It was in the locker room of the gym when I saw the woman, standing with her back to me applying lotion to her legs. She was naked. I was mesmerized. With the quickness of a snap, the hold on me released and the question emerged from the fog, "Am I gay?"
I was 44 and the proverbial chalkboard of my life boasted many checkmarks: college—check; marry a nice man—check; house in the suburbs—check; career—check; kids—check and check. Throw in a couple of cats and a yearly beach vacation and my blackboard was worthy of the A-plusses Ralphie imagined on his Christmas theme paper in the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story." Just as his fantasy disintegrated by seeing the big red C along with the comment, "You'll shoot your eye out," so was my blackboard erased as I entered liminality when I leaped into the unknowing in search of an answer to the question.
