Finding My Own Home

Within Alison Bechdel’s novel Fun Home, she appears to draw out specific moment in her past life that help her come to terms with some of the things she is dealing with in her present life. She breaks through barriers and comes to terms with many of her past problems and the way she does that is by connecting herself to the things she feels most distant from. The rest of my paper is to be read without any intention of judgment to be made on others. This is how I feel of myself. This is a reflection of myself, and a personal connection I found within Alison Bechdel’s novel Fun Home.

            It has been hard for me to face my many new responsibilities and challenges that I’ve imposed on myself. Facing identity and sexual confusion has put barriers between me and what I am. I use to hate with a passion who I was, but I can’t help the fact of how I feel about things. My confusion has broken walls down in my thinking, leaving me endless visions. I’m beginning to see things as they are and as they exist, and this is pulling me away from whom I was. Which is now a good thing in my eyes.

Before, I had people telling me what was right and what was wrong and I never had that father figure to guide me on the right path so all I could do was take the word of others and fall into line with their beliefs. Reading through Alison Bechdel’s novel, I could draw similar experiences; from the being told what to wear (99) how to act, the list goes on and on. In today’s society, everything is pushed on you. From where to live, where to sit, where to eat, how to drink, every little detail has been painted on a canvas and we are expected to follow it. Everything seems to be painted, but whos holding the paintbrush?
           I wish, and I say this with a lack of faith, that there was no good or evil, good or bad side, heaven or hell, but this was not a reality, but a mere fantasy of my world. Thinking this way separated me from the reality that I do wrong, especially in my thinking. So, I got caught in these fantasies that separated me from my innate guilt. Handling all these thoughts stressed me out, it inhibited me from my work and studies, my life. These ideas burdened me. They captured me, because what I was wanted these fantasies to exist. They would make my life easier. Such things are foolish thoughts, because “God” was the only one that made things easier.
            And, I say this for myself, with “sinful” experiences and adult responsibilities, come great hardships. My experiences were actions made by impulsive and thoughtless “sinful” motives. This was brought on by my fantasy way of thinking. My responsibilities include all those of adults, which are working for basic needs, finances and miscellaneous expenses. Over all, I had the responsibility to keep what I’ve been internally given safe. That is, safe from my exterior self. My name is Johnny and I have written these words, which have been brought out internally, to free me of my conscious.

On Nov. 27, 2012 at 12:26 a.m. I begin writing about this idea that I have brought on, “What I Am.”

I am a Homosexual being. I find beauty in Men; this is what I am attracted to. This is what I am, in my human interior and exterior. When I see a man, I see his features. I see his structure, stature, composition and poise. I see his masculinity. His aesthetic features, which include physical attributes, which are relatively attractive to me. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be this way. It was built within my cognition, such as common sense, which some don’t seem to have. But how does any of this really connect to Fun Home?
            Sometimes I think about the fact that I’m getting old and then I think about what it was like when I was younger and I remember being an innocent eight year old on Neopets spending four hours trying to make a blue loop between my grandma shuffling me off to eat breakfast and our terrible dialup connection. Then I think about how innocent I was and how I had no idea how much the world could (and does) suck, and how even though the kids my age were bulling me I was still okay as long as I was on the computer, by myself, where I was safe because no one had to know the real me. And now I am an adult with no way to pretend that the world isn’t a terrible place and I lost that anonymity because the dynamics of the internet have changed and then I get really nostalgic and I wish I could just go back in time and take eight year old Johnny and just keep him from getting disillusioned with things because I think I stopped being that innocent little kid way too early on in life…

As a kid, life was just fun and games, nothing was serious and everything and anything could just be pretend. And that’s how it was, at least in my eyes. Bechdel goes through a similar route, growing up, she was young and did things just because. She wore her hair short because it felt good, she played with the boys because it was fun. In the world, nothing is wrong until someone states that it is such. And throughout Fun Home, Bechdel lives through so much of what is “wrong” and experiences this through the novel. Something similar happened in my life and I found this novel to be one that I loved only because it allowed me to connect personally.

After reading Fun Home, I thought long and hard about what so many of the stories she told meant and there’s so much she allows her readers to see and I appreciate it even more. To allow yourself to confess something so personal takes not only courage but also a desire to understand and to be understood. As humans, we find ourselves constantly battling these internal wars that need to be resolved in order to find peace in life. And one can only be so lucky to find that peace in time. This novel has so many hidden messages; not only visually but, physically, mentally, emotionally and literally. The distance Bechdel reveals not only between her father but the distance separating her family links to me personally and others I can assume as well.

With her novel, Bechdel paves way for gays and lesbians to find their inner truths. She answers questions and provides details of her personal life in order to show how hidden things, always tend to come.