Who Is Still Here?

 A quick show of hands.  Who is still following this blog?   (leave a comment)

I know it's a weird question since  the last time I posted was just over 5 years ago.  

Now that Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have taken over and people are not likely to get any notification when I do post here, I'm just wondering who actually swings buy here to check up?

Since I left Facebook in 2013 and stopped using Google+ a year before it was shutdown, I've been able to disappear in the consciousness of  the cyber-social world.  Also aided by the fact that this blog just won't show up in Internet searches without using very super specific search terms.   

 It's a dying platform anyway. 

I have no plans to deactivate or delete anything on here but I don't really have anything to say anymore.  This blog did serve its purpose as a place to find my voice, but I'm now content and comfortable with who I am and I don't feel any need to talk about my troubled past.  It's, well, in the past.  I don't think about it anymore.  It no longer haunts me.  It's just stuff that happened and no longer carries any emotional weight.  

I've gone back and read a few posts to see if my attitudes and opinions have changed.  And well, for the most part, they have not.  There are a few minor things I don't feel 100% comfortable about leaving up there but, I'm going to let it stand and I will just deal with the uncomfortable feelings and any blow back if it ever comes.  As for the rest of them, the emotions that were once very vivid and raw, have since faded into indifference.  

In any case, for those that are still here and are wondering how I've been and what I've been doing since my departure from social media, I will summarize with a timeline of significant events that happened since my last blog entry just over 5 years ago.  

2014 August - I never mentioned this in the blog but I bought a house that was closer to the ocean. Not water front, just closer.  I was able to get out of the crappy, leaky roof, mold infested, ant-invaded, shit hole rental and into a newly built house, twice the size and a million times nicer. All for the same I was paying in rent.  That is the reality of rent vs mortgage.

2016 October - My boyfriend quits his job, sells his house, and up ends his world in North Carolina to move in with me in BFE Virginia.  All the while starting up a new engineering business.

2017 August - My employer, trying to win the contract renewal, decided it was really important to move me to a sub-contractor. I got screwed over with a double insurance deductible and had to go off my med for a month until this new sub-contractor got a better insurance company.  (It sucked!) This energized me to suggest to my boyfriend that we should consider getting the fuck out of here.  Of course he would have to give up the beautiful house and the few minute drive to the ocean.  But he recognized the writing on the wall.

2018 December - Because of my boyfriend's parent's and older brother's declining health and his need to be much closer in order to assisted them when emergencies happen, coupled with the longest government shutdown ever, where the sub-contractor didn't have a contingency for paying us in the event of a shut down, we decide to actually start planning our escape from this place.  By this time, my boyfriend had been able to self employ to the point of paying off his debts and was continuing to build his business.

 2019 July - So, my former employer had ended up winning the contract and then suddenly loosing it a few months later when the government decided that the company's direct involvement with a former government employee's illegal activities who's wealthy white privileged ass prevented him from receiving jail time, was probably not a good thing so they awarded it to a different company.  The new company did not recognize the sub-contractor I was under so I had to switch employers again.  And this time I had to use COBRA (very expensive) to keep from completely loosing our insurance because of the new company's absolutely garbage health insurance and their prejudice of not allowing gay partnerships to be on the insurance together.  I started warning my bosses that these events have hasten my departure as COBRA doesn't last forever.  The idea was that I would be training someone.  Unfortunately they couldn't keep any new hires on for longer than a few months and more people were quitting.  Contract changes always cause people to leave because the new contractors won't offer people better wages and often times you can end up with a pay cut. Also many new folks leave because they don't realize what the work was like because they were misled as to what the job entails in the job interviews.  For instance, my official title is Software Engineer but I don't do anything related to that. I told my bosses several times to stop trying to hire software engineers.  This is not a software company!  But I digress.

2020 January - Sold the house within 8 days of it going on the market. (apparently the housing market changed drastically in the five years I was there.) Informed my employer that I've sold the house and I have to leave. (this was 1 month notice)  They offered me a huge raise if I would stay.  Despite the fact I already sold the house. I told them what an insult it was to be bribed like that. And asked them why it took an event like this to get a raise instead of the yearly requests I had been making to get one.  They were sort of apologetic. They cut a deal for me to do remote work full time with no raise and I accepted.  I was ready to quit and be supported by my boyfriend much the same way I supported him when he left his job and moved in with me.  But since it meant continued income and a MUCH more comfortable work environment, I packed up my desk and work computer they supplied me and I left for the new city.  15 years at a place with a vast and deep understanding and willingness to document everything made me too valuable to them.  I feel sorry for the saps that try to be secretive and don't share their knowledge thinking it contributes to job security only to be fired for being secretive and not share their knowledge. I've seen it happen a few times in this job.  

2020  February - loaded up the moving truck and we were gone.  Moved into a rental in North Carolina with the plan to buy a house within 12 months.  (Need to get that one year lease out of the way.)  It's been nearly 15 years since I've been able to safely drink tap water. No more bottled water. 15 years of only bottled water!  How much money am I going to save?  Probably not much.  The grocery stores out here are very high end and I have fancy tastes so that money saved in bottled water will just go to the fancy food now.  Oh well.

2020 April - COBRA ended and I was able to actually buy my own health insurance that wasn't tied to some god damn employer who would only offer garbage insurance that wasn't willing to cover my meds or was so fucked up that every god damn doctor and hospital with the a hundred mile radius of where I lived was considered OUT OF NETWORK. Thanks Obama! The ACA is a godsend.  Also the pandemic forced the state to shut everything down.  What a fucking mess.  Still, many people not taking it seriously including my boyfriends family much to our collected chagrin.  Also got word that my best friend in DC has died a month ago of pancreatic cancer.  We had plans to hook up again and we ran out of time.  Fucking cancer!

2020 September - Dragon Con went virtual and we were able to watch the celebrity panels on the ROKU.  It was weird.  And I missed seeing my friends in person.  Although the "Zoom" calls are actually a thing we can do now that we have real broadband Internet!  Something my home has been without for the last 15 years. (Needless to say I spent many late hours using the 1Gbit internet at work.)

2020 October - Also early voting because of pandemic.  Then in anticipation of not wanting to renew the rental, we started the formal search for a new house. This was so annoying.  House after house after house we found we didn't even get a chance.  Many of them were sold the day they went on the market. Site unseen for cash.  While we were standing in one house with our agent ready to make an offer, another agent drove up to the house and plopped a "sold" sign out front and drove off.  Apparently this pandemic and the new norm of working from home enabled many of the stinking wealthy from the the Northern states to permanently move to their vacation homes.

2020 December - Finally was able to get an offer in on a house that was accepted.   Also, I have been able to get a new and better treatment for my medical issues and I've been feeling absolutely amazing since.  Except for the worsening sleep apnea.  My current CPAP machine is maxed out at 20. I will probably have to get a different machine. 

2021 January - Closed on the house.  And got moved in. I hate moving. They say that two house moves equals a fire.  I've had two house moves with in 11 months.  I have a bit of PTSD about that now. Like wherever I move to will never feel permanent.  Also,  after several years of expensive vet visits with no answers as to why our cat is losing weight and has become excessively incontinent we finally found a vet that diagnosed it.  He has a hyperthyroid.  A treatable condition!  Even the cat was able to get better health care once we moved to the big city!  

2021 February - Almost settled. Still have to remove the remaining stuff from the rental house and clean it before the month is out.  The new house is nice.  Only two years old.  Still needs the have the radon issue fixed. But that has already been paid for and the contractors are just waiting for the weather to improve.

 TL;DR:  My fiance moved in with me, then we moved to a new city in North Carolina.  And we bought a house together.  I'm still working at the same shit job I've always had (going on 16 years now) but I'm doing it remotely thanks to the pandemic.  My heath has been greatly improving ever since moving, partly because of access to better health care and insurance, and no longer being exposed to polluted water.

Incidentally, somewhere in the last few years we have been referring to each other as fiance instead of boyfriend or partner.  As for when we will be getting married?  We haven't set a date.  We need to work some logistics with his family.  We don't want a wedding and don't want to spend money on all the receptions and parties and crap.  And we are trying to find out who should be notified, and the best way to notify them, also without spending any money. 

 Well, that's pretty much the best parts.   I couldn't help but rant about a few little things.  But don't expect me to continue with that again here.  My little rants about life's frustrations are actually not cathartic so I try to channel them elsewhere.

I can't promise I'll be back here right away.  Maybe in 5 years? I don't know.

Comming Up For Some Air...But Still No Air

Well, needless to say...wait, if it's needless to say then why say it?

I'm going to ramble on with a few things.  For people who are interested in where I'm at, read on.  The rest of you who don't know me will probably not care.  It's one of those types of posts where I'm not writing anything thought provoking.  This is more of a journal entry.  So, with that being said...

When I set out to blog many, many, years ago, it was a way for me to find myself, figure out who I was and discover, if not rediscover, what was truly important to me.  It was a place to find my truth, my voice, and to express it in a place where I wouldn't feel censored for speaking it.

Obviously, over the years I had many ups and downs, most of which I never documented on this blog.  And for the most part, I've pushed passed a lot of the religious bullshit that shaped much of my insecurity and self loathing.  And now here I am, with little to say about most of that and when I do have something to say, I have little desire to express it all that much on here.  In fact, I much prefer to voice it with my own voice, face to face, one on one, with people in person.

When I first started my YouTube vlog, I thought there would be times where I would voice what I needed to say on there, but even then I didn't feel strongly enough about it to sit down and make the video.  But when times came where I had the thought to say something, and I felt strong about it, even  motivated and ready to put it out there, but a few days later the strong feelings would pass and I no longer had any interest in it.  And then there were even several times where I actually started work on the video, even recorded many things, and then, never did anything with them.   And with all that, I've found that I've been losing my inspiration for not just vlogging but other many things. 

One of the things driving this is the realization that I don't want to start arguments with people on YouTube.  A discussion, perhaps, but even then I'm not really wanting to spend the time going back and fourth in comments.  But what I usually end up getting is nothing but a few trolls posting some bullshit comment that does nothing to add value to anyone's lives.  Of all the places where some of the worst trolling happens, it's YouTube and I certainly don't want to deal with the level of bullying that goes on there.   Even though I'm a very tiny slice of that one billion plus member community,  where the majority of which are passive users, it's the tiny, narcissistic, trollish group that gets to me.

Every once in a while I'll get a notification on a comment I made on someone's video several years ago. Someone replying directly to me with a sarcastic, trollish, ad hominem.  The best I can do is just flag the comment and delete the notification.  So far, I've only needed to block a few people when they persist.  I don't ever wish to engage with people like that.  I actually feel like smacking them up side the head, but that's not practical or even possible.  In reality, I wish I didn't have to even deal with them in the first place.   For some reason, of all the social media I deal with, YouTube has some of the worst people in the world on it.

Another reason is the fact that I've screwed up the audio on several of the videos I took which made them almost useless, and that alone has killed much of my motivation for doing any more with them.  I had done a whole bunch of video for Gay Pride in DC, talking to people in the Mormons for Equality parade contingent, and interviewing an old friend from college who was there marching with them.  Only to get home and realize that the audio track was completely unusable.  Ugh!! That really sucked the life out the entire project.

Still, other reasons is because this is challenging work, and I don't have the support from any of my friends which just makes it all that more challenging.  And it's not that they just don't help, often they get in the way and even try to sabotage my efforts.  Either by doing and saying things that compromise the usefulness of the video or by just not being supportive in what I want to do when I need help doing it.

I need better friends.

I really feel like I'm entirely on my own here, and quite frankly, I don't live in an area of the country where the local community has much of a collaborative spirit anyway.   I have wondered about what it was that made this place so frustrating to live, and why everything I've tried to accomplish at work was a constant uphill battle with other egos just to do a simple task. That is, when they aren't actively working to create a crisis in order to jump in to save the day for extra pats on their backs.

Well, after 10 years, and several years talking with my therapist, I finally put my finger on it.  Up until the mid 50's-60's, this place was entirely isolated from the rest of the country.  And much of it still is isolated to this day.  The locals, in order to survive, completely relied on themselves.  They only saw others as a tools to get what they wanted.  And once they were set they didn't care what others needed.  You would think that such a place would drive a more collaborative environment but that's just not the case.  Outsiders were even treated worse and only as a possible source of money.  And even to this day, outsiders are still treated this way.  Sure, visit and spend your money but you are not welcome to stay.  I've lived here 10 years and I've found no friendship with the locals.  The only people I'm friends with out here are also outsiders like myself.

To make my point, I mentioned to one of friends here, one who had been living here for 20 years, and I asked him if they have any friends who are true locals.  They thought for a moment and realized that all of their friends, every single one of them, were not originally from the area.  Then I asked him to take note of all the people in the high level, high profile, management positions at work, many of them who were younger and less experienced and hired within the last 5 years.  Every singe one of them were locals.  Born and bred here.  What was wrong with this picture?   I've felt for a long time that I was really in a dead end position here, and there is no doubt now that it's true. 

Anyway, back to the crap.  I suppose I could be more positive, after all I've been doing some fun things this past year, what with Dragon Con in Atlanta and the Maryland Renaissance Fair.  (All activities that I have to travel many hours to attend.)  But much of it has gotten a bit overshadowed by the stress of not having a car.  The  engine died on mine and I don't have the cash-flow for a new car.  It's going to take a huge chunk of my savings to get it fixed.  I have to essentially buy a used car.  But in this case I'm buying a used car to get the engine out of it and put it in mine.  Thereby  keeping my old car for the price of a used one and I don't inherit any of the issues that come with the used car.  Sort of.

What made the whole issue so much more frustrating was that it happened pretty much the week I was to leave for Dragon Con.  I couldn't even get a rental, The rental places were all out of cars.  This place is rural and I have to use a car to get anywhere.  There is little to no public transportation out here.   I drive a minimum of 45 miles one way just to visit my doctor or buy groceries.  Not having reliable vehicles is a death sentence to one's well being out here. And in the last two years I've had to deal with a government shut down which caused me to lose two weeks of pay, then not getting any cost of living raise because my company wanted to invest it into buying out two other companies rather than support it's employees, and then a sudden influx of unexpected expenses such as hitting a deer, and later losing an engine, and a new threat for another government shutdown, I've been feeling the terror of being forever stuck with little hope of relief.   And getting a job elsewhere has not been successful in the decade I've been trying.  Every few months I look into it and I field a few calls but in the end it all dries up rather quickly.

And then more feelings of isolation come from this weekend being Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco.  I'm seeing my friends talk about it and post their pictures and I'm feeling especially left out.  I should stay off social media because, yes, it does make me fell like I'm missing out.   My 2011 trip to Folsom Street fair was an awesome and very memorable time of my life and it's something I wish could be a regular thing. And it burns me up that it's so far away and so inaccessible to me now.

God damn, as much as I've been getting really comfortable and complacent living out here, with a new and nice house and a rather lenient although frustrating job, I've been feeling more and more isolated from what I really want in my life.  People who are on the same page as me.  And for all the things I want in my life, this place has to be the furthest from all of it that one could possibly imagine.

As one, rather wise, life-coach tried to implore to me, "Are you ready to give up something good for something great?"  And I've been thinking about that for a few years now.  And I'm getting there.  I'm starting to find my courage.  And as my relationship with my boyfriend has grown immensely in the last year, I'm starting to see that I do have support in that relationship.  The trouble is, it's a long distance one.  5 hours drive between us.  It's time to close that gap somehow. 
 
In closing, I took this just before complete eclipse and before clouds rolled in.
It's not great but not bad for a simple snapshot camera.

The Super Blood Moon of 2015. 

Anxiety Rooted in Self-consciousness

Hello, blog.  It's been a while.  Many things have happened, many changes, and many things still the same.

I've found a huge level of happiness over the years since coming out of the closet, leaving the LDS church, and essentially taking control over my own life.  I feel like I've grown up a lot, especially in the past year.  I started and ended one of the worst relationships I've ever experienced (I don't think I'll ever write about it so don't ask or wait for it), I moved to another state, bought a house, and started asserting myself at work more (I'm still working at the same place I've been for the past 10 years), which is something that I should have been more diligent at before, but there were reasons I never asserted myself and it was hard to confront it, and I'm still trying to confront it.

What I'm getting at is Social Anxiety.

It has been the biggest thing I've struggled with, and at times has turned what would otherwise be fun and rewarding experiences into complete terror.  And to the extent that I've been able to gain a level of self-awareness of it, it still eludes me in many ways. Although, I've come to realize that it has been rooted in and played a huge role in all the areas of my life where I seem to constantly fail.  (Even in this blog.)

For so many years I've been extremely self-conscious about my appearance, hobbies, interests, they way I talk, what I say, you name it.  No matter what it was, I would find a way to feel like I was being harshly judged for it, and that fear of judgement, and subsequent rejection was devastating to me. I could only find value in myself only if others valued me.  And, of course, that value from others was always fleeting.  I would end up just turning it all back on people and reject them before they had the chance to reject me.  I found solace in being alone.  Unfortunately, that solace became a prison over time, especially once I started to find myself.  I realized that even though I was an introvert, I was still very much in need of socialization, even with people I don't even know.  In other words, I'm not a strong introvert.  In the Meyers-Briggs evaluation of personality, I'm just a hair to the right of the midpoint between Extroversion and Introversion. And just for the sake of completion, my Meyers-Briggs personality type is INFP, which explains a whole lot of why I have trouble in other areas, but I digress.

For me, social anxiety is highly dependent on context and for the most part it's pretty much what I bring to the table in regards to my own personal beliefs about myself.  In talking with a boyfriend the other day, we discussed what it was that kept us both hiding in our little hobbit holes most of the time.  We talked about what it was like to be in crowds, why some crowds felt safe and energizing and why other felt draining and threatening.

I related my experiences going to Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA.  Four days of shoulder to shoulder crowds reaching as many people as 100,000 during the Saturday parade.  I feel fine for the most part, except in the elevators.  But going to Ocean City, MD in the summer time to walk the boardwalk, it's all I can muster to just get the walk over with and get the fuck out of there.  And then there are places like MAL where I have this cognitive-dissonance of feeling fine but also out of place.   What was the underling thinking in each situation?

Well, with Dragon Con I feel like we are all equals. We are all there to have fun and share in our appreciation of science fiction, fantasy and its associated pop culture.  It's a very liberal and progressive crowd for the most part, which invites creativity, acceptance and even celebrates our weirdness. And for the most part, even the ones who are rowdy and drunk the entire weekend are tolerable.

Ocean City, on the other hand is a place of very limited social diversity.  Mostly east coast working class vacationers, hetero-normative families, and often there are loud, obnoxious, young adults who binge on alcohol while cat calling from the balconies at the bikini clad girls on the boardwalk below.  Daily sexual harassment is the norm there. And the air is thick with tobacco smoke.  And as such, I judge these people harshly.  I feel as if I'm much better than they are and it disgusts me that they pollute places making them unsafe for women and gay people.

But then, events like MAL, and even in small ways, Folsom Street Fair and Gay Pride, the crowds can be a bit rowdy but they are friendly, and I feel safe.  They, after all are my people or at least friendly to my people and I know I'm one of them.  But, at the same time, and this is especially true at MAL, I feel like they are all much better than me and that I'm really not good enough to be there.  I'm not gay enough, or I'm not good looking enough or whatever I believe I don't measure up to.

The troubling thing about all this is that it's not rational to believe these things even when at times my beliefs have been validated by certain events.  The thing is, those times were because of outliers, they did not represent the group, and I know this.  But it's just so easy to cast aside the reality to reinforce the fears.  And those fears run deep, and they are strong and overwhelming.  And even though I can play logic games with those beliefs to talk myself out of them, it doesn't' always work.   And I feel like I'm not making any progress at all.   But really, I have made a bit of progress.  I've realized how I've been unknowingly contributing to the social anxiety which I wasn't aware of before.  I've learned a bit of nuance about my judgement of others and myself.  Also, medication helps, so there is that.

So, now, what's next?

I've started a new chapter in my life this year.  I'm putting myself out there a bit more than I ever have before.  I started vlogging on Youtube.  It's a way to confront my self-consciousnesses and social anxiety in a rather detached way.   I'm forced to confront myself when I do this.  I have to watch myself back while I edit the videos, I have to look at myself in a third person and know that the person I'm looking at is me, even though it doesn't feel like me.

This has been an interesting exercise to see where I have been self judging and self-censoring and where I continue to do so and what I've been doing to divert it and try to get people to focus on something else.  It's also interesting to see what ends up being the "something else" I try to use.  It's a strange thing to view myself in a detached semi-objective way.

I've been heavily editing and trying to polish my videos for the same reason I edit and try to polish my writing.  But, no matter what I do, the video shows a much rawer individual.  One prone to stammering, not talking in complete sentences and otherwise eviscerating all that is proper and eloquent grammar.  All of which are things I'm very self-conscious about.  Sometimes I'm sliding in and out of Utah/Maryland/New Zealand/North Carolinian accents.  Something that I had no idea I did until I started this vlogging project.  I'm finding it more interesting than disturbing now and I'm becoming more aware of how I'm perceived and in small ways, I'm starting to like the person I see in the video.

In all, it's been fun and frustrating at the same time.  Frustrating in that I have a very boring life with nothing to really vlog about and I'm constantly battling with technical problems such as sound problems and crappy white balance.  But its fun in that the editing process is creative yet very challenging like piecing together a puzzle.  I've always had an interest in filmmaking and this has re-sparked that interest, which I had long thought had died. 

Moving Along

It does go without saying that it has been a while since I've written anything on this blog.  My last post doesn't count because I was reposting something I originally wrote for Facebook.  But, it was something that should have been posted here.

Things in life have a way of changing.  I haven't been all that busy, but I have been remarkably lost in activities of distraction, which fed my writer's block.   Not that my writer's block was a problem per say, but that I was allowing my distractions to take over, not letting myself mediate on anything long enough to develop something to write about.  In essence, I've been coasting and not doing much with myself.  Letting my job any my living situation be an excuse for not participating in life, depressed mostly.  It's been like that pretty much since July.

The beginning of 2012 right up through June was intense and left me somewhat numb.  Aside from a few outings such as Dragon*Con, hurricane Sandy, which I chose to spend with a friend in North Carolina instead of suffering through the intense anxiety I went through with hurricane Irene the previous year, and a Christmas holiday in Seattle with some friends, I basically coasted on that numbness.   But all during that time, I noticed that I have been markedly feeling and thinking differently about things.  And I've been feeling the need to get back to writing as the dawning of this new year has given me a sense of allowance for renewal and awakening.

It's been a few weeks since MAL 2013 and yet I still find that I'm decompressing.  It was, as always, a remarkable experience for me as all socially intensive situations are.  And with that I've been able to measure how far I've come in the last few years as well and get a sense for how far I still have to go.  And the results are, I've come along way, and I've got a long way to go.  And with that, I would like to put this out there as a way to say thank you to the universe and the people involved, even though I've already thanked them in person.  

It's embarrassing to admit that I walk into these social situations with a tremendous amount of anxiety that paralyzes me and overwhelms my senses.  I'm quite often frozen, inhibited and shut off during these moments.  The social anxiety is often all consuming and takes away my ability to be engaging and cheerful.  It's all driven by my fear of judgment, rejection, and dismissal, for being imperfect and lacking in knowledge and experience, and unworthy of love.  And for the most part, I think I hide it pretty wall, except from the most astute observers.  But in the end, I just end up angry at myself for putting myself in social situations that creates more anxiety. I literally shut down emotionally from that anxiety leaving me in a state of mind that I was afraid of being in in the first place.    Last year at MAL that's pretty much how it went.  Even though I left there a changed person with some new found awareness about what it meant to be authentic, I was still stuck in not accepting that I deserved a place there.

This year at MAL, I had a very different type of experience that gave me some new and profound perspectives.  I learned some amazing things about myself and what it means to be a person of love, worth and value which is allowing me to feel much more gratitude than I ever have before.  I'm feeling a shift in my outlook and in my inward look, that is permissive of myself to be myself, whatever state that may look like, in whatever amount of stress I might be under, in whatever might be holding me back from expressing my wants and desires.

I'm allowing myself to be OK with the person I become when I don't know what to say, the person I become when I feel vulnerable and scared or when I'm calm and funny.  I'm allowing that person that I am at that time, and not judging him with expectations of what he should be doing or could be doing. I'm allowing myself to be what I am and only what I am in the moment and state that I am, which is now.

I can't say that I did all this on my own. Sure, it took a large amount of self awareness and willingness and book knowledge, but it took some education and wisdom that many wonderful friends have been able to give me, and some select moments of trust with some other friends at MAL as they literally, and figuratively, held my leash through the process without judgment, criticism and rejection, giving me the permission I needed to be who I am during all those states.  The simple act of going through the motions of all these states, practicing within a safe environment, which I have all the book knowledge of but I don't have the actual practical experience, in order to start that process of deprogramming decades of self doubt and self hatred.

What happened was a profound healing experience that lifted me to a higher plane of self love.

Sometimes, it really does take someone to help.  To literally be there with me and give me the permission, safety, and respect that I need for that healing experience to happen.  I've always been taught I can only do it on my own.  But I know now that's not true and in some cases, not possible.  I'm now more willing to not only ask for that help, but more importantly, allow myself to receive that help when it is offered.

But most importantly, I've learned that I can trust again.

Thank you all.  I hope that I can carry this with me as long as possible.

My Blog

This.

It needs saying even if it's wrong.

A sure fire way to affect change in a difficult emotional thinking pattern is to state it.  Give it voice. Put it into words, whether spoken or written.  And sure enough, whatever beliefs that arise out of that exercise will suddenly dissolve; especially if that belief was not formed from a rational headspace.   

I don't know why that is.  But it is why I write in this blog.  And it is why I need to keep doing it and continue to give voice to whatever is on my mind regardless if it's rational or not.   Because, for whatever reason, only writing in my private journal seems to have stopped resulting in parsing the jumble of thoughts in my mind.  This writing, this blog, has been necessary for me because of one basic thing, the awareness that what I write has the potential of actually getting read by someone.  That truth changes my entire thought process.   I don't even need to know who reads it or when, just that the words I write are going to end up in a place that can be found and read.  Without that concept of "public", I don't seem to be motivated to process any thoughts at all.  My private journal writing has essentially turned into an exercise in avoidance. 

So here I am, putting more time in to free-writing publicly about my journal writing being an avoidance mechanism so that it will dissolve and go back to being a catharsis.  Wait, isn't the awareness of what I'm writing about change the scope and purpose and end up sabotaging it?    Damn it! 

Nonetheless, I still want to take a moment here to state something about a post from a few weeks ago (April 7).  It was a post that exposed more about me and my messed up state of mind at the time I wrote it than it did about anything or anyone I was whining about.  

It's real, it's how I was feeling at the time, I can't deny that, but there are parts of it that are big red flags to me that I was not rational.  But in order to discover this, I had to forget about the post for a few weeks, finish a story I had been working on for a year, write a follow up post to that story, and then, by chance, go back and read the old post and realize that I was not resonating with whoever it was that wrote it!  Yeah, I wrote it but, I don't really know the person who wrote it.   Does that make me schizophrenic?  Not really, but it does expose how depression manifests itself to me. 

So, what do I want to say about the old post?  Not much other than to say that the feelings of isolation and loneliness, and the belief that I've been the recipient of judgments and rejection, have actually been ME doing most of the judgments and rejecting.  In turn, I've ended up imposing more isolation on myself, well beyond the physical isolation that I actually can't control right now.  Yes, the communities are generally dogmatic, cliquish and exclusionary, but that's over generalizing and unfair to the many individuals in the communities who are not that way and disrespectful to those who desire and need such closed door policies.  I mustn't forget that what seems like a clique is actually a close nit family.  One just doesn't walk into someone's family and expect to be treated as if you were always there.  It takes time, lots of interaction and the right chemistry.  And if it doesn't happen, it's OK.  It wasn't meant to be.  The problem I face is that I so rarely get interaction I never get the chance to ever know where I stand. 

Now, quite honestly, at this point, I need to be careful here because dwelling on my current physical isolation is one of the many major triggers that have literally shoved me into the hell of depression.   And even though I'm aware of how depression manifests itself at this moment in time, it doesn't mean I will recognize if and when I fall into it again.  So, will stating what I just stated mean that I will recognize it next time?  That's the expectation.   But now I just stated that the stating of it will now change its outcome.   Damn it!

Those Nasty Recruiting Homosexuals

I have been meaning to post something about my resignation from the LDS church but life has gotten so busy lately that I've, well, sort of let this blog collect spiders.

I'm not really going to disturb the spiders much right now but I wanted to draw attention to this post by Maureen over at My Black Bikini.

Since I've already resigned, I don't have much else to do other than go out, proselytize and recruit others to resign as well by taking advantage of their shaky testimonies and pointing their browsers to the Facebook group "Resignate: Mormon mass resign for Prop 8 pending supreme court repeal" that Maureen talks about in her post.

Just so you know, resigning from the church can be a really easy process but there are some specific steps that need to be carried out to ensure you're legally protected from unwanted contact or in some cases harassment.  For more information on the process, please see: Mormon No More.

I have documented my resignation process and may post it here some time. Although, it's really a dry and boring read.  Hell, it bores me just thinking about it.

In the mean time, join us in the Facebook group.  If you've already resigned, join us anyway to offer support to those who are planning on taking this big step. 

How Not To Love

I have a complicated ego.  (Don't we all?)  It shields me from reality, keeping me lost in the sea of its preconceived notion of itself.  And then shields me from the crap that its preconceived notion emits by rationalizing it into something else. Ultimately, how I end up seeing myself is completely different from how others see me.   Who gets the correct view of whom I am?  Neither.  Both are pretty much fucked up.

When it comes to shit like that, friendships can be, and will get, utterly destroyed.  And my ego, in its attempt to take the moral high ground by attempting to not judge their responses, can't see what harm has been done to that other person.  Completely oblivious really.  It's so messed up.

What it ultimately comes down to is my ego butting heads with someone else's ego.  And my ego will not let me see that that is what I'm doing.  Yes, my battered and bruised ego, injured from decades of abuse, screams out acidic tirades in frustration, all the while telling me it's simply expressing a truth that other people need to understand.  No concept of whether it's appropriate or even relevant.  It's oblivious to that reality.  And then my ego has the audacity to be confused and offended, if that screaming is rejected, dismissed or challenged.

So what am I going on about?
Me shoving my Dirty Laundry into other people's faces.

No one likes that shit.  No one.  It's a lose-lose.  Always has been, always will be.

I would have imagined that in time I could open up to people.  Come out of the closet about this blog.  To remove the anonymity and let it stand as a connection to my past.  Show how I've worked through things, and come to learn who I am.  But now, I'm not so sure this blog should exist.  It may need to disappear completely and permanently off the Internet.  I may need to disappear completely and permanently off the Internet too.

All the plans I had, wiped out by my own arrogance and smug self-righteousness.  Oblivious I was.  Fucking oblivious.  Patting myself on the back for all the great work I've done only to find I've done nothing but make enemies where I had none before.  They had done NOTHING to me.  They had been patiently putting up with my bullshit for DECADES.  They had defended me and stood-up for me when I was at my most assholishness.  They didn't give a shit that I was gay.  They didn't give a shit I left the church.  And then, I turn around and spit on them to feed my little bruised ego.  What was I trying to gain from that?  A reason to say, "Oh poor me. Look, see, no one really likes me."   Self induced pity.   This entire blog has turned into a pity party for me.  What the fuck was I thinking?

I don't care if people think that they shouldn't have been offended by what I was doing.  That's no excuse.  Why? Because deep down I knew that what I was doing was going to offend.  I may not have known why, or how or who specifically, but I did know it would offend, on purpose.  I was trying to push buttons. 

I have written and spoken at times about how it is not my responsibility to protect other people's view of the world by compromising who I am.  I still mean it.  It's just that in this case, I crossed the line and compromised myself in an attempt to selfishly destroy someone else's view of the world.  That's a big difference!  When my view of the world changed, it wasn't because someone was shoveling it on me.  I did it on my own because I needed to do it.  But then I snapped.  Something had triggered my pain. I quickly forgot my experiences and selfishly expected that others needed their world view changed.  Even when it was working perfectly well for them, maybe even better than the one I was currently trying to shovel.  It was pure hypocrisy from a lapse of self-awareness.

I can say it like I see it but it doesn't matter if buttons are purposely pushed.  They will only create conflict and close hearts, hearts that have been so willing to work with me and let me be myself.  Hearts that put up with the button pushing until it became so toxic that they had to shut down to protect themselves from annihilation.  Pushing to that point is poison.  It's healthy to remove toxic people from your life.  But I didn't realize that I would be the toxin.  I lost my awareness of that.

But get this, even though I had been pushing buttons for decades, the weird thing was, only recently had I become aware I had been purposely pushing buttons.  That seems odd, doesn't it?  The ego was in charge, and I was oblivious. I had not understood how stupid it was.  How destructive, how evil.  In fact, my ego thought it was just the way I do things.  I even told people in all confidence that I'm the type that needs to test people.  As if "on purpose" wasn't really "on purpose".  I really thought I had figured that part out. I was proud of myself.  Oblivious to what it really truly was.  Oblivious to what others already knew.  A character flaw, personality disorder, mental illness, whatever.  It is all those things but most importantly, to the unbeknown victim, it is the definition of an asshole.

But then I realized what I was doing was wrong.  I understood that it was a flaw, I understood its error and acknowledged it, I even stopped doing it, or so my ego told me.  No, I hadn't stopped doing it at all.  I had only stopped doing it to new friends.  I was still doing it to my old friends.   I wasn't aware that my habitual, destructive behavior had not gone away.  I was still a raging asshole.  After all these years, after all I've gone through.  Still, a raging asshole.


I need to forgive myself and move on.  The damage is done.  No amount of apology will be believed at this point.  I brought that on myself.  It's over.  Some may forgive me.  I may never know.   I don't know what else I can do other than take the punches as they are returned.  And they are still punching.  It's their right.

I could say that I love my friends but if I really do, then I would be letting them live their life just like they have been letting me live mine.  So until I can lean to do that, I'm not capable of truly loving someone.  But, I want to love, so I'm going to keep trying.


You know, this entire blog was set up to air my Dirty Laundry.  I haven't always used it for that but that's what its main purpose was.  Why on earth would I think that anyone would want to read it?  And I hope that no one finds it.  Because if they think the shit I put on Facebook was offensive, most of which I don't even write, wait until they read the drivel here.

And that's another thing, if I could just fucking stop airing my Dirty Laundry on Facebook.  Of all the places not to do that, Facebook would be the one.  There really are places I can go which would be appropriate, for one, the therapist's chair, and here, once I make it a private blog.  It will do no good to try and erase the past.  The internet has made that impossible.  I'll have to own up to it eventually.

I do not pity myself for all this mess, so for hell's sake don't pity me.  I believe this is the essence of the human condition, to live, learn, and love.  I'm doing my best with what I have and there are bumps along the way.  And what I've learned so far is how not to love.

Formspring Questions

Well, I jumped on another bandwagon and added the little Formspring thingy-ma-jiggery-doo to my blog a few weeks ago.  I thought, what the hell?  I'm slowly becoming a bit more settled in my life, and don't feel like I have to jump up and down about everything that goes on, for the most part anyway.  I'm starting to grow up a little bit I think.  Not that I've reached an emotional maturity that matches my physical age, but I'm just saying, you know, that I'm less of an asshole.  Actually, I don't really know what I'm saying.

Anyhoo,  

I'm open to fielding questions from my blog readers (I think I have about 9 of them) in case someone wants to get to know me better.  But the questions don't have to be about things gay or Mormon or whatever.  You can even ask anonymously.   Hell they don't even have to be questions.  Of, course I reserve the right to ignore them if they, well, you know, are not coherent, but I might have fun with them anyway.  BWA HA HA HA!  etc.

I've already received my first question about a week ago and I'm going to post an answer soon.  Proof that I intend to get around to things eventually.  Not that I procrastinate or anything, I'm just not all that ambitious and I like to take my time on things until they are "perfect".  Also, I'm trying to "suffer" through some back pain right now from diving off a horse and it makes me grouchy, tired and prone to putting things off.  But that's to be expected.

In the mean time, check out what Kiley is doing.  Now THAT is what I call ambitious.  Especialy #28!

Kiley is just awesome.  I could totally be a lesbian for Kiley!

Lying for the Lord 2

I just want to draw everyone's attention to a sequence of blog posts that appeared yesterday, all with the theme "Lying for the Lord".  These caught my attention because a few weeks prior I had just posted my own take on "Lying for the Lord" so when I read these I was curious what direction they would take.  Part of me was wondering if they had read my post and were going to talk about what I said.  Yeah, I know, a bit narcissistic but it was really more of a worry than a hopeful aggrandizement of my ego.  Yeah, ok, that's still narcissistic. 

Anyway, sometimes I feel like I should take a more intellectual approach to these subjects but I find reading about them to be much more satisfying.  Besides, I think they all do a much better job intellectually addressing the subjects than I would, considering my flair for dramatics.  And I would rather use my blog as catharsis anyway. 

Here are the posts: 

1. Craig posted about Robert Millet..
2. Molly had more to say about Craig's post.
3. Then C.J. followed Molly's with a clarification and more thoughts of her own. 

Missing Comments?

Apparently, there are rumors going around about blog comments that don't appear or turn up missing.  Of course, I wouldn't know if a comment post didn't appear, I don't have any ability to track that stuff.  I have not deleted anything and it all appears to be how I left it last time I was here.

But, in any case, if something's missing, let me know via email.  (email is in my profile)  I'm not sure if I can do anything about it, but it will be nice to know. 

10+1 Favorite Things

Reina tagged me.

I don't normally participate in these tagging games but this time I felt like I needed to.  Not out of obligation but for my own benefit.   I seriously thank Reina for sending it out there like this.  I probably wouldn't have thought of doing this had it not been for her.  It turned out to be just what I needed to lift my spirits.

My list ended up going to eleven. After all, don't all good things go up to eleven?
Anyway, here they are in no particular order:

1. Animals
There is nothing that grounds me more than the non-human living creatures of this planet.  There is something very awe inspiring about creatures that don't spend their lives trying to be something they are not.  They just exist, do their thing, and are happy to be doing it.  Many creatures feel the emotions of fear, anger, joy, happiness but they are not stuck on them, they blow it off and move on.   Their innocence transcends the complexity of the human mind.  Even though the human mind can give us tremendous understanding of our world, it can also be deceived, which creates needless suffering.  Animals are not capable of inflicting suffering upon themselves as we humans do. 

I mostly grew up with cats, dogs, horses and chickens.  Although, I never allowed myself to develop any bonds with dogs and horses until my later years.  I'm still working on birds though. Not sure how but I see myself finding that path through falconry.  I don't know.  We'll see.

Anyway, for some reason I have always easily bonded with cats.  Every cat I have ever owned over the years developed a special bond with me as well.  This bond was never shared with any other member of my family. 

One special bonding moment came when I was around 12 years old.  I woke up one Saturday morning to the sounds of little mews in my bedroom.  But they weren't just in the room.  They were in my bed.  Right there leaning up against my back, as I was lying in my side, was my mother cat and her five newborn kittens.  Rather than hiding away to have her litter as she had done in the past, she had them there with me.  While I was sleeping, she had pressed her back up against mine, as she had done every other night to sleep, but this time rather than find a secluded place in the house, under the bed, closet etc, she felt it safe enough to stay where she was.  I will never forget that.   Nor will I forget my dried crusty bloody pajamas as I was tearing them loose from the crusted bloody bed sheet.   Poor kitty she didn't like me leaving.  I pushed the blanket up to her to fill the space I had vacated.  She was content with that.

2. Dressage
Naturally, because dressage involves riding horses! And I love riding horses, although, I haven't been doing it for very long.  It took me awhile to rediscover the fascination I once had with horses growing up, a topic that needs a post of its own someday.

The neatest thing to me about dressage is that it's just as much about developing a strong, agile and athletic horse as it is about developing a strong, agile and athletic rider.  And the gentle and subtle communication between horse and rider is another special bond that both fascinates and amazes me.

No matter how hard a day I've had at work that week, the moment I step into the stall or walk out to the paddock to retrieve my horse, I no longer care about the world.  I'm fully present for this majestic, powerful, and gentle creature as we teach each other how to work as one.

3. Music
I love music.  I compose music.  I have been composing music since I was 5 years old.  At around age 12 my aunt gave me a few sheets of paper she had written on that showed me how to read music, how chords were constructed and how to transpose into different keys.   Within months, I was now writing things down.  By the time I entered high school, I had composed a huge body of work.   My final semester of my senior year in high school, I was taking 5 music classes out of the 8 periods.  I studied music during my first stint in college although I was never able to complete it.  I toured for one summer with the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps. And during my second stint in college studying to be a Computer Engineer, I still kept my performance and composition skills alive by composing and performing with the percussion ensemble.  A few years ago, my brother-in-law commissioned me to compose the soundtrack to one of his short films.   

Needless to say, much of my life revolves around music.  I'm always looking for new and interesting music that I've never heard before.  Melodic and orchestrated works from modern or classical composers of jazz, heavy metal, folk, elevator, progressive rock, industrial, chill, Celtic, Andean, Latin,  etc.  The list goes on and on.  Too many to mention.  There are genres that I don't like but this post isn't about them.  They are few anyway.   On any given day at work, my iPod will be playing a mixture of an easy listening arrangement by Percy Faith followed by the hard pounding edge of the Dutch heavy metal band, Within Temptation, to be followed by a smooth cello concerto by Samuel Barber and so on.  It's all good.

4. Coffee
I don't drink it for the caffeine; I drink it for the flavor.  So naturally, I'm always buying the pricier stuff.   I was introduced to coffee at the tender age of 10 by my grandmother.  It was the most awesomest thing evar!

5. Sex
Yes I'm going to say it.  Sex, and all that sex can entail.  And it can entail a lot!  Kissing, cuddling, fetishes, BDSM, puppy play etc. and yes, it has to be the gay version.  I have a different blog about this so I don't need to elaborate any more here.  :)

6. Beer 
Not just any beer, it has to be the dark malty kind.  Yummy, malty smooth and malty!  I don't drink beer or any alcoholic drinks to get drunk, I never get drunk.  I drink beer for the flavor!  I just wished it didn't have so many gash darn calories!

7. Internet 
Ok, who DOESN'T love the internet?  Those who are reading this blog I would expect at least like the internet.  If you didn't like the internet, you mostly likely wouldn't be here.  Right?  

For me it's primarily an escape to distract me from the tedious and frustrating existence that I have living in this rural and socially foreign region of the US.  Yeah, there is some bad to that but I'm going to focus on the good.  The internet has accomplished for me the following: 
Allowed me to stay in closer contact with family and friends.  Provided a place for me to connect with other like minded people so that I can have a voice on topics that I would never have the opportunity to discuses otherwise.  Find hook ups with people with like minded interests.  Find dates with people with like minded interests. Look up crazy-ass things on Wikipedia, Google and lds.org.  And most importantly, it was instrumental in allowing me to find a particular picture of a friend of mine, which triggered my coming out process that forever changed the course of my life for the better. 

What would I have done without the internet?  

8. Computers and Programming 
Although, many might include this into internet, as it does require a computer to get on the internet, I think of it completely different.  I have been programming computers since I was 12 years old, long before the internet existed.  If I wasn't off tinkering on the piano or banging away on the drum set, I was on the computer, writing programs.  Anywhere form silly little things that played songs or plotted pretty designs on the monitor to elaborate database programs that I used to keep track of my huge reel-to-reel tape collection.

Now, I use the computer for almost everything I do.  It's the primary tool I use for my employment, to build my music compositions and recordings, write, blog, watch TV and otherwise communicate with the rest of the world.  The computer is the only appliance in my life that I would want to have with me if I were stranded on a desert island.  Assuming of course that there was a place to plug it in and I could get free Wi-Fi.

9. Walking and Nature
Granted they are two separate things but I'm combining them as they go hand in hand for me.

I walk a lot.  When I go out walking, I average about 4 miles per trip.  And depending on time, I may do several walks a day ranging from 3-10 miles.   I have lost a lot of weight doing this.  But the other reason I walk is to clear my head.  It helps me work out the anxiousness that builds up from sitting in a windowless office all day or help me blow off anger and frustration at the world in general. 

Even though there have been times I've walked on an indoor track with some friends, I prefer to only do my walking outside.  Walking outside could mean anything from walking around the town or city to hiking in the park or woods.  But ultimately, anything with a natural setting is ideal and preferred even if I have to drive a while to get there.

Since there are no mountains, I have to make do with the sandy beaches of my favorite place out here, the Chincoteague National Wildlife Preserve, which is mostly on Assategue Is. VA.  On any given day of the year, and I've pretty much hit that place every month throughout the year since 2007, I have seen more varieties of wildlife in that short time than I ever did growing up in rural Utah.  And watching these animals in their natural setting while I'm out communing with nature is a spiritual and profoundly grounding experience.  (see Animals)

10. Photography
I love the idea of making art out of an instantaneous moment in time, to capture a glimpse of the real word for a split second.  What would never be seen in that exact state ever again, is now captured forever.  And out of that moment is born something new.

Images can capture beauty and emotion that transcend from the time they were taken.  And for me, as I'm a very visually oriented thinker, such images draw me in, inspire, and stimulate me in ways that other art forms cannot.  Not even sculpture or paintings.  I hope to be featuring more of my photography in my blogs in the coming years.
 
11.  Family
Last but not least, my family.  This could be an entire blog post of its own.  In fact all of the things on here could be.  But let me just say this, without my mom and dad and many of my siblings, I wouldn't have made it this far.  I wouldn't be here to tell the tale of my life.  They have been the only true friends I will ever have and I can't even begin to express how fortunate I am.  I'm not even sure I can comprehend the magnitude of that fortune.  I'm fully aware that many others don't have what I have when it comes to family.  It breaks my heart.  I wish they could have mine. 

My parents have always had an open house to people over the years, many of them struggling in some why or other with their lives.  By giving them a space to crash for a time demonstrates the amazing generosity they have that not even I have been capable of giving.  I'm still the black sheep in this family, but this family is welcoming of the back sheep. 

Truth be told, it wasn't always like that, but it changed.  Back in the late 80's my mom found the courage, strength and open mindedness to drive her to find the path that would work when the life that was handed to her was failing miserably.   She questioned and challenged the status quo, looked beyond the LDS church to find real answers, real solutions!  By doing so, she brought the rest of us with her.   Now, here we are today.  From deep dysfunction grew strength, love and acceptance.  It's not perfect but it's all that it needs to be. 


tagging...
The rules of this tagging game are that I am to tag 10 others.  I'm not comfortable with doing that but if you feel inspired by my list, go for it, and let me know by posting a comment here.

UPDATE:  What the hell!   I realized there are a few people I really want to know better so I'm just going to go a head and risk it by tagging them, dammit!    I don't know if they will ever see this but it's out there.
Mel
Laruen T. Hart
fonsy
Stella 
Andee 
Quiet Song 
Maureen 
ControllerOne
UPDATE AGAIN:  looks like Quite Song already posted before I completed my tag list!  LOL!

Am I still hiding?

Again, I wonder what I'm doing with this blog.  I've noticed a few things about myself recently with how I relate to this blogging stuff.   This blog, its title, the moniker I use, the tone and subject matter, etc. all contribute to creating an identity, an identity that I'm not so sure that I personally relate to for the most part.  I think this blog has presented a highly skewed perception of the real person behind all of this stuff.  

I don't feel like it's a very good representation of me.  I don't feel like I'm really helping people know the real me.  Perhaps what I should be doing is using this blog to simply help myself know the real me.  Either way, it seems I need to talk about myself more, rather than about the angst that occasionally passes through me.

Everyone mostly sees the troubling issues in my life.  Or, if they follow my other blogs, they might see a sample of my sense of humor or what I do for fun.  I wonder sometimes if the humor comes out on this blog or not.  It is hard to put casual humor across in writing, especially when it's juxtaposed with confusion, anger, depression, cynicism etc.  Or is it?  Is my humor cynical?  Is self deprecating humor cynical?  OK, not all of it is self deprecating.  Actually, I don't really know how to classify humor.  I just know what I find funny.

Anyway, it takes more than just bad humor to know a person.   It's obvious that the subject matter of my writing is shaped by my experience, but when do I simply write about the experience as opposed to simply mentioning it as means to convey my feelings toward something.  And by doing that, the experience as a story itself is diminished to much less than an anecdote.   Obviously, I know what is in my head when I write it; there is a lot of momentum behind it as a thought.   But what ends up on the page are a few words that summarize it into an idea that means only a fraction to the reader as it did to the author.  

An example, looking back at my last post, my simple statement, "Even though I wore tall black boots and long hair, I still had to conform in some things to keep the peace." carries behind it 20+ years of attitude shaping moments with people, enough that I could probably write a book.  And although they were life shaping moments, they all seem too mundane to write about the specifics.  So the best I can do is to oversimplify it into boots and hair vs. conformity and piece, assuming that such things carry with it the right cultural information to allow for understanding and bring about a shared experience between the writer and reader.   Barring that, I would need to write about a few specific incidents to get the point across.   Who knows though?  If I started to write about myself more than the angst, those moments might actually get mentioned.  But then, I might bore people.  Hell, I bore myself sometimes in my own writing.

I haven't had a profound angsty moment since January of this year.  Sure, I still have angst but it has really tapered off.  A small moment in March and April but nothing even close to what I went through last year.  I think that's a great thing!  I'm thrilled!  But the result is my drive to write things here, which were purely to work out my angst, have diminished.   I hardly even journal anymore.   Besides, my journaling was never about writing down a journal of my life.  It's just free association writing to clear my head.  I would say that 99% of it is garbage.

So I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to push myself to writing things here anyway. 
About anything.  Make this an honest effort to journal "properly".  And just let it free flow more and not put so much effort in editing and presenting a polished post.   Not being as articulate in person as I try to be in writing, I have a bit of insecurity about presenting my writing more casual.  It's as if I'm over compensating for my slow verbal acuity.   I'm actually a bit frustrated by my slow verbal acuity.  So, yeah.  

But I have been experimenting with making it more casual and off the cuff.  Like the way I speak.  I say a lot of things that are incomplete sentences; sometimes I don't even complete a word.  I say lots of non-sequitur shit sometimes.  And sometimes I say sequitur shit that doesn't make any sense.  And many times when I comment on blogs and Facebook I'm saying what's on my mind with little editing.   Mostly it's cynicism.  Although when I've started to comment on blogs I've found myself rambling between many different ideas.  I end up deleting most of them because I can't find coherency.  I'm really just trying to find words for things that I have never had before.  Words I've never let myself have or have always let other people make for me.  So in that respect, I could write posts that have broken ideas and incomplete narratives, and jump around and just say shit. 

Life is just a big experiment anyway, right?  Well I see it that way.  At least, I do now.  More so than ever.

Where am I going?

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.

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?

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.  :-)

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. 

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.