Sometimes I really get disappointed in people.
I know it's not polite to say so, but I do.
Lately I've been in contact with a lot of people from my past - mostly through Facebook. It's funny how something that's 99% a waste of constructive time can have such a big impact on your daily life, isn't it? Funny and sad. Sad because I have known these people in real life, I sat in a high school classroom with them for six years or I partied with them in my hometown or I worked at the same company with them and sat with them at lunch. Yet the majority of those people never took the time to get to know me half as well as they do now simply by reading a few things I wrote (mostly in jest!) on a website that is half encoded pixels and half consensual hallucination. The fact that they are supportive and friendly now, when I am just a picture and a few lines of text to them, means so much less to me than a kind word or just a smile might have back then.
I'm glad that the world's moving on, don't get me wrong. I think it's an absolutely wonderful thing that young people today won't have to go through some of the things that a lot of my generation did - and boy, does it make me feel old to say that. It's just that I wonder: if it's so obviously my right to love whoever I'm moved to love, then why wasn't it obvious ten years ago... Or twenty? Does everybody have to recognize something to make it right? If tomorrow everybody goes back to hating the fags again does it mean that our right to love was never obvious and support for it was just a fad?
I'm sorry that this post isn't more positive. I keep thinking of all the really wonderful people I've known and how they've suffered and some of them have died just to lead us here. Then I look around at everything that's supposedly changed for us and I'm just not so sure. The door to acceptance that's supposedly swung open for us can swing the other way too. There's still plenty of oppression, hate and ignorance out there to go around. I heard it in the casual comments of people who watched the gay rights float go by in a local parade; I hear it every day when people say "that's gay," or see people who think their T-shirt saying 'I called your boyfriend gay and he hit me with his purse' is the height of hilarity. That's why I get a little bitter when I hear people saying that we should wait, that the president and Congress have Bush's mess on their plate and shouldn't have to be bothered with a little thing like legal protections and political promises. I feel as though we'll get nothing at all and the door will swing the other way if we don't do something here and now.
If you're reading this and you live in Pennsylvania take a moment to read this and then act on your conscience. It's not just something important to people like me, it's something real that you and I can do to make sure that what precious few gains we've made stay ours.
That's all.
Title lyric from "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Teenage Ambition You Remember Well
Tell me what monogamy is, and why it can sink so deep into your head if it's not biological.
See, here's my thing. During my teen years, I had a boyfriend. His name was Rod. You can read all about him during the confessional period of my blog, starting around here. When we were alone we were every sick, sappy teen romance cliche you can possibly imagine: we held hands, we talked about growing up and getting married, I even wrote his name in my notebooks... and then my first name with his last name. It was really that bad. And we were two guys. Plus we had sex a lot. Anybody who's seen the teen boy libido in full swing can just imagine that times two and will probably wonder how we managed to avoid spontaneous combustion. He was my first love. Because what I felt for him was new and thrilling and unlike anything I'd ever felt before, I held that relationship up to all the others as a sort of yardstick of what was good and bad in them.
Thing is, I cheated on him. I don't know why I did it. I didn't know then and I don't know now. It was my first time being with someone. Maybe I thought I could feel that way with that I was with, and float in a sea of giddy infatuation. Who knows? He cheated on me in the most reciprocal manner possible, and our relationship was never the same. He cheated on me again, and then left me for the other guy. We were together off and on for around two and a half years - and in teen years, that's forever. I was devastated.
Through my marriages, I never cheated. Despite the opportunities... Hell, despite the utter and complete good it would have done me I never did. In my heart, I was unwilling to be the bad guy that way. It was just one of the ways I tried to gain the emotional upper hand: by claiming the moral high ground. I didn't cheat, I wasn't verbally or physically abusive, I remembered every occasion and genuinely tried to fake an enthusiasm for her parents. When my marriage to D ended, I rebounded immediately into a relationship I never could have dreamed of, yet utterly symmetrical to my marriage: a man who grew up in the same crazy church I did, who was on polite speaking terms with my parents and had been the subject of many teen fantasies.
There I was, all liberated, and what did I do? I tried to do everything I thought I should do instead of what I really felt. We wore outfits - real chaps, even! - we wrestled in singlets, we tied each other up, we spanked and talked dirty and used food and tried slings, swings and very soft whips. All well and good. Then we had a threesome... at my instigation, no less, and I turned into a SEETHING JEALOUS FIEND. I had more vengeful plots than a Batman villain. I started the events that led to the end of that whole relationship - although his sudden calling from God to return to straight life was a bit of a clog in the pipes, let me tell you.
So I played the hookup game. And you know what? It led me straight to a young man I'm so fucking crazy about to this day, you should pardon my french, that one of my favorite pastimes is kissing his furry little insteps. I worship him in the temple of the flesh, as the saying or psalm or pop tune goes, and he's shown me exactly the kind of unbelievable rush that I first felt with Rod - only it's an everyday thing now. The way I love him is like a book I love and keep misplacing, because it keeps turning up when I look in the fridge or hang up a towel or fold a basket of laundry. I love him. I'd do anything for him. He makes everything that came before worthwhile.
That's what scares me about our relationship: I'm not sure I'm prepared for an "after" part, even though the age difference between us sorta suggests that there might be one. Sure, some May/December romances drift blissfully on. Most don't. That's how that goes for humans like us. Talking about it seems taboo, too. Like talking about death; ignoring it makes our lives mechanical and without meaning, but letting it loom over us destroys the time we have. I just love him. I just want to enjoy and savor the time I have, the way I savor the time I have on this planet. I know both of them are necessarily limited. There's no way I'm going to make the same mistakes of the past all over again. I couldn't imagine having a better time with someone else than I do with him. He gets me. I get him.
I know, I know. A lot of our friends have it both ways. They've been together for years and they play games with others too. They say things like "monogamy is for straight people." They seem to be having fun. They're exuberant. They make me think sometimes that it could work, that they could actually be right. Problem is that I can't make the leap from 'maybe' to 'let's try this' anymore. Mark Twain said,“The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either.” I guess I'm therefore far more of a cat person than I ever guessed. Who knew. I won't go so far as to say that I'm set in my ways because I'm still open to trying new things. I just have a much better grasp of what I'm capable of doing and handling well... and polyamory just ain't one of them. My bad.
But now, after all that longwinded blather and exposition, I've got to go and clean for that young man I was telling you about. Maybe fix him some breakfast too. My best to all of you, as always.
Title lyric from "Heat Of The Moment" by Asia.
See, here's my thing. During my teen years, I had a boyfriend. His name was Rod. You can read all about him during the confessional period of my blog, starting around here. When we were alone we were every sick, sappy teen romance cliche you can possibly imagine: we held hands, we talked about growing up and getting married, I even wrote his name in my notebooks... and then my first name with his last name. It was really that bad. And we were two guys. Plus we had sex a lot. Anybody who's seen the teen boy libido in full swing can just imagine that times two and will probably wonder how we managed to avoid spontaneous combustion. He was my first love. Because what I felt for him was new and thrilling and unlike anything I'd ever felt before, I held that relationship up to all the others as a sort of yardstick of what was good and bad in them.
Thing is, I cheated on him. I don't know why I did it. I didn't know then and I don't know now. It was my first time being with someone. Maybe I thought I could feel that way with that I was with, and float in a sea of giddy infatuation. Who knows? He cheated on me in the most reciprocal manner possible, and our relationship was never the same. He cheated on me again, and then left me for the other guy. We were together off and on for around two and a half years - and in teen years, that's forever. I was devastated.
Through my marriages, I never cheated. Despite the opportunities... Hell, despite the utter and complete good it would have done me I never did. In my heart, I was unwilling to be the bad guy that way. It was just one of the ways I tried to gain the emotional upper hand: by claiming the moral high ground. I didn't cheat, I wasn't verbally or physically abusive, I remembered every occasion and genuinely tried to fake an enthusiasm for her parents. When my marriage to D ended, I rebounded immediately into a relationship I never could have dreamed of, yet utterly symmetrical to my marriage: a man who grew up in the same crazy church I did, who was on polite speaking terms with my parents and had been the subject of many teen fantasies.
There I was, all liberated, and what did I do? I tried to do everything I thought I should do instead of what I really felt. We wore outfits - real chaps, even! - we wrestled in singlets, we tied each other up, we spanked and talked dirty and used food and tried slings, swings and very soft whips. All well and good. Then we had a threesome... at my instigation, no less, and I turned into a SEETHING JEALOUS FIEND. I had more vengeful plots than a Batman villain. I started the events that led to the end of that whole relationship - although his sudden calling from God to return to straight life was a bit of a clog in the pipes, let me tell you.
So I played the hookup game. And you know what? It led me straight to a young man I'm so fucking crazy about to this day, you should pardon my french, that one of my favorite pastimes is kissing his furry little insteps. I worship him in the temple of the flesh, as the saying or psalm or pop tune goes, and he's shown me exactly the kind of unbelievable rush that I first felt with Rod - only it's an everyday thing now. The way I love him is like a book I love and keep misplacing, because it keeps turning up when I look in the fridge or hang up a towel or fold a basket of laundry. I love him. I'd do anything for him. He makes everything that came before worthwhile.
That's what scares me about our relationship: I'm not sure I'm prepared for an "after" part, even though the age difference between us sorta suggests that there might be one. Sure, some May/December romances drift blissfully on. Most don't. That's how that goes for humans like us. Talking about it seems taboo, too. Like talking about death; ignoring it makes our lives mechanical and without meaning, but letting it loom over us destroys the time we have. I just love him. I just want to enjoy and savor the time I have, the way I savor the time I have on this planet. I know both of them are necessarily limited. There's no way I'm going to make the same mistakes of the past all over again. I couldn't imagine having a better time with someone else than I do with him. He gets me. I get him.
I know, I know. A lot of our friends have it both ways. They've been together for years and they play games with others too. They say things like "monogamy is for straight people." They seem to be having fun. They're exuberant. They make me think sometimes that it could work, that they could actually be right. Problem is that I can't make the leap from 'maybe' to 'let's try this' anymore. Mark Twain said,“The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either.” I guess I'm therefore far more of a cat person than I ever guessed. Who knew. I won't go so far as to say that I'm set in my ways because I'm still open to trying new things. I just have a much better grasp of what I'm capable of doing and handling well... and polyamory just ain't one of them. My bad.
But now, after all that longwinded blather and exposition, I've got to go and clean for that young man I was telling you about. Maybe fix him some breakfast too. My best to all of you, as always.
Title lyric from "Heat Of The Moment" by Asia.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
It's Hot Here At Night
I am tired. I am procrastinating. I am blaming the weather.
In my own defense, it has finally turned hot here after being rainy and cool for weeks. I already miss the rain. I detest sunlight, even though for the first time in my life I appear able to tan instead of burning. I'd rather stay in when it's blazing hot out - but it's even hotter and muggier in here. The one thing it can't do is make me miss winter.
My beloved's mystery illness is quite a bit better. I have stopped waking him in the night to take his ibuprofen, and now that his throat is so much less sore he can eat again. Today he had most of a pizza to himself and I was so very glad. I hate it when he's sick because it upsets me to see him so miserable.
I was really not a very happy camper all day on Father's day. All I really wanted was to see my three youngest children, which of course was not an option. I was glad to hear from the older ones, even though the middlest girls had to sneak away from their mother to call me. I am equally glad that my older kids all like my guy despite his being so close to them in age. My son and my guy actually seem to get along famously, since they have similar taste in video games and movies. They talk quite contentedly on the phone about things that have nothing to do with me. That makes me happy; even happier am I when my my daughter tells me that my guy is "a catch," and asks me for my opinion on the boys she sees. How unfortunate that her current love interest is at least in my opinion a giant mistake. Thank Jebus I'm too tactful to say so.
Now I am going to go for a long walk in the huge graveyard nearby. It's evening, the breeze has cooled the air, and the cemetery is a beautiful and restful place to walk. Some people evidently find this a touch morbid, but I find it both convenient and conducive to long, deep thoughts that can unspool themselves uninterrupted.
I hope that these long hot summer days are enjoyable for you all. My best to each and every one of you, as always.
Title lyric from "Hot In The City" by Billy Idol.
In my own defense, it has finally turned hot here after being rainy and cool for weeks. I already miss the rain. I detest sunlight, even though for the first time in my life I appear able to tan instead of burning. I'd rather stay in when it's blazing hot out - but it's even hotter and muggier in here. The one thing it can't do is make me miss winter.
My beloved's mystery illness is quite a bit better. I have stopped waking him in the night to take his ibuprofen, and now that his throat is so much less sore he can eat again. Today he had most of a pizza to himself and I was so very glad. I hate it when he's sick because it upsets me to see him so miserable.
I was really not a very happy camper all day on Father's day. All I really wanted was to see my three youngest children, which of course was not an option. I was glad to hear from the older ones, even though the middlest girls had to sneak away from their mother to call me. I am equally glad that my older kids all like my guy despite his being so close to them in age. My son and my guy actually seem to get along famously, since they have similar taste in video games and movies. They talk quite contentedly on the phone about things that have nothing to do with me. That makes me happy; even happier am I when my my daughter tells me that my guy is "a catch," and asks me for my opinion on the boys she sees. How unfortunate that her current love interest is at least in my opinion a giant mistake. Thank Jebus I'm too tactful to say so.
Now I am going to go for a long walk in the huge graveyard nearby. It's evening, the breeze has cooled the air, and the cemetery is a beautiful and restful place to walk. Some people evidently find this a touch morbid, but I find it both convenient and conducive to long, deep thoughts that can unspool themselves uninterrupted.
I hope that these long hot summer days are enjoyable for you all. My best to each and every one of you, as always.
Title lyric from "Hot In The City" by Billy Idol.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Ain't Got No Cash, Ain't Got No Style
Today is my older brother Doug's birthday.
Like me, he's attracted to guys. He's never been much for girls; he had a girlfriend after high school, and that went nowhere. She was quite the dish as I remember - and crazy as a loon. The two of us have that in common, Doug and I: if we're gonna pick a girl, we always pick 'em crazy. Don't they say you always end up marrying Mom in the end?
Since Doug and I live so far from each other, I am limiting my celebration to Facebooking him and embarrassing him on a certain adult social networking site we both frequent. Ah, the Internet. Sharing life's little embarrassments with the entire universe is SUCH fun.
My beloved is sick. He's got a sore throat, but a trip to the doctor's proved it to be neither mono nor strep. I have a wicked sore throat myself, but he has been so knocked out by whatever this is that I've pretty much denied feeling ill and tried my best to take care of him. I figure that next to cancer this is a walk in the park, and so far I seem to be right. Hopefully it will pass soon.
We are trying to pull our finances together in order to make another move. This time I am hoping to have jobs located and ready for our arrival in our new destination. The economy is making that vaguely difficult, however, and in spite of the enthusiastic wads of cash the government's been slinging in every direction that doesn't seem likely to change either. I am just doing my best to remain optimistic still, and that's going about as well as it can. For the record, I still love our new President, but I AM starting to wonder if he loves me and my people back or if all of those sweet things he said were just to get us into the voting booth with him. Wouldn't be the first time some guy talked his way past my defenses with sweet nothings... But like most teenage girls the morning after, I am telling myself that he's just busy or has commitment issues and that it can't be that he's just not that into us. I guess we'll see.
How's your day going?
Title lyric from "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin.
Like me, he's attracted to guys. He's never been much for girls; he had a girlfriend after high school, and that went nowhere. She was quite the dish as I remember - and crazy as a loon. The two of us have that in common, Doug and I: if we're gonna pick a girl, we always pick 'em crazy. Don't they say you always end up marrying Mom in the end?
Since Doug and I live so far from each other, I am limiting my celebration to Facebooking him and embarrassing him on a certain adult social networking site we both frequent. Ah, the Internet. Sharing life's little embarrassments with the entire universe is SUCH fun.
My beloved is sick. He's got a sore throat, but a trip to the doctor's proved it to be neither mono nor strep. I have a wicked sore throat myself, but he has been so knocked out by whatever this is that I've pretty much denied feeling ill and tried my best to take care of him. I figure that next to cancer this is a walk in the park, and so far I seem to be right. Hopefully it will pass soon.
We are trying to pull our finances together in order to make another move. This time I am hoping to have jobs located and ready for our arrival in our new destination. The economy is making that vaguely difficult, however, and in spite of the enthusiastic wads of cash the government's been slinging in every direction that doesn't seem likely to change either. I am just doing my best to remain optimistic still, and that's going about as well as it can. For the record, I still love our new President, but I AM starting to wonder if he loves me and my people back or if all of those sweet things he said were just to get us into the voting booth with him. Wouldn't be the first time some guy talked his way past my defenses with sweet nothings... But like most teenage girls the morning after, I am telling myself that he's just busy or has commitment issues and that it can't be that he's just not that into us. I guess we'll see.
How's your day going?
Title lyric from "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin.
Monday, June 15, 2009
By The Way, I Tried To Say I'd Be There
There are a lot of things you can do with a blog. You can report the news you think is important and add why it's meaningful to you, critique fashion and food and arts, share recipes or build kingdoms of never-were. I've done some of all of those things, but today I'm just going to give you what I have. I am here and now, just like you. All I really have is this moment, because the future is just conjecture and the past could be an illusion. So here's where I'm at right now.
Things are hard money-wise. In order to make them better, we have to make changes in our lives that will cost money. We need to move again, we need better incomes and we both want to be part of a more creative community and less involved in a certain superficial social scene that has been slammed by its participants so many times that to do so here myself would be repeating redundant. Like two people on either side of a very deep, long canyon, we can both see where we want to be but are less certain exactly how we'll get there. It is of little comfort to know that the rest of the country is in the exact same mess - that just means that there isn't some wealthier, more accommodating environment out there just waiting for us.
There's been a lot of stuff in the media that I follow lately about the Obama administration. The people I listen to say that he's failing us on marriage equality and DOMA. I personally am having a hard time being scathingly critical of him for that - after all, I'm not in a rush to marry or die on foreign soil any time soon. I don't hear anybody screaming about ENDA, and that's where I think all our efforts should really be focused. I can be fired from any job in the nation because I'm in love with another man. You ask me and I'll say that's the real discrimination and injustice.
Everywhere I go I see pregnant teenage girls. I was a teenage parent myself - I was nineteen when my oldest daughter was born, and had been a stepfather for over a year by then - and I was fully confident after experiencing it myself that sometime soon having a baby at fifteen would be exposed for the really uncool dipshit move that it is. So far, that message doesn't seem to be reaching its core audience. I told my own pregnant teen that I personally think she's a moron. After seeing what her mother and I went through, how could she possibly want to repeat that? I didn't plan this, Dad, is what she told me. But once it happened, I couldn't just kill it. You wouldn't have REALLY wanted that, would you? For the record, I would have supported that no matter how much it broke my heart because she deserves to experience being a free and unencumbered adult before she has to give up her entire life in service to someone else who will never truly appreciate her sacrifice. When I said so, she blithely hugged me and said, Aw, Dad. I appreciate you. That's why you're gonna babysit SO DAMN MUCH. Just shoot me now, will you?
If there's anything that saves me, it's the love I have in my life. I mentioned this little insight to my oldest daughter recently, as she's in a new relationship with a young man she finds completely mesmerizing. She is in that insecure early stage when she can't imagine what attracts such a wonderful young man to her. When I said that everyone feels that at some point about the person they really love, she just laughed. I don't know why you guys got together at first, she said patting my knee, but the way you guys are starting to look and sound exactly alike is downright scary. The other day I talked to him on the phone for, like, five minutes before I realized it wasn't you. I find the exact opposite in my own experience: the thing that make us perfect for each other is that I have what he lacks, and vice versa. Someone who compliments and completes you that perfectly doesn't come along every day.
Finally, I'd like to give a couple blog shout outs to some young bloggers who have renewed my faith (and interest!) in the blogosphere. Notes On Bar Napkins and Put The Lotion In The Basket are probably the best two new blogs I've read in the last few years and I highly recommend them. With that, I leave you, as always with my best.
Title lyric from "By The Way" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Things are hard money-wise. In order to make them better, we have to make changes in our lives that will cost money. We need to move again, we need better incomes and we both want to be part of a more creative community and less involved in a certain superficial social scene that has been slammed by its participants so many times that to do so here myself would be repeating redundant. Like two people on either side of a very deep, long canyon, we can both see where we want to be but are less certain exactly how we'll get there. It is of little comfort to know that the rest of the country is in the exact same mess - that just means that there isn't some wealthier, more accommodating environment out there just waiting for us.
There's been a lot of stuff in the media that I follow lately about the Obama administration. The people I listen to say that he's failing us on marriage equality and DOMA. I personally am having a hard time being scathingly critical of him for that - after all, I'm not in a rush to marry or die on foreign soil any time soon. I don't hear anybody screaming about ENDA, and that's where I think all our efforts should really be focused. I can be fired from any job in the nation because I'm in love with another man. You ask me and I'll say that's the real discrimination and injustice.
Everywhere I go I see pregnant teenage girls. I was a teenage parent myself - I was nineteen when my oldest daughter was born, and had been a stepfather for over a year by then - and I was fully confident after experiencing it myself that sometime soon having a baby at fifteen would be exposed for the really uncool dipshit move that it is. So far, that message doesn't seem to be reaching its core audience. I told my own pregnant teen that I personally think she's a moron. After seeing what her mother and I went through, how could she possibly want to repeat that? I didn't plan this, Dad, is what she told me. But once it happened, I couldn't just kill it. You wouldn't have REALLY wanted that, would you? For the record, I would have supported that no matter how much it broke my heart because she deserves to experience being a free and unencumbered adult before she has to give up her entire life in service to someone else who will never truly appreciate her sacrifice. When I said so, she blithely hugged me and said, Aw, Dad. I appreciate you. That's why you're gonna babysit SO DAMN MUCH. Just shoot me now, will you?
If there's anything that saves me, it's the love I have in my life. I mentioned this little insight to my oldest daughter recently, as she's in a new relationship with a young man she finds completely mesmerizing. She is in that insecure early stage when she can't imagine what attracts such a wonderful young man to her. When I said that everyone feels that at some point about the person they really love, she just laughed. I don't know why you guys got together at first, she said patting my knee, but the way you guys are starting to look and sound exactly alike is downright scary. The other day I talked to him on the phone for, like, five minutes before I realized it wasn't you. I find the exact opposite in my own experience: the thing that make us perfect for each other is that I have what he lacks, and vice versa. Someone who compliments and completes you that perfectly doesn't come along every day.
Finally, I'd like to give a couple blog shout outs to some young bloggers who have renewed my faith (and interest!) in the blogosphere. Notes On Bar Napkins and Put The Lotion In The Basket are probably the best two new blogs I've read in the last few years and I highly recommend them. With that, I leave you, as always with my best.
Title lyric from "By The Way" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Just Say That We Agree And Then Never Change
When I was somewhat younger, I went rafting on a river in southwestern Pennsylvania (I don't remember which one exactly: Youghiogheny? Can that possibly be right?) It wasn't a big river, but it was deeper than most of the creeks and streams in the more mountainous northwestern part of the state where I'm from, and it had a bit of a current to it in some places. I guess they sell it as "white water," but I went on actual white water when I lived in Arizona and it scared the shiznit outta me. By comparison, that childhood trip was mostly a walk in the park. We were four people to a little inflatable raft like a bigger ship's dinghy, everybody paddling, and it was a lot of fun. During one broader, shallow stretch we even sat up on the sides and rested for a minute. That's when our raft hit a submerged rock and pitched me off. The water was probably only about ten to fourteen feet deep there, but it seemed like an ocean then. The thing I remember most is watching my raft-mates' startled faces suddenly shrink and disappear behind a wavering curtain of light, and of looking down and seeing only rocks and weeds a few feet below my sneakers.
That's the image that keeps coming back to me lately. My life used to be like that. I was the head of a family, part of a team effort. We all rowed more or less together. Then all at once I got pitched right out of the boat, and now I'm down here in these depths I never thought might be here. I desperately need to reconnect to the surface world, to the good parts of what I left behind, or my life will go on with the same sort of drifting, drowning sensation. Or maybe that's what this is, I am drowning and I'll never again see the light of day again the way I did before.
Don't get me wrong, okay? It's so easy to misinterpret what people actually mean when they write, isn't it? It's just that ever since I started to get better from the chemo, I have a sense that I'm living on borrowed time. That if I want life to actually start again, that if I want to be able to wear the 'survivor' badge instead of the 'I'm just waiting for the next set of symptoms to begin' hangdog look, I have to reconnect with who and what I was before.
It means getting a job, or some sort of income that I can call my own, and a place where I can put down new roots even if the old ones are dug up. It means finding a stable, sheltered place to stand out of the constant onrush of the world. I'm so tired of uncertainty already. Don't quote me on this, but I think I'm getting too old for it. I'm not depressed or upset, just... displaced. I suppose in a sense it's a positive thing, that it means that I really might be putting the cancer into a new perspective as a dark and dangerous period of my life that's over now instead of just on hiatus. On the other hand, it also means that I can't really relax or be anything but en garde until I can make the changes I want.
Plus I guess I'll finally have to figure out once and for all if I can build my world solidly around another person's presence in a really trusting way instead of reserving that niggling little judgment in the back of my head that nothing this good can really last. Who knows? Miracles have happened, right?
Title lyric from "Cable Car" by The Fray.
That's the image that keeps coming back to me lately. My life used to be like that. I was the head of a family, part of a team effort. We all rowed more or less together. Then all at once I got pitched right out of the boat, and now I'm down here in these depths I never thought might be here. I desperately need to reconnect to the surface world, to the good parts of what I left behind, or my life will go on with the same sort of drifting, drowning sensation. Or maybe that's what this is, I am drowning and I'll never again see the light of day again the way I did before.
Don't get me wrong, okay? It's so easy to misinterpret what people actually mean when they write, isn't it? It's just that ever since I started to get better from the chemo, I have a sense that I'm living on borrowed time. That if I want life to actually start again, that if I want to be able to wear the 'survivor' badge instead of the 'I'm just waiting for the next set of symptoms to begin' hangdog look, I have to reconnect with who and what I was before.
It means getting a job, or some sort of income that I can call my own, and a place where I can put down new roots even if the old ones are dug up. It means finding a stable, sheltered place to stand out of the constant onrush of the world. I'm so tired of uncertainty already. Don't quote me on this, but I think I'm getting too old for it. I'm not depressed or upset, just... displaced. I suppose in a sense it's a positive thing, that it means that I really might be putting the cancer into a new perspective as a dark and dangerous period of my life that's over now instead of just on hiatus. On the other hand, it also means that I can't really relax or be anything but en garde until I can make the changes I want.
Plus I guess I'll finally have to figure out once and for all if I can build my world solidly around another person's presence in a really trusting way instead of reserving that niggling little judgment in the back of my head that nothing this good can really last. Who knows? Miracles have happened, right?
Title lyric from "Cable Car" by The Fray.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
All The World's Indeed A Stage
So I've been thinking about what my guy said to me about trying to make my name with my blog. I've actually been thinking about it a lot, to tell you the truth. But how can I get anywhere with it when nobody even reads it anymore?
All the bloggers I know who have made it big are all about the issues, too. I am not so much about the issues. What's going on in my life is WAY more important than political concerns. Granted, some people I knew back in the day - like Joe - have actually managed to pull down some respect and influnce with it too, and I'm sure that's gratifying. Still not important to me.
I just wanna tell my story. I wanna sing my song. I personally think that the crap that happens to me is fascinating, even if nobody else does. After all, it's happening to me, and who could be more important than that? (Spo, if you're reading this, I just heard you think the word 'narcissistic.')
So I'm thinking that maybe I'll just content myself with changing things around a little on here, shaking them up a bit, and going on with my efforts in other realms. I still really want to see an actual, physical book with my name on the spine and a smugly grinning photo of me on the dust jacket. Maybe it will never happen. Maybe it will happen tomorrow. After all, in a world where an ultradouche like Rush Limbaugh can be famous I guess everybody can still get their fifteen minutes of fame. I just want mine, y'know? Lord, doesn't everybody?
Title lyric from "Limelight" by Rush.
All the bloggers I know who have made it big are all about the issues, too. I am not so much about the issues. What's going on in my life is WAY more important than political concerns. Granted, some people I knew back in the day - like Joe - have actually managed to pull down some respect and influnce with it too, and I'm sure that's gratifying. Still not important to me.
I just wanna tell my story. I wanna sing my song. I personally think that the crap that happens to me is fascinating, even if nobody else does. After all, it's happening to me, and who could be more important than that? (Spo, if you're reading this, I just heard you think the word 'narcissistic.')
So I'm thinking that maybe I'll just content myself with changing things around a little on here, shaking them up a bit, and going on with my efforts in other realms. I still really want to see an actual, physical book with my name on the spine and a smugly grinning photo of me on the dust jacket. Maybe it will never happen. Maybe it will happen tomorrow. After all, in a world where an ultradouche like Rush Limbaugh can be famous I guess everybody can still get their fifteen minutes of fame. I just want mine, y'know? Lord, doesn't everybody?
Title lyric from "Limelight" by Rush.
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