My first true friend

Today I was thinking about a friend I have not hear about in ages, Boris. He was my first real friend. We met in hospital, and basically all my friends apart from Athena and her family members are hospital acquaintances. My University fellows are recent acquaintances, and they are sort of true friends, even if I do not know how far I can trust them. Back in 2002, I knew I could trust Athena, and as I was admitted to hospital for the second time, I got to know that I could trust Boris.

I was still picturing what my life would have become. Still looking for myself, my identity, my character, my own personality. I had cut off contact to my family, which had called me a whore because I had a boyfriend and which did not bear the fact to have a depressive, schizophrenic relative. I was alone. My boyfriend was of no help, he was abusive and all he had to offer were insults on the phone because he wanted me to leave the hospital to go live with him in a remote valley of Austria. He claimed possession on me, and he was madly jealous. This is the time on which I started questioning commitment, and this is the time on which Boris helped me see things as I see them today.

Boris was gay. A very handsome gay guy. He was married to a South American man, very attractive too. I saw him once. Boris once told me that he also had boyfriends, because his husband was very often abroad. I was astonished, I could not understand that. I almost judged him. Boris told me that he was no possession of his husband, he was a possession only of himself. They both agreed on that. And this was the best policy, because nobody is monogamous. After a while, you start questioning your relationship and having curiosity for someone else. I was still an idealist, I was convinced that I would have found the love of my life one day, that I would have married, and lived forever in happiness and serenity. Boris did not want to hurt my feelings or destroy my dreams, but he warned me from having from this vision, as this was a utopia. Also, one day he asked me very directly why the hell I had a boyfriend whereas I was a lesbian. I did not realize that it was so evident that I was a lesbian, but he was very sensitive, and he did not need me to tell him. He told me something I did not want to acknowledge, and he was the first person to which I came out.

He told me from the very beginning, after talking for a while, that it would have never been easy to be gay. Not in a homophobe world. It was a matter of acceptance. But if I accepted myself as a gay person within myself, it was already a good step ahead. If I accepted myself as belonging to myself, it was already a good step ahead. I had always been property of someone else. First, of my mother; then, of my boyfriend. Boris told me to free myself from possession, since I had the right to decide what had to happen with my body. In fact, the only acts of rebellion against possession of others were the cuts I inflicted on my body, maybe to feel I was in power to give myself a sort of remote pleasure. Boris told me to quit cutting and to start claiming back property on myself. It lasted years until I managed to do so, but I eventually did it. I left that horny animal of my boyfriend, decided to live as a homosexual woman, even if my parents still do not know about it.

I would like to meet Boris again, if he is still alive. I am grateful to him, and his memory is dear to me.