HEADING FOR THE HEART--Part 1

We are all born as innocents – pure unadulterated love and joy. What happens to us as we are exposed to life in this world only serves to start our journeys back to the heart. By this, I mean that we become products of our environment. We may grow up in dysfunctional families. We may become victimized. We may find ourselves seeking to earn love instead of simply feeling we are worthy of love. We may find that we become attached to various labels such as our sex, our family identity, our social status, our race, our religion, our careers, and so on.

By the time we reach adulthood, we may not know who or what we truly are; that would simply be spirit in human form. Such was the case in my own life. After a lifetime of trying to fill myself up with people, places, and things in order to feel better, I have realized that I am the only one who can do that for myself. I have come to see that I have been on a journey back to the place from which I started. I'm on a journey back to that place of innocence. I'm on a journey where I am headed back to the heart of true love. I am and always have been a spiritual being having a human experience.

My journey has not been an easy one. While I grew up in a family who I believe loved me the best that they could, I never really felt as if I was loved for who I was. I somehow got the idea that I needed to earn love by being a “good boy.”

Neither of my parents seemed to know how to deal with feelings appropriately while I was growing up. Consequently many of my emotional needs were neglected. I can vividly remember being told that I shouldn't feel certain ways. There were a lot of confusing messages. Consequently I learned to play games with myself in order to escape uncomfortable feelings. I didn't know how to handle them.

I knew that I couldn't live up to the standard of the perennial good boy. I played prosecutor and judge in dealing out a verdict of guilty as charged. The judgment that I placed upon myself was to become a sword that would cut deeply. I didn't recognize that I was inherently good. Instead I set myself up by thinking that I needed to be perfect when that's virtually impossible for a human to be. After all, we all make mistakes. The problem was that when I failed at something, I took on the message that I was a failure. I did that to myself.

Such was my emotional life which is mirrored in the lives of most of us to greater and lesser degrees. Yet I had a part of me that experienced freedom whenever I didn't allow myself to be consumed by negative thoughts or feelings. That part of myself was my spirit. I was in touch with that when my mother read me Psalms from the Bible and told me the stories of Jesus. I loved to look at the sunlight coming through the Gentle Shepherd window at church. He looked so real and so kind. The radiance of his soul shone through. I always had a special place for him in my heart.

As a little boy, I was in touch with my spirit when my father would take me outside where I would gaze into the night sky. There he would point out the Big Dipper and the constellations while I gazed in wonder into the vastness of space. I was in awe when I saw a beautiful sunset. I was filled with a sense of freedom when I glided down a ski slope. I felt as if I was flying. Such were the times when I forgot about my problems and was at peace within my soul.

Author Davis Aujourd'hui

THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR - Part 4

I left out an important part of my story. That part has to do with how I finally faced my fear about becoming honest with my parents concerning my sexuality. Here is how it happened:


The fall after my wife had left me, I decided it was time to come out to Mom and Dad. I had decided to come out to them while I was at home for Thanksgiving. This caused a great deal of anxiety for me, but I had spent time discussing this decision with my gay support system. I brought along some books to help educate my parents. One of them was a book written by a very devout religious mother of a gay man, titled My Son Eric. Before I took this step, I spent my Saturday night at a local gay bar I'd heard about.


While there I met a strikingly handsome man with whom I enjoyed a night of passion. I arrived home after a sleepless night to find my mother who had spent her own sleepless night worrying over my whereabouts. She was not pleased about my all-nighter! As Dad and my sister, Patty, joined us in the kitchen, I ended the charade I'd been acting out with my folks and I came out to them.


They were surprised and confused, but they let me know that they still loved me. My father naively suggested that he thought life would go easier for me if I could only get back together with my estranged wife and lead the so-called normal life. I patiently tried to tell them the truth I'd kept to myself all of those years and to start dispelling some of the myths about homosexuality.


Naturally, I conveniently kept the troubling aspects of my compulsive sexuality from them! I pretended to be the perfectly-adjusted gay man. Talk about self-deception! Nevertheless, their acceptance of me based on this new knowledge was such a relief; and, they slowly began their own journeys of overcoming homophobia, as they educated themselves about gay people.


Books and Kindles by Author David Aujourd hui (these two below are at a special price in Kindle  Format for $2.99)


"The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude" Book 1
"Babes in Bucksnort" Book 2

Part 4 Locked in the Closet

I lost my virginity to a girl when I was twenty. I had been desperate to do so since the time I had been seventeen. I thought to myself, “Better late than never.” Unfortunately it did little to stop my homosexual fantasies and longing.

I found a steady girlfriend the following year and we began an ongoing romantic and sexual relationship. I proposed to her during the following year. I wanted so very much to be normal and to marry. I believed that I loved her. I hoped that, by marrying her, it would put my curse to bed for good. That was not to be.

I had graduated from college the year before I proposed. I went away to grad school, leaving my girlfriend who was still in college behind. We would have occasional reunions. Yet, while I was living on my own for the first time, my longings for sex with men became incredible cravings. I thought as if I was coming out of my skin.

I met a homosexual when I had been looking for an apartment. He told me he didn't want me as a roommate because he didn't want one who was gay. I was flabbergasted! How could he have possibly known? He planted a seed when he suggestively said, “Give me a call when you move into your own place and we can get together.”

When I moved to my new apartment, I often thought about calling him. Many times I would pick up the phone and dial the number only to slam the phone down before the call went through. I was in a panic and I didn't know what to do. I felt dirty and ashamed. I just wanted to die.

Within a month, I was desperate and horribly depressed. I couldn't concentrate on my schoolwork. I felt like a failure. I began to think that the only way out would be to end my life. Fortunately I reached out for help from a counselor. Afterward I made the decision to drop out of school.

With my head hung in shame, I packed up my apartment and headed to my parents' home. I felt like my life was over, but I felt safer now that I was away from temptation. The only thing that I thought would save me from a fate worse than death would be to get married. The other fate to which I referred would be to live my life as a homosexual.

Author Davis Aujourd'Hui


Sister Mary Olga Book Series:

"The Misadventures  of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude" (Book 1)

"Babes in Bucksnort" (Book 2)

Part 3- Locked in the Closet

By the time I got to college, my sexual feelings had become unbearable. Still I clung to my secret and I took pains to be like the other boys. Whenever the subject of queers came up, I would be one of the first ones to make fun of them. I never stopped to think that those who protested so much might become suspect. Fortunately no one suspected me.

I was taunted by a college roommate who suggested I would like to be sexual with him. I couldn't believe that a straight guy would have been serious. I ignored the innuendo even though I longed for such an encounter. I believed I would be damned and scorned was I to act upon my impulses.

One night I found a message written on a bathroom wall by a guy who indicated that he wanted to have sex. The fellow had a name, “Butch,” and, he was kind enough to provide a phone number. I furtively copied it down, but kept restraining myself from giving into the impulse to call him; eventually, I caved.

I found a private phone booth located in the business school and went there when no one was within sight. Then, sweating bullets, I dialed the number and asked to speak to Butch. I tried to be cool when he came on the line, even though I was squirming in my pants.

He didn't make it easy for me when I said, “I'm calling about the message you left in the student union bathroom.”

He coyly asked me, “Just what did my message say?”

My voice quavered when I whispered the contents of the message, “It said to call you for a B.J.”

I was shaking as I waited for his response, but he purred a question, “What's your name?” I gave him my real first name only.

He then coolly asked me, “Where do you live?”

I was too afraid to tell him my exact address, so I lied. I gave him the address of the dorm next to mine.
Suddenly his voice took on a hateful and angry tone as he snarled at me, “Well, you fag, I'm going to get my rifle and come down to your dorm and give you the blow job of your life when I blow you away!”

I quickly hung up the phone, literally shaking in my shoes from my fear and abject shame. My shame was only compounded when I exited the phone booth. My academic adviser was standing at the adjacent bulletin board, posting notices. Oh my God!

Author Davis Aujourd'Hui

Sister Mary Olga Book Series:
"The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude"
"Babes in Bucksnort"