I began A Coming Out Story in 2005, (spoiler alert) still not knowing after more than thirty years what had become of the object of my affections, still yearning to see him one more time.   I was convinced then that I never would.   Some days when I thought of him I was afraid that maybe he was dead.   Some days I wondered if he’d found and settled down with his other half, some other better guy than me.   Perhaps they were living a happy life together somewhere in the South American land of his birth.   Perhaps one day I might find his panel there among the Names Quilts all laid out in rows on a grassy field under a clear blue sky.   I had no idea.   I needed some way to get it all out of me, and hopefully make some sense of it all in the process.

So I began A Coming Out Story.   And then along the way I finally crossed paths with “T.K.” (not his real initials) and so my past came forward and collided with the present and I was spun ’round and ’round and ’round.   I’m beginning to think now that this is the default state of my life.   I know…I know…   I’m hardly alone in that.   But it really slowed down my progress getting the story out.

I had no idea how I was going to end my cartoon tale.   I figured I would find the end when I got to it.   Well…I know how it ends now.   Hopefully this will make it easier to resume getting the thing out of me.   It isn’t the ending I would have wanted…but it’s the one I have, and oddly, it’s not as bad an ending as it might have been.   I can see a truth here, finally, beyond the ones I had in mind when I started drawing it, that is worth telling.