Singing Cadets with former President and First Lady George H. W. & Barbara Bush.

My whole life I had been taught that being gay was wrong, unnatural, and against God's word. It was only after moving away from home, to College Station, I was able to get out of my sheltered home life and discover who Darrell really was. I joined the corps and dropped out because I was so confused. I joined the Singing Cadets, and found my niche, along the way I met other gay people, and realized that I wasn't the only one out there.

I began to discover that all the things I was taught and ingrained into me might not be right. I discovered that it doesn't matter what you were taught, and you will never be happy until you do things for yourself. I contracted mono from living in the dorms, and failed most of my courses the spring semester. The summer after my freshmen year, after my trip to England, I came out to my mother, unknowing and against my wishes, she told my sister and father. My stepfather then told me those famous words every child dreads to hear, "Do what we say and we will still pay for college." I was forced to go to counseling at church, where bias of the issue existed. So the counselor summed up me being gay to growing up without my father around in the formative years. So I told them what they wanted to hear, and went back to college.

After I moved back to College Station the depression and stress of how my mother reacted, was unbearable. I withdrew from A&M, and for the first time, lived with my father and stepmother. A few weeks later my dad told me he knew I was gay, that he didn't like it, but no matter what I was still his son, he loved me, and he wanted me to have a good life and be happy. So for the next 9 months I worked a minimum wage job eight hours a day 6 days a week.

This job emphasized how important a college education was to me. My dad's parents called me one day and said "we want you back in school." They told me that they wanted me to move to east Texas to live with them, and they would pay for school, until I can bring my grades up, to go back to A&M. So I did. My dad wasn't very happy, but I moved out anyway. I began attending Kilgore College.

While at KC, I got involved in web & graphic design , and started working as a file clerk at a florist. A friend at Kilgore College then introduced me to John.

Things hit it off well from the beginning. In the meantime I came out to my grandparents. To relieve the strain on them, I moved out, and into an apartment with John. I fell in love,and journeyed to Vermont to get "married" or have a civil union. When we got back my car broke down, and I transferred to Panola College, where John attended. The next several months were good, we both worked jobs at a call center. But around November of 2001, John's grandma passed away, and he decided (without talking about it with me), we would move in with his mother to help take care of her four kids. This normally wouldn't have been a problem however, they lived in two mobile homes attached to each other, the floors were rotten, the roofs leaked, and it was pretty much a trashy, unpleasant place to live. I refused to move. So he told me "Ok you can stay here and pay all the bills on your own." I had no choice, I had to move, and live like white trash.

This was a final straw for me. From that point on things went down hill. John's mother met a man online in Florida, and suddenly moved one night to live with him, with her four kids, all under the age of 18. Shortly after that John and I got in a big fight and I moved my things into his mother's old room. This was just after our one year anniversary. We then fought almost everyday, I was even choked during one fight. He kept asking me to reconcile, but I told him not unless he gave me some space. He never did. So I let him know I was gonna move back to College Station, alone, at the end of the semester. He then made me pay him to take me to school, in our car. When the time came for me to begin packing, I went to him and asked him to give me the things I had left in "our" room, but he refused. This then began the biggest feud of them all. The weekend before I was to move I once again asked him for my things, he again refused, so when he was at work, I went into the room, and all of my things were missing, he hid them somewhere. When he returned home I asked him for my things, he said I couldn't have them, because I had his fan, which was my only means of air conditioning.

In my anger I proceeded to break some of the trashy things his mother left behind, he then began to choke me, once again. I couldn't breathe, so I had to bite him to get away. I then broke more things and demanded he give me my dishes. So he gave them to me in 1000 pieces after he threw them onto the floor. I then punched him, but he began to run after me, and outside, he threw me on the ground, and bit me, I got away. In my anger, I grabbed his grandmothers ashes, and was going to hide them in the woods, but before I even got off the driveway, his internet trick and fat uncle both weighing over 250lbs each tackled me from behind. His uncle, took the ashes, and walked away, but his fat trick grabbed me in a headlock, and started dragging me back to the house, at this point I feared for my life. So I managed to get away somehow, and I ran barefoot, down the rock drive way, and then down the county road to the nearest neighbor who was home.

I was bleeding, crying, and shaking. They called the sheriff for me, and I then was taken to the Sheriff's Office to wait for my grandparents, the nearest people that could help. After my grandparents picked me up, they took me back to John's to get some clothes. I ran in, grabbed what I could find since most of my things were in boxes, and ran out. They couldn't believe I was living in such poor conditions. We went to their house. The next few days were finals, but I only had two on one day. So I spent the next few days helping my grandma with her flower beds, and arranging to get a Uhaul.

My dad drove up on moving day, I didn't even have to ask. He followed me to John's and we packed the rest of my things, leaving whatever John and I collected together. We then packed up the Uhaul and I left the worst part of my life behind. I only had about $400.00 and a credit card. When I got to College Station, I moved in with someone I thought was a friend. He, however, had ulterior motives for me living there, he wanted to date me. How could a friend, after all I had just been through, expect me to jump back into a relationship. No way José. So because I didn't give him the relationship he wanted, he began to harass me by deleting my instant messenger buddies, then sabotaging my computer & phone line, and ultimately calling the police and filing bogus complaints about me, and finally going into a chat rooms and telling everyone lies about me. So after living there only three weeks, luckily I hadn't paid anything to live there yet, I moved into my own apartment and got a job working in another call center.

That summer I began to try to get back into A&M I wrote letters about my hardships, and was reaccepted back into the college of architecture. My first semester was pretty average, I went to school, and worked, and went home. I barely had enough money to pay bills, and had to charge more things. I was eating one meal a day. This was the semester we welcomes a new addition to our family, my new (half) sister Kylie. She's no less my sister than a full sister would be. She is the sweetest and cutest little girl ever, and was a nice surprise addition to our family. The following January (2003) Just after receiving my financial aid refund, I was cooking, the grease caught fire, the fire jumped up the wall, and my entire kitchen was in flames. Wearing only boxers and a t-shirt I ran out into the cold rainy night, and had the neighbors call 911.

Apartment fires suck.

The fire destroyed everything in my kitchen, except the dishes, and melted everything else in the apartment, except for things at waist level and below. Luckily the fire didn't spread out of my unit. The apartment manager was very nice and understanding, she asked me to stop by the next day to get a key to a new apartment, she also told me that I could take my time sifting through the ashes, to get my things cleaned, and that she wouldn't begin remodeling the apartment until i got everything I wanted. My mom and step-dad came up the next day to help me get things situated. I went to get the key and finally got to see the damage in my apartment in daylight. My printer and computer monitor melted, and some other things were way too damaged to save. Luckily alot of my clothes were dirty, and in a laundry basket on the floor. My mom and step dad helped me alot, helping to restore some faith I had in her that she would one day accept who I was. By the end of the day I had a new bed, $400, and the car I drove in high school was put in my name.

The devastation I had from my fire made it difficult for me to stay in school, but I did until I received a letter from financial aid stating I was awarded too much and that I had to pay it back to A&M. This added more to the stress of the fire. I had to get another loan, on top of my student loans I already had to pay for school. I began to sift through the remaining things in my burned apartment, luckily, alot of things were just dirty, and salvageable, everyday I would go into the apartment, and clean some things and bring them over, but if you know how a fire works, it gets everything dirty. So this was becoming a difficult task. Before the fire I quit my job due to the class load I had that semester. So I had no cash, I owed my landlord rent, and a month later I found two men throwing away everything I had salvaged from my fire. The manager had broken her promise. So let them know I wasn't gonna pay them until I was reimbursed for the items they had thrown away.

Devon & I at his 2003 senior prom.

Just after my fire, I met Devon, a high school senior, and right away we hit it off. A month later I received an eviction letter, after my landlord refused to reimburse me for what they threw away after the fire. So Devon, and his mother Shari allowed me to move in with them, their dog Dakota and cat Chloe. I went to his senior prom with him. We eventually moved out on our own, adopted 2 cats, one in 2003, Salem; and another in 2006, Morgan. During the first few years of our relationship I worked my way up from a student worker, to a web designer at a local company, to the creative director at the same company. After being together for 5 years it was time for Devon to do his summer internship for school, we had discussed it, and I was prepared to quit my job and move with him to his internship in Austin. He had a job offer there, but didn't take it, and took another job offer he had in Dallas. So since I despised Dallas, I accepted a job offer with a 33% pay increase, and stayed in BCS. This was the beginning of the end of "us".

My house, before.

In October of 2008, I was browsing home listings, and found a house that I had tried to purchase a year earlier (I fell in love with it, and was disappointed when someone else got it,) was back on the market. I immediately called a realtor. I saw the house, applied for a loan, got approved, made an offer and had it accepted in the period of a week. I was able to find someone to sublet the apartment, and moved in with Shari for a week, until Devon returned & the house closing. When he returned, things felt off, but I was too excited, the closing was the following day. That morning I woke up to snow on the ground, it was white and beautiful everywhere, a dream world. The closing took about 90 minutes, and I was handed the keys to my very first home.

September 2009, we lost my step-grandmother, and 2-days following my sister and brother-in-law John Hubbell welcomed their first child, Sydney Nicole, into the world. I was there for the life-changing event, the moment I layed my eyes and that beautiful baby, I fell in love.

It's now been more than seven months of being single, I've continued to do more on my house, I still love it. I'm loving being an uncle, have dated a few guys on & off, I'll do my best to continue adding onto this, the saga of my life.

 Family of Darrell R. Wiggins, Jr.