It's happening again. I'm finding that I'm withdrawing into myself. I'm not out seeking people to talk to, despite my increased activity commenting on other's blogs; I'm not interested in a dialog. I'm just talking. Talking for the sake of wanting, needing, having something to say. And I've been saying a lot.
It seems silly to write huge comments on other's blogs when I not looking for interaction. Better to just write a big long post here that says the same thing and have it all in a concise easy to find location. I have a hard time remembering where I've posted my comments many times. Subscribing only works for a while and only if other people make comments. But, eventually, the activity dies down and it's all forgotten.
Looking in my Google reader, I am currently following 226 (and counting) blogs. Granted a few are Info/News sites and about a dozen or so of them are BDSM related, but the rest are very much the MoHo (Mormon Homosexual) blogosphere. I spend a lot of time poking into other people's lives. Mostly lurking, looking on from the outside. But I'm also moving further to the outside. Further away from the blogging community that I've currently found myself in.
I never set out to get blog listed into the infamous MoHo blogosphere, but it's there. I don't really know when it happened. I just noticed it one day. I was both honored and irritated by it at the same time. It honored me to get exposure, irritated me because it drove me to write things that would appeal to that particular audience. I felt a bit cornered. And I think it kept me from phasing out of the MoHo blogosphere arena as my ideas evolved. I don't consider myself a Mormon. I had resigned from the Mormon church the previous year before officially starting this blog.
So, as I've been commenting on other bogs I'm realizing more so now than ever before that I think very differently than most MoHo's. I don't connect with those who are still seeking acceptance with the religion and their religious family. I was never fully part of the Mormon culture growing up and I had given up even trying to be accepted by the culture long before I ever dealt with my sexuality, which then cemented the dichotomy into permanence. Ironic in that it took me years to discover and undo the habitual faking behaviors that I had developed as a coping mechanism to at least get by. Even though I wore tall black boots and long hair, I still had to conform in some things to keep the peace.
My family has been supportive for the most part but, by the time I got to dealing with my sexuality, I had essentially stopped caring about their acceptance anyway. Well, except for my mom, but she's the one who help me accept my homosexuality so her acceptance quickly became a moot point.
So, I don't really feel like I'm understood or accepted in the MoHo community because my experiences have been unlike what most are dealing with. And my spiritual journey, which does not involve Christianity, seems to be too esoteric (if not outright disturbing) for many. I've always felt like I've been on a different road and my adventure into the MoHo community was essentially a brief intersection. It's just I've sort of lingered here for a bit watching the action when I really should have just kept on driving.
It's not just the blogs; I'm also on various MoHo Yahoo groups too. I've become too liberal for them too. I've become even too liberal for Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons. I used to think they were too liberal.
Perhaps, I'm over generalizing people. I'm still connected to the MoHo world because I'm still very much a product of the Mormon culture from which this all has its roots. I'm just on a completely different road "out of here" than what it seems most people are traveling.
But I do keep reading them. I keep following them. Why?
I'm looking for people who are on the same road as me. I'm hoping that I will find someone I can make the same journey with on the same road "out of here". Each person out there who writes something that provokes a thought, an emotion, even a hidden resentment in me; I hope that they could be someone whom I can share the lonely road of self discovery. But when I open up and share my perspective, blank stares ensue. Granted, whenever someone expresses their hope that the church will someday grant them a gay temple wedding, I have a blank stare of my own. I'm a hypocrite. But I'm not going to try and convince them it's a lost cause. I do remember how hopeful I felt once. It's not my place to crush other people's dreams. I'm too busy letting my self-doubt crush mine anyway.
Ugh!
But that's not all, there is also this:
I'm also spending time watching my email inbox and Facebook page, and waiting for people to talk to me. But when they do, I ignore them.
My Facebook inbox has messages waiting for me. People poking, inquiring, wanting to know what has been going on in my life. My email inbox has a few people waiting on me too. Last Sunday I finally replied to someone after ignoring him for two months. I'm sure he gave up on me. Still, I have another one that I dropped the ball on 18 months ago. 18 MONTHS! And I have it highlighted in my inbox reminding me to reply. But none of these people are the people whom I want to talk to.
If I could just get honest with myself right now and admit that I'm really waiting for a particular person to call or write to me. And at the same time, I'm dreading it.
This person whom, over the past year I've developed feelings for. We used to have long and interesting email and phone conversations. He has been the closest and most intimate contact I've ever had with a potential partner since the mid 90's. And yet, we live on opposite sides of the country across three time zones. We are 17 years apart in age and we have never met face to face. We both set a goal together to meet up and attend Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco this year, a goal that I still have no idea if I can turn in to a reality.
The last few emails I've sent where short, sort of a "hello I'm still here" type of thing. They were weeks ago. We are 'friends' on Facebook. He spends a good deal of time on there posting comments about food, cats and politics. I sometimes write flirty comments on his posts. They seem to be ignored most of the time. I fear that he will delete them. (God, I hope he doesn’t read this.)
I worry that I've developed feelings for someone that will not or cannot reciprocate. My fear is that I've let myself fall in to another desperate, one sided, needy, pathetic relationship. He's busy yes, so am I. But the amount of time he spends on Facebook has given me doubts as to his honest interest in me. Especially if he will not reciprocate even a simple flirt on Facebook, even though he has told me in past emails he thinks of me often. But, those emails were weeks and months ago.
I can't even begin to touch on the things that irritate me about him, which causes me to hate my predicament even more. Seems unfair to be going through this seeing as we've been only acquaintances for about a year.
I'm desperate, one sided, needy and pathetic, indeed!
Is this what relationship angst feels like? I don't recall ever going through this stuff in high school or college. Is that what teens and young adults experience? It this how it works?
God I've rambled on.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Regina Spektor
This post, Most Beautiful People 2010, popped up in Google Reader this morning from blogger Shane Davis.
I had no idea who Regina Spektor was until today. I've spent the rest of the morning crying my head off watching all of the videos I could find of her on YouTube.
I never know when someone out there in the world will touch me deeply and I'm essentially speechless right now. I agree 100% with Shane. How could anyone who produces such beauty be anything but beautiful in every aspect?
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Less Angst, More Coffee!
OK, Peeps!
Just checking in to let everyone know, if you haven't already discovered, that I have another blog.
Yeah, I angsted (word?) over this for awhile and realized that I was tired of being angsty so I created another blog to post funny, silly goofy things that I do, think, say, etc. And leave this space for my angsty stuff which I'm finding to be less relevant as of late. It's as if I've become an adult or something. What's up with that?
Anywho... the other blog is here: The Gay Dactyl
Now, I don't promise to keep it updated all that often either. And many of you who are also friends with me on Facebook will see a Facebook version of the post which is essentially identical most of the time. I usually end up making the Facebook one first on a whim and then later post it here after a few edits. Unless I do it the other way around. Either way, the one on here will be the one that gets edited to its final, perfect, form.
Yeah I'm all about form.
And yeah, in past writings I also talked about making a separate BDSM blog too. Yeah I will. But no one will ever find it. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Seriously. :-)
Just checking in to let everyone know, if you haven't already discovered, that I have another blog.
Yeah, I angsted (word?) over this for awhile and realized that I was tired of being angsty so I created another blog to post funny, silly goofy things that I do, think, say, etc. And leave this space for my angsty stuff which I'm finding to be less relevant as of late. It's as if I've become an adult or something. What's up with that?
Anywho... the other blog is here: The Gay Dactyl
Now, I don't promise to keep it updated all that often either. And many of you who are also friends with me on Facebook will see a Facebook version of the post which is essentially identical most of the time. I usually end up making the Facebook one first on a whim and then later post it here after a few edits. Unless I do it the other way around. Either way, the one on here will be the one that gets edited to its final, perfect, form.
Yeah I'm all about form.
And yeah, in past writings I also talked about making a separate BDSM blog too. Yeah I will. But no one will ever find it. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Seriously. :-)
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Community for the Dead
What in the hell has been bothering lately? There is something seething below the surface and I'm not sure what it is. Actually it's been building gradually for weeks.
The triggers? People, places, things...Everything. And then...someone that I don't even know, but have felt the yearnings for years to want to know him, died recently.
Why does that bother me so much? Another lost opportunity? Or was it because he was only 43 years old? Or was it because he was part of a community of people that rallied around when he passed? When that happened, I suddenly felt like I was on the outside looking in. A reminder that I was still not part of that community, a community that I have always felt was my place to be but could never allow it in the past. Now I have given myself that allowance but I've been limited physically by things I cannot control.
I'm not part of any community. And when I mean community, I mean a community of real live people. Not virtual, abstract, text on a screen type of community such as only the Internet can give. Yeah, there are real people behind that text, but they can never manifest any nuanced social or physical reality. I need to be part of a community where we are in each other's presence. Feeling, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and otherwise experiencing each other. But that's not all! I must be more than a mere acquaintance. I must be a friend. Perhaps even a lover. Perhaps even more than that! Perhaps what I'm looking for doesn't exist!
All of the activities, working late, dressage, walking, yoga, trips to the city, museums, blogging, etc. I do them to keep busy and to keep my mind off of what I don't have. My hope is that it gets me out there meeting new people and making new friends, but all that it ends up doing is reminding me that no matter what I do, where I go, or who I'm with, I'm never going to be accepted as a friend by any of these people. I want and need a deeper authentic connection with people but it seems that desire pushes people away. That authentic part of me that no one is willing to accept, it becomes the big elephant in the room and forever creates a wall. Could I be expecting too much from the term friend? Perhaps I don't even know what it means. On occasion, I discover what is being said behind my back about that big elephant. They say one thing to my face and another to everyone else. That burns my trust. So, perhaps I'm the one now creating that wall. Walls are lonely.
All I can feel right now is that I'm growing weary of the loneliness.
So, here I am, wondering what is to become of it all. What is to become of me? I'm only 40. My life could end in a heartbeat. Literally, it could. I have a broken heart. It has landed me in the hospital three times in ten years. And as of October of last year, I can now lie still in my bed at night and feel it stop beating every few moments. This is followed by a rush of adrenalin and a hard thump as if it had just landed from tripping. The sudden drop in blood pressure makes me light headed and tenses me up. I no longer have the physical energy I used to enjoy before.
One of these days, it's not going keep beating and there isn't a god damn thing I can do about it. It will be days before anyone notices that I'm gone. Perhaps a few weeks before anyone comes looking. Will there be a rally for me? Why should I care? I'll be dead.
The triggers? People, places, things...Everything. And then...someone that I don't even know, but have felt the yearnings for years to want to know him, died recently.
Why does that bother me so much? Another lost opportunity? Or was it because he was only 43 years old? Or was it because he was part of a community of people that rallied around when he passed? When that happened, I suddenly felt like I was on the outside looking in. A reminder that I was still not part of that community, a community that I have always felt was my place to be but could never allow it in the past. Now I have given myself that allowance but I've been limited physically by things I cannot control.
I'm not part of any community. And when I mean community, I mean a community of real live people. Not virtual, abstract, text on a screen type of community such as only the Internet can give. Yeah, there are real people behind that text, but they can never manifest any nuanced social or physical reality. I need to be part of a community where we are in each other's presence. Feeling, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and otherwise experiencing each other. But that's not all! I must be more than a mere acquaintance. I must be a friend. Perhaps even a lover. Perhaps even more than that! Perhaps what I'm looking for doesn't exist!
All of the activities, working late, dressage, walking, yoga, trips to the city, museums, blogging, etc. I do them to keep busy and to keep my mind off of what I don't have. My hope is that it gets me out there meeting new people and making new friends, but all that it ends up doing is reminding me that no matter what I do, where I go, or who I'm with, I'm never going to be accepted as a friend by any of these people. I want and need a deeper authentic connection with people but it seems that desire pushes people away. That authentic part of me that no one is willing to accept, it becomes the big elephant in the room and forever creates a wall. Could I be expecting too much from the term friend? Perhaps I don't even know what it means. On occasion, I discover what is being said behind my back about that big elephant. They say one thing to my face and another to everyone else. That burns my trust. So, perhaps I'm the one now creating that wall. Walls are lonely.
All I can feel right now is that I'm growing weary of the loneliness.
So, here I am, wondering what is to become of it all. What is to become of me? I'm only 40. My life could end in a heartbeat. Literally, it could. I have a broken heart. It has landed me in the hospital three times in ten years. And as of October of last year, I can now lie still in my bed at night and feel it stop beating every few moments. This is followed by a rush of adrenalin and a hard thump as if it had just landed from tripping. The sudden drop in blood pressure makes me light headed and tenses me up. I no longer have the physical energy I used to enjoy before.
One of these days, it's not going keep beating and there isn't a god damn thing I can do about it. It will be days before anyone notices that I'm gone. Perhaps a few weeks before anyone comes looking. Will there be a rally for me? Why should I care? I'll be dead.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
I'm Nothing Without You!
Co-dependency is an extraordinarily subversive condition in our lives and society. I find myself constantly falling into its patterns, and unaware that I've fallen prey to its sickness.
Well, once again, Hypatia, over at Seeking Desideratum, approached a specific aspect of co-dependency in relation to the church, brilliantly, even if she didn't realize it at first. Please read her post: Organisms, the Church, and Insanity.
Once again, I have nothing to add.
Thank you, Hypatia!
Well, once again, Hypatia, over at Seeking Desideratum, approached a specific aspect of co-dependency in relation to the church, brilliantly, even if she didn't realize it at first. Please read her post: Organisms, the Church, and Insanity.
Once again, I have nothing to add.
Thank you, Hypatia!
Sunday, January 24, 2010
My Yearend Evaluation 2009
I had a moment of clarity the other day. When looking back at the year, I had completely forgotten about all of the awesome things that happened in 2009. I didn't blog about most of them. I probably should have or at least made some mention of them somewhere. Hell, I don't even have any journal entries of most of them. I seem to just want to stew in the drama and I failed to really dive into a lot of the fun and positive moments, and there were many.
So what are some of the cool things that are worth mentioning? Well, for one, I had my first real gay date this year! I lost my gay virginity during that date too. Just a few months before my 40th birthday! That 40-year-old-virgin thing was a stigma in my family that I DID NOT want to try and live down. Seriously! How funny is that?
Well, I guess you would just have to understand my family.
OK, so what else happened? I don't remember a lot of stuff. I should have written it down. I think the "losing my virginity" thing has completely overshadowed anything I care to think about at the moment.
Anyway...
I think this goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, this blog is a small part of my life and it's an even smaller part of my daily mental process. I have used it to open up an even smaller window into my head. Sometimes the view was an honest and sincere searching of my soul, other times it was wrought with whiny, self-centered, self-pitying and otherwise pathetic pandering of my ego. But, either way, it was the shit in my head at the time it was written, so at least that accounts for something. Right? I think it does.
I'm a normal, happy, person most of the time. I have an OK job where I write software (sometimes) and I do it really well. I have hobbies in music, filmmaking, writing, photography, renaissance festivals, dressage, walking/hiking, biking, BDSM, yoga, blogging etc. The list goes on. I stay busy.
But like all normal people, I have my bad days. And it just so happens my bad days get dark, really dark. Dark, in that I will have those moments where I swing to the irrational suicidal thinking. Rest assured those moments have been happening with less frequency and shorter in duration. Two years ago, I would be in a stupor of suicidal planning for months at a time, long gut wrenching months of anxiety and despair. Now, the anxiety bit is missing and the rest only lasts for about an hour, then it's gone.
However, no matter what, I always feel a deep heavy sting moving into and during the holiday period. That sting I noticed became more and more prevalent around 2004 after the last of my siblings got married. It reached its worst in 2007 right after my mental breakdown and has tapering a little bit since, although, this year felt like a step back somewhat. That's something to explore some other time. I may even write about the event in 2007 too. I still have some work to do to sort it out though.
Most of my posts happen after I've been pondering a concept or situation in my head for a while, in some cases months. Some of them have been rants, some of them haven't. But all of them have been a process for me to clarify as to who, what, when and where I am, and what I'm trying to accomplish. And in the end they have succeeded in getting me to see, albeit sometimes grudgingly, what my hang-ups really are.
No matter what the realities of my mental state, conscious or unconscious, I needed to sort some things out in a public way. So this blog, in addition to the comments I got back, really ended up giving me some profound self-realizations. Not the ones I was setting out to realize, but nothing ever happens the way we intend.
Because I worried too much about making my blog some sort of self-important, quixotic, beacon to the world, I got too self absorbed which weighted it down on the dark side. Not that would be a worry to me but, -- and here is me pandering to my readership again -- it did leave the impression that I am unhappy. Ironically, unhappiness was precisely what I was worried people would think. Well to be honest, the last three months I was very unhappy. And, as much as my ego hates to admit this, I was very much using my blog to bask in my own self-induced victimhood. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that per se, it is what it is. However, it ultimately accomplished something good in the end. In order for me to understand what was happening, what was going wrong for me, I had to travel that path of wrongness until I hit a brick wall. It seems unfortunate but how else do we learn? I have a hell of a lot of book knowledge on these subjects, but awareness and perspicacity only comes from experience.
I'm proud of myself. I really came though this year. After all of that coded nagging in my writing and day to day life, I finally cracked the code. I finally faced my fear of what people think of me. Not only did I crack the code, I processed it so that I would no longer get stuck on it again. I had a sudden and dramatic shift in my thinking when I hit that point. So, from this point forward, I know things are going to be very different. I don't know how or in what way, but I do know it's not going to be the same old shit that I have been doing. Granted, it will probably be the same old shit I write though. The ups and downs are still going to be there. But, will I care what you think? Yeah, in some ways I will, but not in the same way that I've cared in the past. It's different. How different? It's wait-and-see. I don't expect any reader to notice but I will and that's all the really matters.
It amuses me when the media looks back on a year well before the year was even over. I can't really look back on something until it's in my past and I've had a chance to let hindsight and my shady memory shape it into some sort of perspective. It's still too soon to get any real sense of the profound impact this holiday season has had on me. All I can say is that it was profound enough to cause a shift in my thinking, a shift in my consciousness.
So, looking back on the year, I have been able to come to two absolute conclusions. 1) I realized I had set out on this blogging adventure for completely the wrong reasons. 2) No matter what the original reason was, it didn't matter; I still learned a shit-load about myself in the end.
So, here is to a new year that just happens to be called twenty-ten.
So what are some of the cool things that are worth mentioning? Well, for one, I had my first real gay date this year! I lost my gay virginity during that date too. Just a few months before my 40th birthday! That 40-year-old-virgin thing was a stigma in my family that I DID NOT want to try and live down. Seriously! How funny is that?
Well, I guess you would just have to understand my family.
OK, so what else happened? I don't remember a lot of stuff. I should have written it down. I think the "losing my virginity" thing has completely overshadowed anything I care to think about at the moment.
Anyway...
I think this goes without saying but I'll say it anyway, this blog is a small part of my life and it's an even smaller part of my daily mental process. I have used it to open up an even smaller window into my head. Sometimes the view was an honest and sincere searching of my soul, other times it was wrought with whiny, self-centered, self-pitying and otherwise pathetic pandering of my ego. But, either way, it was the shit in my head at the time it was written, so at least that accounts for something. Right? I think it does.
I'm a normal, happy, person most of the time. I have an OK job where I write software (sometimes) and I do it really well. I have hobbies in music, filmmaking, writing, photography, renaissance festivals, dressage, walking/hiking, biking, BDSM, yoga, blogging etc. The list goes on. I stay busy.
But like all normal people, I have my bad days. And it just so happens my bad days get dark, really dark. Dark, in that I will have those moments where I swing to the irrational suicidal thinking. Rest assured those moments have been happening with less frequency and shorter in duration. Two years ago, I would be in a stupor of suicidal planning for months at a time, long gut wrenching months of anxiety and despair. Now, the anxiety bit is missing and the rest only lasts for about an hour, then it's gone.
However, no matter what, I always feel a deep heavy sting moving into and during the holiday period. That sting I noticed became more and more prevalent around 2004 after the last of my siblings got married. It reached its worst in 2007 right after my mental breakdown and has tapering a little bit since, although, this year felt like a step back somewhat. That's something to explore some other time. I may even write about the event in 2007 too. I still have some work to do to sort it out though.
Most of my posts happen after I've been pondering a concept or situation in my head for a while, in some cases months. Some of them have been rants, some of them haven't. But all of them have been a process for me to clarify as to who, what, when and where I am, and what I'm trying to accomplish. And in the end they have succeeded in getting me to see, albeit sometimes grudgingly, what my hang-ups really are.
No matter what the realities of my mental state, conscious or unconscious, I needed to sort some things out in a public way. So this blog, in addition to the comments I got back, really ended up giving me some profound self-realizations. Not the ones I was setting out to realize, but nothing ever happens the way we intend.
Because I worried too much about making my blog some sort of self-important, quixotic, beacon to the world, I got too self absorbed which weighted it down on the dark side. Not that would be a worry to me but, -- and here is me pandering to my readership again -- it did leave the impression that I am unhappy. Ironically, unhappiness was precisely what I was worried people would think. Well to be honest, the last three months I was very unhappy. And, as much as my ego hates to admit this, I was very much using my blog to bask in my own self-induced victimhood. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that per se, it is what it is. However, it ultimately accomplished something good in the end. In order for me to understand what was happening, what was going wrong for me, I had to travel that path of wrongness until I hit a brick wall. It seems unfortunate but how else do we learn? I have a hell of a lot of book knowledge on these subjects, but awareness and perspicacity only comes from experience.
I'm proud of myself. I really came though this year. After all of that coded nagging in my writing and day to day life, I finally cracked the code. I finally faced my fear of what people think of me. Not only did I crack the code, I processed it so that I would no longer get stuck on it again. I had a sudden and dramatic shift in my thinking when I hit that point. So, from this point forward, I know things are going to be very different. I don't know how or in what way, but I do know it's not going to be the same old shit that I have been doing. Granted, it will probably be the same old shit I write though. The ups and downs are still going to be there. But, will I care what you think? Yeah, in some ways I will, but not in the same way that I've cared in the past. It's different. How different? It's wait-and-see. I don't expect any reader to notice but I will and that's all the really matters.
It amuses me when the media looks back on a year well before the year was even over. I can't really look back on something until it's in my past and I've had a chance to let hindsight and my shady memory shape it into some sort of perspective. It's still too soon to get any real sense of the profound impact this holiday season has had on me. All I can say is that it was profound enough to cause a shift in my thinking, a shift in my consciousness.
So, looking back on the year, I have been able to come to two absolute conclusions. 1) I realized I had set out on this blogging adventure for completely the wrong reasons. 2) No matter what the original reason was, it didn't matter; I still learned a shit-load about myself in the end.
So, here is to a new year that just happens to be called twenty-ten.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Claiming My Life
This blog isn't working for me anymore. In particular, the current format of trying to maintain my anonymity. What was this anonymity suppose to help me with anyway? It's has a good side but it's mostly been a curse.
The good side is that I was able to work out my feelings somewhat publicly and vent my real frustrations openly and without restraint and fear of retribution from someone that would take offence of what I would say. Although there isn't that much evidence that I'm in any danger of retribution. But, I certainly don't want my co-workers, relatives and friends to read a lot of this drivel. Even so, a few co-workers and family have read this blog. But then I actually went as far as inviting those people to read it. Duh!
The curse is that I feel restricted in what I can talk about as long as I'm trying to stay anonymous. I thought anonymity would make it easier but the way I see it, the situations, conversations and events that happen in my life, the ones I want to write about, are so bloody public already that mentioning them here would give me away. There are many things I would like to have posted but didn't because the events were too specific. I've tried to avoid mentioning specific people and, if I do, avoid using real names, but even that isn't good enough. I realize the chances of the wrong person finding these posts are slim, but they are not none.
But one thing is for sure, this anonymous game has taught me that I'm still in the closet. I'm still trying to live a double life. The life of how I really feel verse the life I want people to think I feel. But ultimately, it's apparent that anonymity isn't my real problem. It's just the symptom.
My real problem is that I worry about what people think. Especially if I believe it's negative. I don't usually get hurt by negative comments like I used to but I still have my moments and naturally want to avoid them, especially here when I'm trying to express my more authentic self.
Most of the rude and negative people I've had to deal with were in email, on Facebook, and in person. So, I naturally assume that the same thing is going to happen here. This is 100% public. Not limited like Facebook and email. Any crazy asshole can post here. But, it's not the assholes that worry me. It's everyone else. The ones I care about. The people that have gotten to know me here. And the ones I know in person. I care about people. I care too deeply. And I'm embarrassed because I haven't been 100% truthful. I'm still hiding myself, I'm still afraid of letting people into my life and letting them see all that I'm about.
So, part of me is bristling to shed the anonymity and bust out of my shell. The other part is still scared as hell of rejection. The more people I know who read this blog, the more I plague the course of my writing with assumptions about what I suppose people want or don't want to read. I thought by making it anonymous I was avoiding that. But it didn't matter. They didn't even have to say anything. I assumed what they were going to say before they even say it. And 100% of the time, my assumptions are wrong.
So, when the comments came, very few were negative, most were encouraging. The ones that were negative came from my mom. But she didn't post a comment; she called instead. What she said actually didn't bother me. This seems ridiculous but what she said actually didn't bother me, it was the positive comments that fed my ego.
By avoiding certain subjects or areas of my life, I could continue writing about things that would appease to get more pleasant comments, rather than go in my desired direction. I did more than keep the status quo. I started to gear it back. In one of my posts, I even made a big deal out of not taking a direction that I really wanted to take because I was afraid of possibly displeasing my readers and eliciting negative comments. I even found a way to convince myself it was what I wanted to do. Looking back at that, I am still angry with myself for copping out. This non risk-taking pattern had been building for the past three months in all aspects of my life. As I fell into the trap of not thinking for myself, the frustration and anger built up and I exploded.
Even so, the comments that I've received have meant such a great deal to me I can't even begin to explain how. Even the simple acknowledgments that I'm not alone are very rewarding. But I continue in fear that I will write something offensive and drive someone away. Hell, it may have happened a few times in the past as I've seen my followers list shrink. But then I've stopped following blogs before, and getting upset for losing a follower makes me a hypocrite. They went a direction that didn't interest me so I left, ironically the ones that have offended me I still follow. So, I would hope that they left because I'm not of interest as opposed to being offensive. Yeah, I see it as rejection either way and I hate it but I hope I'm getting better at not caring about it.
Some aspects of my self-esteem are still dependent on outside validation. And thus, I want comments. I want to know what others think. I want people to interact with me and be frank and honest. If they don't like what I say, and feel a need to disagree, then by all means I want them to. So far the only comment that came close to stating a disagreement was in green and purple's comment when he said, "I agree with almost all that you say." I'm curious what the little bit was he didn't agree with. He's right in that it doesn't matter, but still, my curiosity gets to me and ultimately the disagreements can be learning experiences in and of themselves as they challenge my ego; help me understand the holes in my self-esteem.
But, with that being said, I've started to get a sense that the comments left by readers are not always there for me. They're for the readers. As I've been poking around the blogosphere making comments on other people's blogs, I've noticed that when I've written comments I was essentially venting. That, in effect, actually helped me clarify a thought in my head. In the end, the comment was just something I needed to get off my chest and didn't matter if the author of the blog read it or not. Although, whether they agree or disagree, it's still quite satisfying when the blogger or someone responds to it or references it in a future blog post. At least it's evidence that someone noticed it.
The other aspect of all this is that I'm lonely, desperately lonely. I'm acutely aware that my desire to fill that loneliness hole, a hole that severely depresses me often, feeds my desire for comments. And that is a hard thing to admit openly because this depression and unhappiness is all some people in my life need as evidence to fuel their anti-gay religious shit and throw it in my face. If I can put on that happy face they have no case and will leave me alone with their silly "wickedness was never happiness" bullshit and how turning way from God and the church is the reason I have these holes in my soul.
It's so fucking pathetic. I'm right back to where I was a few years ago when I was a miserable, Mormon, fuck with a plastic smile so that I wouldn't make the church look bad. Now I'm a miserable, lonely, fuck with a plastic smile so I don't make the Gay, ex-Mormons look bad. Fucking bullshit! And I'm being a drama queen! Yes, it still makes me angry; I still have a lot of bitterness left in me. But I should be 100% honest, I'm not as miserable now as I was then. But still, any misery sucks and I hate it and I just want to scream.
But, as of late, not all of the bullshit has been related to Mormons or their silly beliefs. It's been bigoted and ignorant co-workers, slummy landlords, thieves breaking in to my house, distant family, shitty job, distant friends, my shrinking bank account, and no one to talk to about any of it at the end of a hard day. For the last few months I've been wondering, what I am going to do? Where am I going to go? And with all of that, there is the added frustration and anger of not finding an answer. Again, another aspect of all of this apparent misfortune is that those silly Mormons are going to use it as evidence that God is punishing me for leaving the church to have gay sex.
It just keeps coming back to worrying about what people think. And it goes back as far as I can remember. Hell, just read some of my past posts! I totally dwell on shit from my past over, and over, and over...ad nauseam. Yes, we all know now that my past sucked and I'm still not over it. Give it a rest, right? Easier said than done. Besides, I get to decide when to give it rest anyway.
I've been struggling for a long time trying to find a way to reconcile or connect in constructive ways with my past. I wanted to remember all of those times were I got misdirected so that I could change or realign the beliefs I formed around them, beliefs that misinformed me later in life and continue to do so; such as why I still care what other people think of me. But it got daunting. My past was so vast and my memory so jumbled and broken, I was getting frustrated with that alone.
A few days ago, I stumbled across a photo album that my dad sent to me few years ago. In it were miscellaneous photos of me mostly between the ages of 3-16. Many of these struck me as odd because I had no memory of the event captured in the image. Others, I had a clear memory of them and was surprised by the memory. Some were good, many were bad. But all of them invoked a thought or emotion of some kind. I realized that some of these pictures captured events in my life where a belief was forming or being exercised, a belief about myself, about the world or about life. Some were positive. Most were negative. That's probably why I had the photo album shoved deep in the back of the filing cabinet rather than on the shelf or with all of my other pictures.
I've been told that worrying about the past is a waste of time; it does nothing to serve the present moment. And exploring those moments would just be wallowing in the past. So, I've convinced myself that these moments are not important. These moments are all just shit that happens. They don't affect me now. But is that really true? I feel like I'm wallowing in my past more than ever because I refuse to accept it. All this drama I face in my life came from somewhere and the same shit keeps happening to me over and over again. Why?
So I'm going to call bullshit on the non-importance of my past. I've come a long way by looking at my past, piecing it together, and figuring out what happened. How dare anyone tell me it's a waste of time. It's bad enough that the feelings are not easy to confront, I don't need people telling me that I'm doing it wrong just because they think they know what's important to me.
Fuck them. This is MY life.
Through the course of writing this post, I continue to have moments of worrying about what people are going to think. It's always been my problem even before I realized it. I'm more conscious of it now. The anger for it has surfaced so as I move forward, I'm going to be confronting that head on, even if it means starting every post with the phrase, "This is my life, if you don't like it, then fuck off." Anger serves a purpose. I have not been honoring it and so now, it is seething. If I don't let it out, I will continue to wallow in it. I definitely know that that doesn't serve the present moment.
Because my life is so multifaceted, so esoteric and so gut wrenchingly depressing, sometimes I'm pressured to spare people the "Too Much Information" (TMI) that will eventually come. Of course, I'm only assuming it's going to be TMI mainly because I've had many people who were eager to point that out to me. Having people do that only feeds my habit of editing myself, smoothing things out or censoring things so that I can spare other people my most intimate details, the most important things to me. What I end up with is a thick layer of orange paint that covers or obfuscates who I really am. And I resent that. Orange is a nice color; it's just not MY color. This orange paint represents that nasty habit of self-deception, a habit that has managed to totally fuck up my life and continue to make it difficult. Well, no more. If anyone thinks that any aspect of my life is TMI, then they too can just fuck off.
The good side is that I was able to work out my feelings somewhat publicly and vent my real frustrations openly and without restraint and fear of retribution from someone that would take offence of what I would say. Although there isn't that much evidence that I'm in any danger of retribution. But, I certainly don't want my co-workers, relatives and friends to read a lot of this drivel. Even so, a few co-workers and family have read this blog. But then I actually went as far as inviting those people to read it. Duh!
The curse is that I feel restricted in what I can talk about as long as I'm trying to stay anonymous. I thought anonymity would make it easier but the way I see it, the situations, conversations and events that happen in my life, the ones I want to write about, are so bloody public already that mentioning them here would give me away. There are many things I would like to have posted but didn't because the events were too specific. I've tried to avoid mentioning specific people and, if I do, avoid using real names, but even that isn't good enough. I realize the chances of the wrong person finding these posts are slim, but they are not none.
But one thing is for sure, this anonymous game has taught me that I'm still in the closet. I'm still trying to live a double life. The life of how I really feel verse the life I want people to think I feel. But ultimately, it's apparent that anonymity isn't my real problem. It's just the symptom.
My real problem is that I worry about what people think. Especially if I believe it's negative. I don't usually get hurt by negative comments like I used to but I still have my moments and naturally want to avoid them, especially here when I'm trying to express my more authentic self.
Most of the rude and negative people I've had to deal with were in email, on Facebook, and in person. So, I naturally assume that the same thing is going to happen here. This is 100% public. Not limited like Facebook and email. Any crazy asshole can post here. But, it's not the assholes that worry me. It's everyone else. The ones I care about. The people that have gotten to know me here. And the ones I know in person. I care about people. I care too deeply. And I'm embarrassed because I haven't been 100% truthful. I'm still hiding myself, I'm still afraid of letting people into my life and letting them see all that I'm about.
So, part of me is bristling to shed the anonymity and bust out of my shell. The other part is still scared as hell of rejection. The more people I know who read this blog, the more I plague the course of my writing with assumptions about what I suppose people want or don't want to read. I thought by making it anonymous I was avoiding that. But it didn't matter. They didn't even have to say anything. I assumed what they were going to say before they even say it. And 100% of the time, my assumptions are wrong.
So, when the comments came, very few were negative, most were encouraging. The ones that were negative came from my mom. But she didn't post a comment; she called instead. What she said actually didn't bother me. This seems ridiculous but what she said actually didn't bother me, it was the positive comments that fed my ego.
By avoiding certain subjects or areas of my life, I could continue writing about things that would appease to get more pleasant comments, rather than go in my desired direction. I did more than keep the status quo. I started to gear it back. In one of my posts, I even made a big deal out of not taking a direction that I really wanted to take because I was afraid of possibly displeasing my readers and eliciting negative comments. I even found a way to convince myself it was what I wanted to do. Looking back at that, I am still angry with myself for copping out. This non risk-taking pattern had been building for the past three months in all aspects of my life. As I fell into the trap of not thinking for myself, the frustration and anger built up and I exploded.
Even so, the comments that I've received have meant such a great deal to me I can't even begin to explain how. Even the simple acknowledgments that I'm not alone are very rewarding. But I continue in fear that I will write something offensive and drive someone away. Hell, it may have happened a few times in the past as I've seen my followers list shrink. But then I've stopped following blogs before, and getting upset for losing a follower makes me a hypocrite. They went a direction that didn't interest me so I left, ironically the ones that have offended me I still follow. So, I would hope that they left because I'm not of interest as opposed to being offensive. Yeah, I see it as rejection either way and I hate it but I hope I'm getting better at not caring about it.
Some aspects of my self-esteem are still dependent on outside validation. And thus, I want comments. I want to know what others think. I want people to interact with me and be frank and honest. If they don't like what I say, and feel a need to disagree, then by all means I want them to. So far the only comment that came close to stating a disagreement was in green and purple's comment when he said, "I agree with almost all that you say." I'm curious what the little bit was he didn't agree with. He's right in that it doesn't matter, but still, my curiosity gets to me and ultimately the disagreements can be learning experiences in and of themselves as they challenge my ego; help me understand the holes in my self-esteem.
But, with that being said, I've started to get a sense that the comments left by readers are not always there for me. They're for the readers. As I've been poking around the blogosphere making comments on other people's blogs, I've noticed that when I've written comments I was essentially venting. That, in effect, actually helped me clarify a thought in my head. In the end, the comment was just something I needed to get off my chest and didn't matter if the author of the blog read it or not. Although, whether they agree or disagree, it's still quite satisfying when the blogger or someone responds to it or references it in a future blog post. At least it's evidence that someone noticed it.
The other aspect of all this is that I'm lonely, desperately lonely. I'm acutely aware that my desire to fill that loneliness hole, a hole that severely depresses me often, feeds my desire for comments. And that is a hard thing to admit openly because this depression and unhappiness is all some people in my life need as evidence to fuel their anti-gay religious shit and throw it in my face. If I can put on that happy face they have no case and will leave me alone with their silly "wickedness was never happiness" bullshit and how turning way from God and the church is the reason I have these holes in my soul.
It's so fucking pathetic. I'm right back to where I was a few years ago when I was a miserable, Mormon, fuck with a plastic smile so that I wouldn't make the church look bad. Now I'm a miserable, lonely, fuck with a plastic smile so I don't make the Gay, ex-Mormons look bad. Fucking bullshit! And I'm being a drama queen! Yes, it still makes me angry; I still have a lot of bitterness left in me. But I should be 100% honest, I'm not as miserable now as I was then. But still, any misery sucks and I hate it and I just want to scream.
But, as of late, not all of the bullshit has been related to Mormons or their silly beliefs. It's been bigoted and ignorant co-workers, slummy landlords, thieves breaking in to my house, distant family, shitty job, distant friends, my shrinking bank account, and no one to talk to about any of it at the end of a hard day. For the last few months I've been wondering, what I am going to do? Where am I going to go? And with all of that, there is the added frustration and anger of not finding an answer. Again, another aspect of all of this apparent misfortune is that those silly Mormons are going to use it as evidence that God is punishing me for leaving the church to have gay sex.
It just keeps coming back to worrying about what people think. And it goes back as far as I can remember. Hell, just read some of my past posts! I totally dwell on shit from my past over, and over, and over...ad nauseam. Yes, we all know now that my past sucked and I'm still not over it. Give it a rest, right? Easier said than done. Besides, I get to decide when to give it rest anyway.
I've been struggling for a long time trying to find a way to reconcile or connect in constructive ways with my past. I wanted to remember all of those times were I got misdirected so that I could change or realign the beliefs I formed around them, beliefs that misinformed me later in life and continue to do so; such as why I still care what other people think of me. But it got daunting. My past was so vast and my memory so jumbled and broken, I was getting frustrated with that alone.
A few days ago, I stumbled across a photo album that my dad sent to me few years ago. In it were miscellaneous photos of me mostly between the ages of 3-16. Many of these struck me as odd because I had no memory of the event captured in the image. Others, I had a clear memory of them and was surprised by the memory. Some were good, many were bad. But all of them invoked a thought or emotion of some kind. I realized that some of these pictures captured events in my life where a belief was forming or being exercised, a belief about myself, about the world or about life. Some were positive. Most were negative. That's probably why I had the photo album shoved deep in the back of the filing cabinet rather than on the shelf or with all of my other pictures.
I've been told that worrying about the past is a waste of time; it does nothing to serve the present moment. And exploring those moments would just be wallowing in the past. So, I've convinced myself that these moments are not important. These moments are all just shit that happens. They don't affect me now. But is that really true? I feel like I'm wallowing in my past more than ever because I refuse to accept it. All this drama I face in my life came from somewhere and the same shit keeps happening to me over and over again. Why?
So I'm going to call bullshit on the non-importance of my past. I've come a long way by looking at my past, piecing it together, and figuring out what happened. How dare anyone tell me it's a waste of time. It's bad enough that the feelings are not easy to confront, I don't need people telling me that I'm doing it wrong just because they think they know what's important to me.
Fuck them. This is MY life.
Through the course of writing this post, I continue to have moments of worrying about what people are going to think. It's always been my problem even before I realized it. I'm more conscious of it now. The anger for it has surfaced so as I move forward, I'm going to be confronting that head on, even if it means starting every post with the phrase, "This is my life, if you don't like it, then fuck off." Anger serves a purpose. I have not been honoring it and so now, it is seething. If I don't let it out, I will continue to wallow in it. I definitely know that that doesn't serve the present moment.
Because my life is so multifaceted, so esoteric and so gut wrenchingly depressing, sometimes I'm pressured to spare people the "Too Much Information" (TMI) that will eventually come. Of course, I'm only assuming it's going to be TMI mainly because I've had many people who were eager to point that out to me. Having people do that only feeds my habit of editing myself, smoothing things out or censoring things so that I can spare other people my most intimate details, the most important things to me. What I end up with is a thick layer of orange paint that covers or obfuscates who I really am. And I resent that. Orange is a nice color; it's just not MY color. This orange paint represents that nasty habit of self-deception, a habit that has managed to totally fuck up my life and continue to make it difficult. Well, no more. If anyone thinks that any aspect of my life is TMI, then they too can just fuck off.
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