this time I could see that she was in the bathroom. I walked into the bathroom where I saw Gloria holding a pregnancy test.
This was not the first time I had seen a pregnancy test, there had been scares before. I quickly realized this wasn’t a scare. The line on the test was blue this time.
Inside I was petrified, but I didn’t show it. I could see that she was very shaken so I had to be strong for her. All images of Aaron quickly left my mind and I was forced back into the heterosexual reality that I had created. Suddenly nothing really mattered to me except being the best father I could be.
Gloria loved me and I loved her. I had always been more attracted to men, but I was ready to be in what society considered a ‘normal’ family life.
Over the next 10 months I went to every doctors appointment with Gloria. Each day I grew more and more excited. We decided to find out the sex early and found out that we were having a little girl.
I remember the first time I heard the heartbeat during an ultrasound, it was such a happy time. Gloria was due September 7, 2001.
Later on in the pregnancy the doctors were worried about the amount of water Gloria was retaining. We had to drive to Columbus to get an amniocentesis done to evaluate the situation. Upon the results, our midwife decided to induce labor a couple of weeks early.
Gloria and I packed up our things and went to the Hospital. I quickly started to call our friends and family to let them know. We got to the hospital and got settled in our room. Gloria was not in labor so there was no rush at the time.
My cell phone wouldn’t work in the hospital so I stepped outside to use my phone (and smoke a cigarette as I was incredibly anxious). I must have been outside for no longer than 10 minutes. The doctors weren’t going to start inducing the labor for another hour or so.
In the short time I had been downstairs, Gloria had naturally gone into labor and was 10 centimeters dialated. I quickly rushed to her side where she commented on how much the smell of smoke stunk as well as yelling several other things at me.
About 20 minutes later, On August 16 2001 (Madonna’s birthday) my little star Zoe entered the world.
Related posts:
- Help! My Dad’s Openly Gay and I’m Staying in the Closet! My post The Diary of a Young Closeted Gay Man...
- Note to Madonna: Please Embrace Your Inner Cougar! As a concerned fan I wanted to share this note...
- Diary of a Young Closeted Gay Man As I have mentioned in previous posts, I dated girls...
- Easy Gay Life Around The World I have just started learning how to create a website. ...
- A Heterosexual Relapse I highly recommended that you read my post The ‘System’...
Twitter
Facebook
RSS
Youtube