The Hard Way

The past few months have been full of change and disappointment and realizations about how this world, and the people in it*, really are. It's been sobering and sad. But, there are some things I know now:

1. People really have a hard time when someone is honest and says no when they are not able to do those things themselves. This is very, very threatening to people. How dare I set boundaries if they (mistakenly) believe that they can't?! How dare I.

2. People think that they have authority to tell other people how they should be and how they should live in this world, with seemingly zero awareness that no one knows another person's life, path, motivations, or reasons for making the thousands of decisions we all make each day. It is stunning how many times I have been told how to be, and that who I am and how I take up space in this world is wrong, without ever being asked who I am, why I am, or what I'm going through.

3. Working as hard as I have to be more and more authentic each and every day, and being honest and clear about my boundaries, my needs, and my wishes, leads to a lot of people feeling that I am challenging and dangerous. It's hard to be treated as dangerous when I am just trying to live without the burdens of being who everyone else wants me to be--being who they want me to be so that they feel more comfortable, but then I am left feeling caged, pinned in. I lived that way for most of my life, but refuse to stay in that cage anymore. I am not dangerous, just real. The two are synonymous apparently.

4. People seem much more willing to abandon me and write me off for telling my truth (and not even in a mean or aggressive way--most of the time, in fact, I speak from a place of caring and vulnerability), than deal with the realities of their own choices and lives, which they choose to ignore, but I do not.

5. Being honest in this world isolates me more than I ever would have guessed. It doesn't matter that I am honest with compassion, not cruelty. I was told that "the truth hurts" and therefore it should sometimes, often, not be said. I know, though, that secrets, lies, repression, and suppression hurt much more.

 

I have learned these things the hard way.

 

I will keep telling my truth.

 

(* for those following along, this post has nothing to do with my romantic life! All is wonderfully well with Elle.)

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Confessional

I need to write about what happened to me in the past two years. I don't want to.

I need to put these words down, though. I need to get them out of my body, stop carrying them. They have been stalking me lately. Tap-tap-tapping on my brain. You need to look at me. You can't ignore me forever. I'm hurting you.

I need to write about this because until I do I can't process it. Until I do I don't really have to process it. 

I have to process it.

TW: alcoholism

--

Can't not.

Well. I finally NEED to write.

Why, you may wonder?

This weekend I'm packing up all of my stuff and moving it out of Elle's apartment.

Elle's apartment.

Not ours, anymore.

Was it ever?

I don't live there anymore. I haven't for awhile and it's better that I don't. Of course.

But.

The fact that this is what my weekend will be, that this weekend I will be packing my self out of that space where so much happened, where so much was gained, and lost, has rattled me. I feel awful. Depressed. I think I'm dehydrated. I feel fuzzy and sad and anxious and lonely and also ready for it to just be done.

I feel out of sorts and like I don't understand what my life is. Why is this my life? How is this my life? I feel completely out of control and terrified. I also know that I did the best I could (whatever that means, whatever that's worth). That this needs to happen. Needed to happen. I know all of that.

I know that I have capital-g-capital-t Good Things happening, too. And I should be, and am, really fucking grateful for a lot of things, for what I have, even as I feel so utterly, helplessly unmoored. I am grateful.

But I'm mad. I'm mad that everything is so hard and that at the end of the day you always have to deal with your shit alone. No matter how much love you have, how many people are supporting you, how many things are good.

Still, at the end of the day only you can deal with your shit. Only you can lie in the bed you've made.

Unmade.

And it all hurts.

Even the good, right things hurt?

Ain't that a kick in the pants.

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Mormonsandgays.org

In high school, I had several Mormon friends.  In high school, no one was out as a gay person. At least not in my small social circle. Now, of course, almost everyone I was truly friends with in high school, including the male friend I went to prom with, has come out as gay, including myself.  Funny how that works out.

One of my Mormon high school friends was a "best friend." We talked every day, had lunch together, and ultimately, I attended the non-religious portion of her wedding celebration, as non-Mormons weren't allowed to witness the actual ceremony.  I say this just to highlight that we were close.

At this point, I haven't seen this friend in...probably 8 years? Maybe more.   All of our interaction now is via facebook, and from this, I know that she has 4 children, lives on the west coast, and fervently supported Mitt Romney.  I have not come out to her, but if you look at my facebook page these days, it's very, very obvious that I am gay.

Today, I posted a link on facebook to this picture of an older, interracial gay couple looking overjoyed together at the prospect of being able to get married in Washington state, after over 40 years together.

 This friend commented on the picture, saying something fairly off-color, I think, but I won't quote her here on the off chance that she somehow comes across this very gay blog. The point is that she clearly saw that I posted that picture, and that I was in support of what the picture represents--marriage equality. I commented back in a light-hearted way, in an attempt to not let her weird comment sour the post. Keepin' it light, and all that.

An hour later, she posts a link to this website: Mormonsandgays.org. With no comment. Just a link.

She has NEVER posted anything about gay-ness on her page, and has never before commented on any of the many gay things I post regularly.  But she posts this today. And of course I clicked through.

And it made me sad, what I read. Here's a sample:

Attraction to those of the same sex, however, should not be viewed as a disease or illness. We must not judge anyone for the feelings they experience. Members of the Church who have same-sex attractions, but don’t act on them, can continue to enjoy full fellowship in the church, which includes holding the priesthood, carrying out callings, and attending the temple. Unlike in times past, the Church does not necessarily advise those with same-sex attraction to
marry those of the opposite sex. Same-sex attraction itself is not a sin, but yielding to it is. However, through repentance Jesus Christ will offer forgiveness.

And it goes on, and on, from there.

My reaction to this is confusion and sadness and anger and indignation.  Does this religious organization actually think that having a pastel-hued website for gay people, in which they calmly and lovingly say that it's okay if you're gay, as long as you live your entire life without ever having a sexual relationship, because you can't have sex unless your married, and oh, by the way, marriage is only for a man and a woman, but you can do it, we know you can, because this is your mortal test, and marrying someone of the same sex is morally wrong, and we know it's hard, but don't you worry, we love you!--do they really think that this is supposed to be a comfort??

Really!?? <<insert "Really!!???!! with Seth and Amy" gif here>>

I am baffled, and incensed, and very curious if gay Mormons read that website and are left with a sense of relief and support. I don't see how, unless they somehow fail to notice that between the pretty, well-written lines is an upsetting, depressing message of rejection and support of inequality.

I wonder what my high school friend thinks of this message. I assume that she supports it. I hope that I am wrong.

I would be very curious to hear others' reactions to this--feel free to comment.

Breakdown

It's 1 am on Saturday night. I'm alone in my apartment. And I just had a bit of an emotional breakdown. Just for a few minutes. But it happened. And I think I needed it.

There's a lot going on right now.  Most pressing is that in the next 14 days I have to either let my current landlord know I'll be leaving here for at least another year, or that I'm peace-ing out by October 31. Most stressful is that I have the biggest paper of my life due in less than 3 months.  Most sad is that as I write this my mother is in Connecticut, sitting at the bedside of her older sister, who is dying.

I went and looked at an apartment today, seeing what my options are in my quest to move out of my current neighborhood, which is....loud. Too loud for me, at least.  I unexpectedly have a chance to move, which I thought I wouldn't have until at least a year from now, and so I set out to see if maybe I actually can.  The apartment that I saw today was...okay.  I think it's maybe a little bigger than my current place. Maybe. But it's definitely not as nice.  It would be quieter (probably) than my current place. But it's not as nice of an apartment.  This didn't really hit me until I was back here and realized---I have a NICE apartment. It's small, and this building is kind of dirty, and I really do hate this street, but.... My actual apartment? These 4 walls and huge bathroom that I get to call my own? Really. Fucking. Nice.  This was never so clear to me as it was after seeing that other apartment today.

Huh.

So I'm sitting here, dazedly realizing that I probably am going to stay here for another year, as much as I bemoan my neighbors, and this street, and this neighborhood, and even though I just sold my car today so that I would have the money to move (also so that I would no longer have the headache of paying to have a car in New York)...and I start wandering around my little space, thinking about the things that I can do that I've been putting off, that I should really just DO if I'm gonna be here awhile. I looked at empty shelf space that could be filled with clutter-turned-thing-in-its-proper-place, and absent-mindedly went through one such pile.  I found a photo envelope with pictures in it that I'd forgotten I'd had printed before I moved in.  Pictures of my parents and my brother.  I had never taken them out of the envelope, had let them get buried in a pile of office supplies.  I looked at each of them for a long time, and felt...suddenly, and strongly, and all at once, sad, lost, alone, regretful.

I realized that I miss them. That I would like to see them, as much as I often feel that I don’t, really.  I marveled at how happy my parents look in that picture from their trip to New York a few years ago. How much my brother and I look alike--how that is still true, despite the years and years of pain and misunderstanding between us.  I cried for how far away from them I feel, how far away from them I am, how that’s exactly what I intended, and how it turns out it actually hurts a bit, to get what you want.  I felt a deep and sharp loss that startled me, and made me think of my mother, spending the weekend with her older sister, her sister who is slowly, yet quickly, dying of cancer.  How this is the…fifth (?) loss like this that she has endured. And how I can only guess at the pain she is in, and how I might never really know what she is going through, and how sad I am for her.  And I cried for my mother, and the fact that it took this long for me to realize how sad I am for her, losing another person she loves.  And I cried that she won’t let me in to her real life, her emotional life...and how I learned from her.

And then my tears were about all of my own fears and doubts and worries, that I apparently don’t let myself really feel as often as I think I do. Because it all came slamming through tonight.  And it hurts.  Life hurts.

I imagine you know what I mean.