An Authentic Life - from The Current 2016

An Authentic Life

Dan Jimenez counts his blessings. He was married for 20 years, he manages a successful jewelry chain - Prestigo Jewelers next to JC Penny’s in Stockton and at seven other locations throughout California - and he has come out as himself.

When I first meet Dan at downtown Starbuck’s, he is dressed in a summery blue polka dot button down shirt and cool bermuda shorts. Jewels - not so much unlike those of his childhood idol Grace Kelly - sparkle below his chin. A look that makes people smile.

But this isn’t for show. It is consequence of Dan being himself, the best possible version of himself that he can be.

Early in life, Dan hid who he was. He lived a double life and promised his younger sister Lupe that he would never sleep with men. She caught him at his family’s house on Robert’s Island with a man in his thirties when he was just 16 or 17. She freaked out, whipped out the tequila, and called his older siblings - 2 girls and 3 boys. They all cried, hashed it out, and finally Dan caved.

His sister was one of his best friends. He didn’t want to hurt her. So he promised her - no more men.

Life went on and time crawled on in the islands.

Dan - who has an ease that makes others eager to listen to him - kept charming girls as his sweethearts. But six weeks after his encounter with another man he said to himself, “I can’t live like this anymore,” and snuck off to Stockton. He headed to Eden Park to meet boys and to The Gay 90’s across the street, the boldly-named first gay bar and safe space in Stockton. An older boy befriended him, took him around to various LGBT/gay hangouts in the area, and that was that.

Except that it wasn’t: Dan still lived a double life.

His compromise for his sister took its toll.

Dan continued to draw inspiration from women but concealed his gayness. He dressed well, but the clothes he wore didn’t always express his true self. He let himself be wined and dined by glamorous dames but always kept one true sweetheart for himself on the side. A boy, and later a man, that he would spoil with treasures. To these young men, and to himself, he said, “I cleanse myself, because I do all of this for you.”

Finally, when Dan was 36, he had enough. He was going to be himself with everyone, everywhere.

And that changed things. No more masks, and no more shame.

He realized that all of his spirit-draining efforts to be accepted by others were responses to his own imagination. “There’s a fine line between how you’re portraying yourself to be accepted by others and how you see yourself. It’s from your own eyes but not their eyes. I came out and said, ’I can’t live like this anymore - I’m gonna be me and I’m gonna be fabulous.”

Since then, Dan has lived a fabulous life. He has become a leader in the LGBTQ+ community. He regularly gets invited to weddings by the grateful couples he assists in his management position at Prestigo. He has been open to receiving the gifts the world has given him, and he has loved.

Dan had a near-death experience once when he was visiting the Grand Mansion Inn. He was in a convertible accident and he tried to help his friends but his skull ended up being crushed “into a hundred pieces” by the convertible mechanism. Hours later, at UC Davis Hospital, he heard the medical staff and his friends around him announce, “He’s gone. Call it.” But he was alive, and he felt himself floating in the air, with fabric spiralling and unravelling all around him. He came to life, recovered, and now surrounds himself with fabrics that he finds beautiful.

This is a reminder for Dan of second chances.

Give him an old piano and he’ll make a bar out of it. Then he’ll send it home to its original owner. Like him, those things simply need to be salvaged, remade, and given a second chance. These things Dan understands.