Like Me by Chely Wright Page A

together. I was on the road most of the time and was thankful for the distraction. I called her at her office on a Monday morning to say hello. She asked me how my weekend had been. I filled her in on the details of promoting my record and asked her what she’d done over the weekend. She said, “Oh, Phillip and I got married.”
    I gave a halfhearted wish of congratulations and got off the phone. I was angry with her for going through with it, but I was also able to recognize that her marrying Phillip was a desperate Hail Mary heaved in the direction of “normal.” I continued to focus on my career and was as busy as I wanted to be. Considering that the woman I loved had just gotten married to someone else, staying busy was the only thing I could do.
    The days that I wasn’t on the road touring, doing promotion for my record, or doing a photo shoot, I was writing songs back in Nashville at my office on Music Row. I was co-writing with Harlan Howard, Whitey Shafer, and Bobby Braddock, among others. I was, as they say in the South, “walking in high cotton.” When I missed Julia, I’d tell myself to get over it and be thankful for the other things that were going so well for me.
    I didn’t really want to hear the details of their newlywed life, so I stayed away. On occasion, I would accept their invitation to go out to dinner or to just spend time at their apartment for acouple of hours. I was doing my best to tell myself that if I couldn’t love Julia as my girlfriend, I’d rather have her in my life as a friend. Soon they announced to me that they were buying a house, and the three of us piled into Phillip’s truck and went to look at it.
    I wanted to be happy for them, but I felt an incredible amount of hurt. I wondered if she was hoping that being with him, married for all of Music Row to see, would replace me. I wondered if the amenities of that marriage would be enough for her. A brand-new house, the new Chihuahua puppy they’d just bought together, the title of “Mrs.,” and a joint checking account—did all of that add up to be as good as or better than having me?
    Suffering that kind of rejection was overwhelming. I was forced to rationalize. The only reason I survived those particular months was because my brain kicked into high gear and continued to remind me of my reality. I was an up-and-coming country music singer, living in Nashville, Tennessee, and there had never been an openly gay country music star. I knew that I could not—I would not—be the first.
    Being on the road during the release of my first album was an exhilarating experience that filled some of the voids I felt in my life. I took it in and allowed myself to be distracted by my new routines. I missed Julia every day. I wrote notes to her in my hotel rooms that I never sent. I had conversations with her in my head and sometimes spoke my words out loud when I could find private moments. As tormented as I was personally, it was impossible to deny the fact that my job was a blast. Sometimes I’d lie in my bunk as the tour bus rolled down the road and take inventory of all that I was enjoying. I had a contract with a major record label, a song on the radio, a music video on TV, my own tour bus, my own six-piece band and four-man crew, people to dress me, a hair and makeup artist, and more fans than I could count in a lifetime. I began to look at all of the positives as anemotional consolation prize. I guessed that if there were other public people like me who were gay and hiding, they probably felt just like I did. I’m sure they too hoped and prayed that career achievements and success would be enough to sustain their happiness.

    With George Brett, after I sang the National Anthem at a Kansas City Royals season opener in 2005
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A Dream Come True
    I n the spring of 1995, I was nominated for the Top New Female Vocalist award by the Academy of Country Music. The award show would air live on national television from Los Angeles. I was