Exploring the Past Led To Forgotten Remnants

Continued to a small town in KS where I spent many a holiday vacations with my family and grandparents on their Ranch. It was sold in the late 80's,  the last time I was there. I retraced my steps and found the old property. Completely in the middle of nowhere on a lonely country road, and the expanse of land overlooking the lake. Beautiful. But, bittersweet, because the land had been abandoned, and the front gates barb wired shut, and grass overgrown, with only remnants of the original gravel road showing. Of all those days and nights during my childhood exploring and spending time on the ranch, it was like walking through a ghost wasteland. It was heavy moment, most especially when I approached the ranch house plot about 1 mile down the gravel road.. only to see a heap of burnt wood, masonry, and broken glass. It must have burnt down.. and was just forgotten about. It made me extremely sad... my dog and I hiked back up to the car.. also to notice that the original caretaker's house that was about 1 mile in the distance was also gone, and the only thing left standing was an old metal barn. Nobody could be seen for miles, No cattle, no cars. Just my vivid memories juxtaposed next to this beautiful day with just outlines of my childhood pasttimes.

Yes, I sound dramatic, but I guess I am a dramatic, old soul. I really was crushed seeing that ranch house destroyed. Not that it's good or bad.. just sad. Almost as if the present owners were not honoring the past. It would have been a totally different experience if people lived there, even if they had redone the house completely differently. To find it completely tossed aside was heartbreaking. It threw me into a funk for about 8 hours.. then I decided it was time to pick up and keep going.
Oddly, I went on the trip to embrace and try to capture my love of outdoors, and try to relive my past in a way. It was a shock to be met with this unexpected set of emotions. Yes, it was a beautiful day.. which made it even more bittersweet. I swear I was waiting for the tumbleweeds to roll by, and the vultures or crows to descend upon some dead carcass.
 
So it is time to get back up and continue... My mind dreams about a cabin in the woods.. getting all Thoreau whenever I want to..... to capture the values and activities that feeds my soul.. but then I think about the practicality of it all, and the expense of keeping up a property.  Maybe I should keep dreaming... because I want a retreat that I can call my own. And despite my not having a partner in my life, at least I can build my own memories at a place I can call mine.

Searching For The Future

I'm searching for something and I do not know what it is.. I see the emotions on the television, see the love, the drama.... and part of me wants that love, wants the security.... and I cannot find it. This weekend, I followed a spontaneous instinct to go on an overnight roadtrip to a place of my childhood.. my grandparents ranch. When I got there, I discovered that the owner who had bought the land from my grandparents have all but abandoned the place,... the ranch house had burnt down, and all that was left was the rubble, the charred wood, the melted metal, and broken glass. Would I have been better off not going back, and just allowing the childhood memory to persist over time? It is now tarnished... To see a place that was so virbrant in my mind, now dead, abandoned, forgotten.. was eerie, sobering, depressing.  It left an impression on me..... demonstrating that life is transient... that memories and love are what persist, and even though the physical remnants of the past may die away and decay, the memories are what give us hope to continue.  I walked through the front gate which had been chained shut, with weeds overgrown; the road leading down to the now burnt down ranch house was overgrown. This was in stark contrast to the memories that persist so vividly in my mind of our past experiences there.... to be walking through the past.. of what seemed like a ghost... what was left in the present was just a shadow from the past... almost as if the past was not honored as sacred or important.  It was left there, exposed to the elements, the twisted metal, the singed wooden beams. It was a shock... and it made me think more about mortality, life, and death.  I thought to myself as I drove back home was the stark reality of my being gay turned to the dark side, of thinking I would never had a family of my own, never be able to build the memories around a home, a tradition, a loving family.  To this, I fear... it is this that I fear the most, that I will be alone, and not be able to build any memories or traditions that can live on to the next generation. What grandmom and grandad built was a family of immortal memories and love.. .which can be done in a traditional family.  What can be done in a non-traditional family? What can be done if we cannot find a loving partner because no venue exists in which to meet people? Can we in fact control our future whatsoever? If not, will I ever be able to build traditions and memories that can be cherished by my descendants? I am not sure, but I hold on to the hope.  I think that is why I grab on so tightly to the idea of having a cabin of some sort... a retreat.. which I can call my own.  Although I do not have a partner with whom to share it with yet, perhaps I will in the future. 

Imagine If You Had to Cope With Homosexuality....

I try to wrap my head around why struggling with homosexuality is such a difficult issue... and every time I try to explain this to myself, my head goes into circles.... similar to what the journey seems to be right now: an endless circle going nowhere.

If I were to explain to somebody why it is so hard, these are some of the things that emerge:

a) You can't just 'change' this part of yourself... which for me is probably the most frustrating part.. that there is something fundamental about myself... my attraction to men...or at least my attraction to men in my fantasies....  that doesn't just go away, and because of this, it permanently changes the way I perceive my path of life... with respect to my personal life, falling in love, being in relationships.

b) Looking around into mainstream society.. whether it is at Mass; at restaurants; at festivals; at parks.. and seeing the traditional family interacting, and then knowing that I am unable, just because of how I am built or have been socialized, to attain that family setting with children.. that I have romanticized my whole life.

c) I feel like I almost have a 'condition'... and at least for now.. my contemplation time for myself.. my downtime.. my prayer time... is really devoured by feeling sorry for myself, or trying to strategize how I can improve my situation, or how I can find a date, or how I can feel normal.

d) Imagine if you had something bothering you that would bother you all the time.... something that fundamentally changes how you live your life; how others perceive you; how you define love and intimacy, which is such an important foundation of happiness in this current life. Imagine that you could not turn off that worry...... ever.

e) Even when I do try to embrace myself, I still have doubts... and I still feel uncomfortable, and feel like I am maybe making a 'decision' rather than following who I am.  I still wonder who I am, and whether I could be aroused by women if I were in a safe, nurturing environment.  It scares me, frustrates me, and results in a stalemate... of where I feel like exploring, where I should be exploring, and WHO I will ultimately BE in the long term.

f) Imagine that you have not quite found yourself, or found that part of you that still feels empty, and you so desperately want to fill it with meaning, with life, with love, with intimacy.. but you don't know how to get there, who will show you the way.. and everything that you do try to do seems to set you back a few steps instead of propel you forward a few steps...

g) Medications may help decrease obsessive thinking, but does not capture the crux of the issue: how to find happiness.  This cannot be found in a medication.. it needs to be found somewhere in the heart; in the spirit.  When the spirit is dragged down by identity crises.... it makes it difficult.... to not worry... about it..

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So, all of this being said...... of course, they are worries, and probably not as bad as they seem at the time. As I continue down my path of life, many other parts of my life.. apart from my sexuality issues... keep me fulfilled.  I thank God for this, because if I did not have such an enrichment in other parts of my life, it would make this journey even the more difficult. So, I thank my friends, my family, my colleagues, and of course.. my dog.. for keeping me happy and at peace.. a *majority* of the time, which is all that we can hope for, right?

Peace,
Ziggy

How Do Bisexual Men Choose?

Where do relationships and friendships with bisexual men lead? This is an interesting question indeed, because if they are truly equally attracted to both men and women, which gender do they seek in a permanent partner? Do they ever seek partners or spouses? If they do, do they give into their homosexual desires on the side? Is it therefore not worth having a relationship with a bisexual man?  Such are the thoughts of a man new to the scene who sure is making friends with many bi-sexual males.  Intriguing to me, because I think of bisexuals as acting totally straight, but liking men also.  It's an appealing combination... a masculine, straight acting guy who loves to be with men.  But, if they like women also, how do you know they won't cheat on you? Go back to the other side? I wonder how this works in real life.

The 'Royal' We

Sometimes I just want to cry out, yell, shake people into the acceptance of the issues with which I am coping. As we are all just grown up children seeking acceptance and love..... this longing and need screams even louder for a man going through a sexuality crisis.  How is it that after 3.5 years of coping with this, out in the open, so to speak, I struggle so? It is the constant music in the back of my mind, wishing that I would someday feel OK with the implications of what my life will be like when I fully embrace myself.  I struggle with the truths, wishing they were false. I play mind games with myself, hoping that I indeed think that being naked with a man is just a phase, and I would be grossed out by it. These fears still exist, and I do not want them to exist.  I want society to recognize homosexuals as strong beings, beings who have gone through so much to get to where they are in accepting themselves as different, and having the courage to live out their lives a world of such persecution, bigotry, and misunderstanding. It creates in me a heavy heart, mostly knowing that I am truly a good person to the core, and knowing that one segment of myself, my sexuality, will trump all other judgement. To me, this seems so wrong, so unfair, so unjust.  I feel so proud of how far I have come in my journey, yet get frustrated to those I know will never accept that part of me. Do they know that my emotional growth, my confidence, my maturity is rooted in the very experience of coming out, and accepting myself? Can they not understand it?

I use the royal 'they' to represent different people I know; different groups in society; different institutions. I hear stories of 'them' rejecting their own daughters or sons because of sexuality; I hear stories of 'them' rejecting people in their own institution for reaching out to those in need. The only reason I can fathom that would explain such hateful behavior is fear, blindness, and misunderstanding.  Are these the states of mind that breed intolerance and bigotry? Most likely.  It is a shame that one's opinions, the dogma somebody follows, can result in rejection of somebody due to whether they would like to become intimate, fall in love, and have a deep satisfying relationship with somebody of the same sex. Do not we have the right to fulfill who we are? Are we truly misguided, or do we just know ourselves so well from having to soul search ourselves to the point of self-acceptance? I use the royal 'we' to represent the homosexuals, the transgendered, the bisexuals; a group of individuals who have most likely been through much emotional pain to try to get to a place in life where they can feel at peace.

Sometimes I just want to break down, cry, and feel loved.  It is with this transformation that I feel safe to do that, to come to terms with who I am and be OK with it.

The Fears I Still Quietly Harbor

As I exclaim my thanks for where I currently am in my life, I still harbor those fears which may manifest themselves later, as I continue down this journey of gayness.

I worry about the ramifications of people in the workplace knowing. I wonder, for example, what would happen if I brought my future partner to a black-tie event. Worse, I wonder what would happen if I did *not* bring my partner to a black-tie event.  I would rather not hurt my partner, and would need to brace myself and be strong for the potential workplace consequences.  It really does make me nervous, and has recently become a worry as a new faculty member being invited to various extracurricular activities.

Although I do look forward to the day I have a companion, I do keep in the back of my mind the challenges of introductions to family; having to confront the issues of family awkwardness. I know my tendency for anger to flare up in the face of being unfairly targeted or treated unjustly, so I can't even fathom the fallout from a family dispute involving rejection of my future partner.  Maybe I should focus on the positive rather than the negatives.  Maybe things will be easier once I find somebody; and these bridges may be easier to cross in the presence of love and devotion.

I worry less, but still worry, about sexual interactions and comfort levels.  If I have just gone down this gayness path with just theoretical notions of myself coupled with some isolated (albeit repeated patterns) of not being sexual aroused by women.. and it ends up to be all in my mind.... Fuck.... it's just so crazy to think about this.  If I think about this, my mind gets entangled with philosophical notions of 'How do we truly know our identity?' or 'What happens if I indeed AM in control of my sexual preference and can exercise choice?'. And if the latter is true, "Am I going down a path which I indeed to not have to go down in order to be fulfilled?'.  It is tough that these questions still cross my mind.

I wish that things in life were certain.  I can only go on experiential learning at this point, and follow my heart, my mind, and my body. As far as following God... I can do that to, as long as God does not ascribe to the homophobic theologies of fundamental Christian religions.  As far as I know, God does not do that. The reason why I know that is because my coming out experience has led to a sense of peace and fulfillment, which God would not have created if I he did not think that gayness was inherently wrong.

What I Am Most Thankful For With Regards To Coming Out

To (most) of those friends and family who know, I have strengthened my relationship with them, and I feel safe being myself around them.  This is probably the most pleasantly surprising consequence which happened very early on, and continues to this day. To feel loved, to feel accepted to the very core of my being, evokes a sense of thanksgiving and peace which suspends me in hope. 

I am now comfortable being single.. Although I sometimes feel guilty for being able to control my own free time, I really do feel very fortunate to be where I am in life right now. I just have to remember that I enjoy volunteering and taking care of other people, which may partially fill the desire of my wanting a family someday.

I feel comfortable in my own skin.. I do not feel I need to give an excuse for being who I am; for my hobbies; how I spend my free time.  I don't care about having to talk about sports, which was a huge issue for me for many years.

I am more confident in myself; which manifests itself in better friendships; honesty; and just having more fun interacting with people. It gives me confidence in the workplace, that I can in fact complete a task efficiently, which allows me to calm down and have a sounder, calmer, and healthier mind.

I can be myself, most especially to those I have come out to. I can tell funny stories about myself and feel OK with it. Lately, telling my coming out stories and dating experiences has been a liberating and fun experience, therapeutic in many ways, and insightful, as I gather feedback from loved ones.

I now know what it is like to experience intense depression, and know that I have the coping skills to deal with multiple emotional events which inevitably will occur in life. I consider that crisis several years ago as my own personal mid-life crisis.... a crisis of identify which spanned my sexuality, my career choice, my spirituality, my religion, and all the other activities in my life that I was doing to create my 'identity'. In all, it shook the foundation of my life and forced me to re-evaluate, re-examine, and re-invent myself in order to feel at peace.   I made it through that period a stronger and wiser person, to a place where I can fulfill my goals, and be a better person by serving those around me