WOW...there has been so much going on lately that I have not had time to get anything done. I have been so busy at work and so busy with myself that this blog has suffered and I have not been able to add anything new to it in over a month. I have decided to start adding my dreams to this so I will have a record of all the changes that are have been going on in my mind and soul.
I have discovered so much about my self over the past few months with the help and direction of my friend Jack and a few of his friends. The love and compassion that Jack has shown me is more then I have ever experienced in my life. It is something that is honest and true. He challenges me in why that no friend has ever done. He allow me to say what in my heart and head and allow me to get my feelings out and then helps me to understand them so I can move forward. I have had good friends in the past but I have never really shared my feelings or emotions with them, I have just never felt very comfortable doing this with anyone. Jack is different, he makes it easy to talk to him and telling him what is going on in my head, the fact is that he usually knows there is something wrong with me before I am willing to admit it. He looks at me and asks me what is wrong, and even if I tell him I am "all good", he can see so far into my soul, he knows something is bothering me. Usually a while later what ever it is that he saw will surface and I will end up pouring my guts out to him. He is always there to comfort me and listen, but more importantly he will not allow me to wallow in self pity. He forces me to face what the real problem is and move past it. I know that sometimes he doesn't understand my feelings toward him, and to be honest sometimes I don't either, but I do know that they come from a place of true love and total respect for what he has done for me and what he given me over the past 8-9 months. I have never had a friend like this, but it is something very special and something that I cherish so much right now. He helps me to understand my feelings toward myself and to whats is going on around me and helps me to face my fears like no one else ever has.
I know in my heart that no matter what happens, he will always be there for me in any way that I need him. The only thing that bothers me is, how do I repay so much love and understanding? How do I give back to someone that gives so much of themselves to me? I have told him that I will be there for him anytime he needs me or ask anything of me, but the thing is that he very rarely ask anything of me. I have told him over and over that my friendship for him has no limits on time or distance. That when I commit to someone as a friend, I will always be there for that person 24/7 - 365 days a year. It doesn't matter to me if we are 100's of miles apart and one day he calls me out of the blue, I am there. I really don't think he truly understands what I am saying when I tell him this, but it is exactly what I say it is, there is no mountain that I want climb for my friends and the ones that show me love. I have helped him a little over the past couple of weeks with troubles with his car, but it is so small to what he has given me. I guess that is the true definition of a friend...you take from each other what you need and you give to each other when it is needed. Since we all have different needs in our lives on a day to day basis, the people that we truly call our friends will be the ones that will always stand by us. They will be the ones that will get in our faces, but never turn their backs on us. The ones that we can laugh and cry with and they will listen. The ones that challenge us on a day to day basis and truly loves you for who you are and see who you can truly become.
This is not really where I was heading with this post, it just seemed to be what was weighing on my mind right now. Jack sometimes reads this blog and if he happens to read this post, I hope he knows how much I love him and how much his love for me means to me. I also know if he does read this he will tell me to stop put him up on a pedestal, and really I am not. I am just expressing the changes that are going on in my life and right now he happens to be a major influence in them. I know one day soon he will be moving on, and I think I am OK with that. One important things that I learned from him (after an emotional break down) was the difference between attachment and connection. The ways to be connected to someone with true and pure love and kindness as apposed to be attached to someone that are more linked to fear and worry of loss.
Live in Love and not in Fear!!
I am learning each day new and exciting things about myself and ways to make my life greater.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Gowning UP!!
I started this blog to talk about the changes in my life over the past few months, and I will be doing that, but I have decided to use this as a personal journal and put all lot of my life experiances in here instead. I will still be posting what is going on now with me but I want to talk about the things that brought me to this point in my life and how these changes have had such a huge effect on everything I am now and how much I have changed from what I was. As you read (but you need to start from the bottom) you will see the changes in me and see how my confidence has grown....so now back to your regularly scheduled program.
I grew up in a small town in South Georgia with a mother that knew everything I did 24/7. I had a very good life, very loving parents, stable life and was never really denied anything I ever wanted. I was surrounded by love and affection my whole life, so why did I feel the need to hide who I really was? Why was I so afraid to come out of the closet and tell my parents who I really was? Why did I spend some much time and energy stressing over what everyone would think of me when I knew they all loved me and all would except me? Why, Why, Why???
All through high school, I was deep in the closet and usually scared to death that someone would find out my secret. I had three older brothers that all went to this same high school and all were football jocks and very popular. Everyone knew the last name of my family and that made it very hard to be myself when everyone was looking for another person like my three brothers. I didn't play football or baseball or basketball like they did, I played golf. I was a very popular kid during my last couple of years in school and had a relativity good time considering I was lying to myself and to everyone else. By this time I had gotten very good at hiding myself from every one. I learned how to avoid certain situations that might expose me. My biggest trick was that I learned how to flirt with girls with out actually ever asking one of them out. All my friends and parents always saw me around other girls but there was never anything going on. I was so sacred of someone finding out my secret that once I had a male friend of mine make a pass at me while we were at Pizza Hut with two other friends. We were sitting on the same side of the booth together and he started rubbing my leg under the table, and I was so scared that they (all three of them) were playing a joke on me to see how I would react that I pushed his hand away and laughed it off. He never did it again and to this day I have never asked him about it. I have tried to look him up, his mom told me he lived in Atlanta some place, but I have never been able to find him.
When it came down to time for me to pick a college to go to, I turned down the college I really wanted to go to so I could go to one that was more off the radar of my parents. I grew up a huge UGA fan and always wanted to go to school there, but I was to scared to go because my mother had a hot line on everything that was going on at this school. She knew the parents of all my friends that went to school there and it only made my parinoia grow, so I chose a smaller school called Georgia Southern University, and that is were I spent the next 8 years of my life. That is were I met my first boyfriend. That is where I met my first life long best friend. That is also were I fell in love for the first time with someone that I could never have because he was striaght.
When I got to college I spent the first year living in a dorm with a boy everyone called Buddy. He was a year older then I was and we did OK as roommates, but we never really got along that well. He ended up getting a girl friend and she ended up spending more time in our little dorm room then I did, so I decided to change rooms. This was when I started to learn that as a Gemini I had power to munipulate my surroundings and get people to do what I wanted them to do. One night during a fire drill in the door, I saw this other boy in the doom and decided that this was the person that I wanted to live with instead of Buddy and his girlfriend. So by the end of the first quarter, I had a new roommate. It happened so fast and so easy, I was astonished.
I went through the rest of the year living with Scott and got to know all his friends but they were all straight so I was till hiding in the closet. At the end of the first year I got a job working as a pizza delivery guy and rented a place on campus with a friend of a friend and decided to spend this time trying to firgure out what I was doing and what I was going to do. Over the summer I made a few new friends at the pizza place but once again they were all striaght. Now please don't think I have a problem with straight guys but I was really in need to meet up with some gay people for once. I was a 20 year old male that had never known (or that I knew of) any other gay people in my life.
The start of the next year was where my life changed in fantastic ways and really bad ways. I met my best friend, and I also fell head over heals in love for the first time, but the problem was that they were the same person and this person was straight. His name was Russ and I met him on a racqet ball court one day in the rain. He was playing alone and me and Scott showed up and there was something that about him that drew me to him and I had to get to know him. Scott got mad and left and took my car home and my little plan was set into place. I stayed behind and played with Russ in the rain for a few more hours and then he took me home. I asked him if he wanted to go get some dinner and he agreed so after he dropped me off, I took a shower and headed to his dorm room to pick him up. We ate and hung out all night long and everything kind of took off from there.
By the end of the quarter, we were never apart except in class and to sleep. We studied together, we ate together, we played together..if you saw Ross (that is the name I used to go by) you would see Russ. As all this continued to happened, I learned what Russ was about and knew he was straight but I fell in love with him the very first time I layed eyes on him. There was nothing I could do, there was nothing I could feel expect the need to be with Russ. He became my world so fast that I really didn't know how to handle it, and since I still had not meet any other gay people (this was before the internet), I had no one to talk about my feelings with, so I just kept them bottled up on the inside. The more time I spent with him, the more empty I became. My need for love from the outside of myself was tearing down the person on the inside. By the summer time, we were living together and I had gotten him a job at the place where I was working, now we were really never apart. I also introduced him to one of my life long girl friends and to my own regrets they fell in love and started dating.
After they started dating my whole life went into the trash. I went into a serious depression and nothing or no one could bring me out, well one person could, but he was to busy with his girlfriend. I was no longer the center point of his life, he now had another person to focus his attention on, but that left me completely alone, or so I thought. My mind was all over the place and I was looking any place I could to find something...anything. Well this is when it finally happened, a boy was hired at work that turned out to be GAY!! When I first met him, I just had a feeling that he was gay, so I put my Gemini powers to work again and decided to real him into me like a spider with a fly, and I did. I now had my first boyfriend, and I though the world would open up and all things would be golden from now on. I was wrong, no matter what I did, or what amount of time I spent with Daman, there was still a hole in my life that only Russ could fill. No matter how much time I would spend with Daman, I would always be thinking about Russ and what he was doing with his girlfriend. This is when I really went over the deep end.
I made the conquence decision to break up with a boy that really liked me, I don't want to say love becuase I am not sure if we ever got that far, and start dating a girl so I could spend more time with Russ and his girlfriend. I thought that if I had a girlfriend, then we could double date and I would get to spend time with Russ again, man I was fucked in the head. I through away something that could have been special and was using a girl all just to fill my own personal fantasy to be loved by Russ. I don't know where my head was at this time in my life. I was really messed up!!
I spent 3 years with this girl until I came to the reilazation of who I really was and that is when I decided that I had to move and San Francisco was going to be the spot. I took a weeks vacation and flew out there all by myself and spent the time just exploring and trying to decide if I could do this on my own. I thought that the only way that I can get over Russ is to get away from Russ. I knew this other girl at school that had two gay friends so once again I used my Gemini powers and made her my friend and then made both of her friends my friends and then made one of them my boyfriend and we all deiced to pack up and move to San Francisco together. It all happened so quick and seemed to happen so easy. By this time I had already graduated from college and had my degree and was ready to take on the world. I had my new boyfriend, I had two good friends, I had gay friends, we had great plans for the future and we were all going to do this together.
I was on my way.....
I grew up in a small town in South Georgia with a mother that knew everything I did 24/7. I had a very good life, very loving parents, stable life and was never really denied anything I ever wanted. I was surrounded by love and affection my whole life, so why did I feel the need to hide who I really was? Why was I so afraid to come out of the closet and tell my parents who I really was? Why did I spend some much time and energy stressing over what everyone would think of me when I knew they all loved me and all would except me? Why, Why, Why???
All through high school, I was deep in the closet and usually scared to death that someone would find out my secret. I had three older brothers that all went to this same high school and all were football jocks and very popular. Everyone knew the last name of my family and that made it very hard to be myself when everyone was looking for another person like my three brothers. I didn't play football or baseball or basketball like they did, I played golf. I was a very popular kid during my last couple of years in school and had a relativity good time considering I was lying to myself and to everyone else. By this time I had gotten very good at hiding myself from every one. I learned how to avoid certain situations that might expose me. My biggest trick was that I learned how to flirt with girls with out actually ever asking one of them out. All my friends and parents always saw me around other girls but there was never anything going on. I was so sacred of someone finding out my secret that once I had a male friend of mine make a pass at me while we were at Pizza Hut with two other friends. We were sitting on the same side of the booth together and he started rubbing my leg under the table, and I was so scared that they (all three of them) were playing a joke on me to see how I would react that I pushed his hand away and laughed it off. He never did it again and to this day I have never asked him about it. I have tried to look him up, his mom told me he lived in Atlanta some place, but I have never been able to find him.
When it came down to time for me to pick a college to go to, I turned down the college I really wanted to go to so I could go to one that was more off the radar of my parents. I grew up a huge UGA fan and always wanted to go to school there, but I was to scared to go because my mother had a hot line on everything that was going on at this school. She knew the parents of all my friends that went to school there and it only made my parinoia grow, so I chose a smaller school called Georgia Southern University, and that is were I spent the next 8 years of my life. That is were I met my first boyfriend. That is where I met my first life long best friend. That is also were I fell in love for the first time with someone that I could never have because he was striaght.
When I got to college I spent the first year living in a dorm with a boy everyone called Buddy. He was a year older then I was and we did OK as roommates, but we never really got along that well. He ended up getting a girl friend and she ended up spending more time in our little dorm room then I did, so I decided to change rooms. This was when I started to learn that as a Gemini I had power to munipulate my surroundings and get people to do what I wanted them to do. One night during a fire drill in the door, I saw this other boy in the doom and decided that this was the person that I wanted to live with instead of Buddy and his girlfriend. So by the end of the first quarter, I had a new roommate. It happened so fast and so easy, I was astonished.
I went through the rest of the year living with Scott and got to know all his friends but they were all straight so I was till hiding in the closet. At the end of the first year I got a job working as a pizza delivery guy and rented a place on campus with a friend of a friend and decided to spend this time trying to firgure out what I was doing and what I was going to do. Over the summer I made a few new friends at the pizza place but once again they were all striaght. Now please don't think I have a problem with straight guys but I was really in need to meet up with some gay people for once. I was a 20 year old male that had never known (or that I knew of) any other gay people in my life.
The start of the next year was where my life changed in fantastic ways and really bad ways. I met my best friend, and I also fell head over heals in love for the first time, but the problem was that they were the same person and this person was straight. His name was Russ and I met him on a racqet ball court one day in the rain. He was playing alone and me and Scott showed up and there was something that about him that drew me to him and I had to get to know him. Scott got mad and left and took my car home and my little plan was set into place. I stayed behind and played with Russ in the rain for a few more hours and then he took me home. I asked him if he wanted to go get some dinner and he agreed so after he dropped me off, I took a shower and headed to his dorm room to pick him up. We ate and hung out all night long and everything kind of took off from there.
By the end of the quarter, we were never apart except in class and to sleep. We studied together, we ate together, we played together..if you saw Ross (that is the name I used to go by) you would see Russ. As all this continued to happened, I learned what Russ was about and knew he was straight but I fell in love with him the very first time I layed eyes on him. There was nothing I could do, there was nothing I could feel expect the need to be with Russ. He became my world so fast that I really didn't know how to handle it, and since I still had not meet any other gay people (this was before the internet), I had no one to talk about my feelings with, so I just kept them bottled up on the inside. The more time I spent with him, the more empty I became. My need for love from the outside of myself was tearing down the person on the inside. By the summer time, we were living together and I had gotten him a job at the place where I was working, now we were really never apart. I also introduced him to one of my life long girl friends and to my own regrets they fell in love and started dating.
After they started dating my whole life went into the trash. I went into a serious depression and nothing or no one could bring me out, well one person could, but he was to busy with his girlfriend. I was no longer the center point of his life, he now had another person to focus his attention on, but that left me completely alone, or so I thought. My mind was all over the place and I was looking any place I could to find something...anything. Well this is when it finally happened, a boy was hired at work that turned out to be GAY!! When I first met him, I just had a feeling that he was gay, so I put my Gemini powers to work again and decided to real him into me like a spider with a fly, and I did. I now had my first boyfriend, and I though the world would open up and all things would be golden from now on. I was wrong, no matter what I did, or what amount of time I spent with Daman, there was still a hole in my life that only Russ could fill. No matter how much time I would spend with Daman, I would always be thinking about Russ and what he was doing with his girlfriend. This is when I really went over the deep end.
I made the conquence decision to break up with a boy that really liked me, I don't want to say love becuase I am not sure if we ever got that far, and start dating a girl so I could spend more time with Russ and his girlfriend. I thought that if I had a girlfriend, then we could double date and I would get to spend time with Russ again, man I was fucked in the head. I through away something that could have been special and was using a girl all just to fill my own personal fantasy to be loved by Russ. I don't know where my head was at this time in my life. I was really messed up!!
I spent 3 years with this girl until I came to the reilazation of who I really was and that is when I decided that I had to move and San Francisco was going to be the spot. I took a weeks vacation and flew out there all by myself and spent the time just exploring and trying to decide if I could do this on my own. I thought that the only way that I can get over Russ is to get away from Russ. I knew this other girl at school that had two gay friends so once again I used my Gemini powers and made her my friend and then made both of her friends my friends and then made one of them my boyfriend and we all deiced to pack up and move to San Francisco together. It all happened so quick and seemed to happen so easy. By this time I had already graduated from college and had my degree and was ready to take on the world. I had my new boyfriend, I had two good friends, I had gay friends, we had great plans for the future and we were all going to do this together.
I was on my way.....
Friday, January 27, 2012
Red Thread of Fate
I really don't know how to start this post or were I am going to be going with it, but for some reason I just think it is very important. Over the past few months I have started listening to myself and paying more attention to the things that happen around me. This subject is something that has started appearing in my life over and over again at a higher degree of frequency for the last few weeks. I don't know if I can honestly say that this just started appearing in my life, its more like I just started paying attention to it and noticing its appearance. Seeing that something keeps coming up with this degree of frequency has got to be some kind of sign for me to pay attention to it.
What is the Red Thread of Fate?
An Ancient Chinese belief that states...
"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread my stretch or tangle but it will never break"
What is the Red Thread of Fate?
An Ancient Chinese belief that states...
"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread my stretch or tangle but it will never break"
Why has this been coming up over and over again in my life for the past few weeks...I don't really know, but I do know that it is coming up much more frequently then ever before. I also know that I can't ignore it and I have to pay attention to it.
I first started thinking about this a few months ago when I when I first met my friend Jack (read my first post) and about what brought him and me together. I was thinking about what brought me to call Jack on that fateful day instead of the person I usually call. What happened on that day that kept me going back to see him over and over again and what finally connected between us that brought the love we feel for each other as friends to light. This connection that we made on that first day has kept us together and has totally changed my life in more ways then I can imagine right now. This interaction with Jack has brought me to a different level of conconses and has opened my eyes to things I never knew exsisted or had ever heard of. This level of conconsis has allowed me to see things in different ways then I have seen them before and brought new ideas and new ways of preceving things into my life.
This thread that I have tired with Jack has also brought me another connection with one of his friends. This connection in turn brought up the discussion of the topic of how we are all connected together in some way. Last week the three of us sat around and discussed how we are all connected through out time and how ever little decision we make each day effects what happens to us today and also how these decisions effect us and our families and families family for generations to come. How the decisions that our great grand parents made has brought us all to this point in time and what things had to happen to bring the three of us together sitting in Jack's living room having this discussion. Even thought I have thought about how our decisions effect us on a day to day level, I have never thought about it on such a universal scale.
The last discussion that I had with my dad before he passed a way was about this very same topic. We talked about how each day we make a million different decisions and since he travels in his business, every time the decides to go left instead of going right effects his life. We never thought about how much the decisions he made also effected everyone else's life around him. Where the decision to turn left down a street to go home caused him to drive by a house with a child playing in the yard and that child to run out in front of his truck and him hitting that child and killing him, or turning right to go down a different street and get home with nothing happening. What effect would that have on all the children that child might have or have had depending on what decision my dad made on that day. By turning right at the stop sign, he might has saves 1000's of future lives.
About a week later this thread of thought came up again...in a negative way. On Monday night Tony, a manager that works in one of my other units, left work around 11:00 pm and was heading home when a horse jumped the fence of the pasture where it was kept and went through the passenger side window of his car. This caused Tony to be thrown out of his car and has put him in a coma in the hospital on life support. Can you imagine the odds of a horse jumping the fence of a pasture and hitting a car going 60 miles per hour, and the even great odds that the horse will hit the car exactly at the right moment to allow it go throw the passenger side window of a moving car. There are a million little things that would have to happen to make this split second event take place. How many pieces in the universe would have to be pulled together over all the past times to allow a horse to jump a fence and land in a passenger side window of a car going 60 mph on dark road at 11 pm at night? Astronomical!!!
Then tonight, three day later, I am watching the pilot episode of a new show called "Touch". It is about a little boy that is autistic and doesn't talk and has never talked. He uses numbers to communicate and is in touch with the universe and the effect it has on everyone's life. Basically he can see how the RED THREAD OF FATE is tied to each and every one of us. All these thoughts of the string of fate and how we are effected by them seem to be speeding up. It is making me a bit uneasy about what the universe is trying to tell me or to show me. This greater degree of frequency has caused me wonder if something is coming my way that I need to be looking out for. Is the ties that I have with Jack and his friend opened my eyes so much to allow me to see what is coming next? Is the universe telling me "here it comes, get ready"? Has the string brought me to them to allow me to open my eyes so when something does happen I will be aware of it and be ready for it? I do know that I have a greater awareness for what is happening around me now and I am being more aware of what I am doing and what I am saying each day.
The Red String of Fate... I know my string is tied to Jack, but who has a string tied to me?
I first started thinking about this a few months ago when I when I first met my friend Jack (read my first post) and about what brought him and me together. I was thinking about what brought me to call Jack on that fateful day instead of the person I usually call. What happened on that day that kept me going back to see him over and over again and what finally connected between us that brought the love we feel for each other as friends to light. This connection that we made on that first day has kept us together and has totally changed my life in more ways then I can imagine right now. This interaction with Jack has brought me to a different level of conconses and has opened my eyes to things I never knew exsisted or had ever heard of. This level of conconsis has allowed me to see things in different ways then I have seen them before and brought new ideas and new ways of preceving things into my life.
This thread that I have tired with Jack has also brought me another connection with one of his friends. This connection in turn brought up the discussion of the topic of how we are all connected together in some way. Last week the three of us sat around and discussed how we are all connected through out time and how ever little decision we make each day effects what happens to us today and also how these decisions effect us and our families and families family for generations to come. How the decisions that our great grand parents made has brought us all to this point in time and what things had to happen to bring the three of us together sitting in Jack's living room having this discussion. Even thought I have thought about how our decisions effect us on a day to day level, I have never thought about it on such a universal scale.
The last discussion that I had with my dad before he passed a way was about this very same topic. We talked about how each day we make a million different decisions and since he travels in his business, every time the decides to go left instead of going right effects his life. We never thought about how much the decisions he made also effected everyone else's life around him. Where the decision to turn left down a street to go home caused him to drive by a house with a child playing in the yard and that child to run out in front of his truck and him hitting that child and killing him, or turning right to go down a different street and get home with nothing happening. What effect would that have on all the children that child might have or have had depending on what decision my dad made on that day. By turning right at the stop sign, he might has saves 1000's of future lives.
About a week later this thread of thought came up again...in a negative way. On Monday night Tony, a manager that works in one of my other units, left work around 11:00 pm and was heading home when a horse jumped the fence of the pasture where it was kept and went through the passenger side window of his car. This caused Tony to be thrown out of his car and has put him in a coma in the hospital on life support. Can you imagine the odds of a horse jumping the fence of a pasture and hitting a car going 60 miles per hour, and the even great odds that the horse will hit the car exactly at the right moment to allow it go throw the passenger side window of a moving car. There are a million little things that would have to happen to make this split second event take place. How many pieces in the universe would have to be pulled together over all the past times to allow a horse to jump a fence and land in a passenger side window of a car going 60 mph on dark road at 11 pm at night? Astronomical!!!
Then tonight, three day later, I am watching the pilot episode of a new show called "Touch". It is about a little boy that is autistic and doesn't talk and has never talked. He uses numbers to communicate and is in touch with the universe and the effect it has on everyone's life. Basically he can see how the RED THREAD OF FATE is tied to each and every one of us. All these thoughts of the string of fate and how we are effected by them seem to be speeding up. It is making me a bit uneasy about what the universe is trying to tell me or to show me. This greater degree of frequency has caused me wonder if something is coming my way that I need to be looking out for. Is the ties that I have with Jack and his friend opened my eyes so much to allow me to see what is coming next? Is the universe telling me "here it comes, get ready"? Has the string brought me to them to allow me to open my eyes so when something does happen I will be aware of it and be ready for it? I do know that I have a greater awareness for what is happening around me now and I am being more aware of what I am doing and what I am saying each day.
The Red String of Fate... I know my string is tied to Jack, but who has a string tied to me?
Saturday, January 21, 2012
I know what I want to do
I finally know what I want to do with my life!!
I know why the universe has put me through all the trails that it has for the past few months. I feel like my strength is getting to the point that I need to helping others, I need to be doing more. I have been telling my friend that I wanted to do more for the gay youth and wanted to be more then what I currently am. I can't stand to just sit here and see all the hate that is out there for no reason and do nothing to try to help. He is always telling me the universe has a plan and just waiting on me to be ready to stand up and act on what I need. He has been helping me grow and strengthen my own personal self and now it is time for me to stand up on my own two feet and hold out my hand and help others. I need to do this, I have to do this, this is where our journey has taking me
I know what I have to do now
Friday, January 20, 2012
Strength... What does this mean?
Strength....what does this mean to each of us?
What makes some of us want to get out of bed each day and others want sleep til noon?
What makes some of us want to work out each day and others be OK with being over weight?
What make some one get up in the morning and run 5 miles while others sleep all day?
What gives each of us the strength to face a new day and all the trials that come with it and others to hind?
Why do we look up and say YES I CAN, instead of WHY BOTHER?
Is the strength inside of each of the same or do we all have different levels?
What makes us access this so called strength and what do we do to harness it and bring it out?
What makes you stronger then me and what do I have to do to get to your level?
These are all questions I have been asking myself. I have been trying so hard to push and push myself in different directions each and every day. At 6am I try to get up and get ready to face a new day. I get up and get dressed and take a long 90 minute walk around my neighborhood to start each day. I do 5 special exercises and then I take a shower and head to work, where I will usually spend the rest of the day and sometimes into the night. But why am I doing this now and when in the past I would not do any of this?
Does the strength come from my own personal growth or did I get it from others around me? Do I take from others what I can't see within myself? Is my strength something that I posses or just something that I steal from the ones that I love? The strength to get up and make something of ourselves is different for each and every one of us, but we all have it with in us. We just have to know were to look for it and how to find it. We all have some kind of internal strength, we all just have to know how to access it and we all have to know what we are looking for. I think we all the strength to overcome any obstical and any set back in our lives sometimes we just need the help of others to pull this strength out of us.
I am a very very lucky person that I have very special people around me that are willing to stand by me and help me look for my strength and help me pull this strength out of me. These very special people have stood by me in my worst times and in my best times. They have always been there for me to help me stand on my own feet and reach a hand out for me when I was down on my knees. So thinking about this, strength doesn't really come from inside us but from the special people we surround ourselves with. These people are what feeds our souls and bring our strengths out of the shadows and into the light. But on the opposite foot, we have to have these strengths within us for our friends to pull it out.
Your true friends will stand by your side when things are going wrong for you and they will always hold out their hands when you are down on your knees. They will be the ones that you will turn to in you darkest times and the ones that are always there for you when you think you have nothing left with in yourself. They will save you when you thought there we no way you could be saved. I have these kind of friends and I love them very much and cherish every second that I am allowed to spend with them. These times with my friends is special to me in my own personal way, I trust them, I wonder at them, I look up to them, I use them to help me bring my strength out of me. We all use each other in some way and we all work together to help friends and loved ones to make our own lives better. I love my friends and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for them or sacrifice for them. They are my strength and they are my light and they are the ones that keep me going each and every day.
I might do things for myself now and do things to make myself a better person now because I want to make myself better, but why now and why not last year or five years ago or ten years ago? What has caused me to start pushing my self so hard and start making myself so much better? Well this is a question that I have been asking myself lately and the only answer that I can come up with is that "Its Time". The universe has brought me to a crossroads and told me you can go this way or you can go that way, now you must choose. There are very special people on both sides and it all came down to which one meant more to me and which one brought out more my strengths that were locked way down deep inside me. I had to decide what the universe was telling me and I had to make the choice as to whom to listen to. What was the universe telling me? What was my inner soul and spirit trying to tell me? Who do I listen to, the outside world or what was deep inside myself. There is only one answer...you must always listen to yourself. You must always believe in yourself. You must know yourself and love yourself before this inner strength can be brought out. That is where I am at right now...do I love myself, do I listen to myself, do I believe in myself? These are all hard questions to answer for someone that has been hiding in the corner for so so many years. But one person brought it out of me.
This one person saw in my things that I didn't knew excised. Saw strengths in me that I never experienced or ever saw. He was the person that I used to pull my strengths out of myself and the best part was that he knew I was using him for this and he didn't mind. He saw through me and allowed me to grow at my own pace. When ever I was down, he helped me up, when ever I was crazy he listened to me and waited for me to calm down. He would always look past me craziness and only see the goodness inside of me. This is the kind of friend that everyone should be lucky enough to have, that everyone needs to have to really grow and be strong.
I am a very lucky person to have him and all my other friends in my life, I hope that this will never change, although I know it will. Friends come and go through out your life, but if you are lucky enough to have the universe connect you with someone very special like I have...your life will never be the same. No matter if this person moves own out of my life, it will be OK, I will always have a piece of him with me. I have taken from him everything and given very little in return and I think him for this every day, now it is my turn to do the same for others. I need to be the friend to others that he has been to me, to help, to listen, to nurture, to share my strength. It is all a part of the never ending universe, we must all be love for one another....
What makes some of us want to get out of bed each day and others want sleep til noon?
What makes some of us want to work out each day and others be OK with being over weight?
What make some one get up in the morning and run 5 miles while others sleep all day?
What gives each of us the strength to face a new day and all the trials that come with it and others to hind?
Why do we look up and say YES I CAN, instead of WHY BOTHER?
Is the strength inside of each of the same or do we all have different levels?
What makes us access this so called strength and what do we do to harness it and bring it out?
What makes you stronger then me and what do I have to do to get to your level?
These are all questions I have been asking myself. I have been trying so hard to push and push myself in different directions each and every day. At 6am I try to get up and get ready to face a new day. I get up and get dressed and take a long 90 minute walk around my neighborhood to start each day. I do 5 special exercises and then I take a shower and head to work, where I will usually spend the rest of the day and sometimes into the night. But why am I doing this now and when in the past I would not do any of this?
Does the strength come from my own personal growth or did I get it from others around me? Do I take from others what I can't see within myself? Is my strength something that I posses or just something that I steal from the ones that I love? The strength to get up and make something of ourselves is different for each and every one of us, but we all have it with in us. We just have to know were to look for it and how to find it. We all have some kind of internal strength, we all just have to know how to access it and we all have to know what we are looking for. I think we all the strength to overcome any obstical and any set back in our lives sometimes we just need the help of others to pull this strength out of us.
I am a very very lucky person that I have very special people around me that are willing to stand by me and help me look for my strength and help me pull this strength out of me. These very special people have stood by me in my worst times and in my best times. They have always been there for me to help me stand on my own feet and reach a hand out for me when I was down on my knees. So thinking about this, strength doesn't really come from inside us but from the special people we surround ourselves with. These people are what feeds our souls and bring our strengths out of the shadows and into the light. But on the opposite foot, we have to have these strengths within us for our friends to pull it out.
Your true friends will stand by your side when things are going wrong for you and they will always hold out their hands when you are down on your knees. They will be the ones that you will turn to in you darkest times and the ones that are always there for you when you think you have nothing left with in yourself. They will save you when you thought there we no way you could be saved. I have these kind of friends and I love them very much and cherish every second that I am allowed to spend with them. These times with my friends is special to me in my own personal way, I trust them, I wonder at them, I look up to them, I use them to help me bring my strength out of me. We all use each other in some way and we all work together to help friends and loved ones to make our own lives better. I love my friends and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for them or sacrifice for them. They are my strength and they are my light and they are the ones that keep me going each and every day.
I might do things for myself now and do things to make myself a better person now because I want to make myself better, but why now and why not last year or five years ago or ten years ago? What has caused me to start pushing my self so hard and start making myself so much better? Well this is a question that I have been asking myself lately and the only answer that I can come up with is that "Its Time". The universe has brought me to a crossroads and told me you can go this way or you can go that way, now you must choose. There are very special people on both sides and it all came down to which one meant more to me and which one brought out more my strengths that were locked way down deep inside me. I had to decide what the universe was telling me and I had to make the choice as to whom to listen to. What was the universe telling me? What was my inner soul and spirit trying to tell me? Who do I listen to, the outside world or what was deep inside myself. There is only one answer...you must always listen to yourself. You must always believe in yourself. You must know yourself and love yourself before this inner strength can be brought out. That is where I am at right now...do I love myself, do I listen to myself, do I believe in myself? These are all hard questions to answer for someone that has been hiding in the corner for so so many years. But one person brought it out of me.
This one person saw in my things that I didn't knew excised. Saw strengths in me that I never experienced or ever saw. He was the person that I used to pull my strengths out of myself and the best part was that he knew I was using him for this and he didn't mind. He saw through me and allowed me to grow at my own pace. When ever I was down, he helped me up, when ever I was crazy he listened to me and waited for me to calm down. He would always look past me craziness and only see the goodness inside of me. This is the kind of friend that everyone should be lucky enough to have, that everyone needs to have to really grow and be strong.
I am a very lucky person to have him and all my other friends in my life, I hope that this will never change, although I know it will. Friends come and go through out your life, but if you are lucky enough to have the universe connect you with someone very special like I have...your life will never be the same. No matter if this person moves own out of my life, it will be OK, I will always have a piece of him with me. I have taken from him everything and given very little in return and I think him for this every day, now it is my turn to do the same for others. I need to be the friend to others that he has been to me, to help, to listen, to nurture, to share my strength. It is all a part of the never ending universe, we must all be love for one another....
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Old Love One's
I just got a call from a very special and very good friend today. I sent him an email last week because I have not heard from him in a long time and when we last spoke it was not good. He is young and just now getting to know who he really is and at the time, he was in over his head. He was being pulled in all kinds of ways, by me, by his family and by his church. He texted me this morning to my surprise and we ended up chatting for almost two hours. It was really good to read what he was doing and were he was with himself and his life. He has a job, a new home and his own car. He has really grown up and really taken responsibility for his life. When we were hanging out together we got into some hot and heavy stuff and I was basically supporting him. I bought him a phone, gave him money and actually bought him a car. I think at his young age and the pressures from all around him, he kind of snapped. He was man enough to give me back the car and phone which I was able to return. The last thing he to told me was that he was no longer gay because his church told him so and he was going to start dating women and get married. I tried to tell him that he has to be who he is and not let anyone tell him any different, but he wouldn't listen. I thought it would be better for him to find out on his own then to try to press the issue. I told him good luck and I only wish the best for him.
Today he is telling me that I was right, but he is still in the closet and worried about his new job, church and family finding out about him. My advise was to be himself and take his time and let things play out the way they should. He is only 21 now so there is no rush to scream to the world that he is gay, just the fact that he has finally excepted it for himself is a start. Take your time and continue to find your place in this life is the only way around this. There are some people that want to scream to the world that they are gay, but most of us do not. We just want to be excepted for who we are and loved by those that we love. Nothing more or nothing less. We don't want to be beat down or called names or treated any differently then anyone else in this world. Just because I love a man over a woman, it should not make any difference what so ever. I have a very special person in my life right now that I love very much but he is straight and he excepts me for just the way I am, with out judgement, and that is the way it should be.
I hope he will continue to keep in touch with me, and maybe we can start talking more again. I offered to take him to the MCC Church to let him see how god loves gay people, straight people, black people, Latino people and white people and everyone in between. He said he would think about it and let me know. I hope we can work this out, I think it might change the way he views a lot of things and himself.
If you are reading this and you know who you are, I love you man and I always will. I will always be here for you if you ever need me or just need someplace to get away and chill.
Today he is telling me that I was right, but he is still in the closet and worried about his new job, church and family finding out about him. My advise was to be himself and take his time and let things play out the way they should. He is only 21 now so there is no rush to scream to the world that he is gay, just the fact that he has finally excepted it for himself is a start. Take your time and continue to find your place in this life is the only way around this. There are some people that want to scream to the world that they are gay, but most of us do not. We just want to be excepted for who we are and loved by those that we love. Nothing more or nothing less. We don't want to be beat down or called names or treated any differently then anyone else in this world. Just because I love a man over a woman, it should not make any difference what so ever. I have a very special person in my life right now that I love very much but he is straight and he excepts me for just the way I am, with out judgement, and that is the way it should be.
I hope he will continue to keep in touch with me, and maybe we can start talking more again. I offered to take him to the MCC Church to let him see how god loves gay people, straight people, black people, Latino people and white people and everyone in between. He said he would think about it and let me know. I hope we can work this out, I think it might change the way he views a lot of things and himself.
If you are reading this and you know who you are, I love you man and I always will. I will always be here for you if you ever need me or just need someplace to get away and chill.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Who was Chris? Part 1- The Early Years
I have decided to tell you the story of Chris, my longest and oldest and first "Best Friend". I can remember back to age of about 4 years old, and Chris was always in my life. We both lived on Baltimore Ave in a little small town in South Georgia. His dad was in National Guard and he was the youngest of 6 brothers and sisters. I lived up the street from him and my dad was a traveling sales man and I was the youngest of 4 boys. His mother was a stay at home mom while my mom worked for the school systems as the head of the lunch room. Yes my mom was the lunch room lady, go ahead and laugh all you want, but it was cool in elementary school with her there, I could do what ever I wanted in the lunch room. I never had to wait in line, and I could always go back and get all that I wanted, or all my friends wanted...LOL!!!
Chris and I used to play all the games that little boys used to play back in the day. He was the only friend that I remember up until the age of about 8 years old. When I was about 6 years old, my parents decided to move and built a new home about 5 miles from where we lived but as fate would have it, Chris's family also moved to a new home about 2 blocks from our new house so we were still together. He went to a school at his church and I went to public school, but we were together every afternoon and spent most weekends at each others house. We were just the typical two little boys have having a good time...then came the teenage years!!
Well since Chris and I went to different schools we both developed a different set of friends, but we managed to mix the two separate groups together pretty well, but we were not as close as before. We still spent a lot of time together but we also spent a lot of time with other friends. We went through all the trials and tribulations of puberty together and explored all the things little boy explore as they are growing up, so needless to say we knew each other pretty well and shared a lot of things.
By this time I had already learned that I like boys more then girls and I was learning what it meant to be gay. The major problem was that I didn't have anyone to talk to about this and I felt like I was left out on an island all alone, even when I was around my friends. This was a time before the internet and there was no real outlet to the outside world beyond the small town life that I lived. One major problem, or fear that I had was that my mother was born and raised in this town and so was her mother, so she pretty much knew everyone and everything that went on. To add to my paranoia about being gay in a small town, my dad had stopped traveling when I was 6 and opened his own business, all three of my brothers were high school football stars, and my parents best friends (my god parents) were the high school principals secretary and the head coach of the high school football team. So needless to say, everyone knew me or my parents or my brothers, no matter if I knew them or not. My mom would know what I did before I woke up the next morning. It was like being under surveillance 24 hours a day...every day. I was scared to death to take the wrong step or try to explore what I felt on the inside so I decided to hide.
I learned to keep more to myself and to become more self aware of what I was doing at all times. I still hung out with my friends but I would spend a lot of time alone. I was so scared that I would do something or say something that would give my secret away. Living day to day with such a huge burden on such young shoulders and to be so scared that you would not live up to your parents expectations really effected my personality and how I interacted with others. When I was young and before I became aware of my sexuality, I was an extremely out going little boy that was always smiling and laughing and enjoyed life, but that all changed. I mean I still had fun with my friends and family, but now I had a wall up and was always on guard as to what I was saying but the worst part was that I started listening to what others were saying very closely and would turn these words against myself. I developed a habit of always looking for meaning in everything everyone said, and in my own paranoid mind, these words always took on a meaning that reflected what I was thinking they might be thinking of me. This is the main reason I started becoming more of a loaner. If I wasn't around others, they couldn't see what I was doing and they couldn't say anything about me, so I wouldn't have to worry what they thought of me.
We anyway, I am getting off on to me instead of Chris, which this post is all about. Chris and I continued to be friends into about 9 grade when his dad got a promotion and they moved to Atlanta. After this we kind of lost touch with each other. I was lost in my own little world of life and fantasy, wishing what I could have but never trying to obtain it. After Chris moved to Atlanta, I got to go see him a couple of times, but not until I was in college and I could drive my self up there. My dad was not fond of Chris, he never told me why when we were little but looking back on it, he thought Chris was gay and didn't want me hanging around him. He thought he would change me...little did he know. I wish I would have known, and we could have had each other to talk to, I know things would have been so much different for me and for him.
Once I got out of Waycross and off to college things changed for me...but that is in the next post.
Chris and I used to play all the games that little boys used to play back in the day. He was the only friend that I remember up until the age of about 8 years old. When I was about 6 years old, my parents decided to move and built a new home about 5 miles from where we lived but as fate would have it, Chris's family also moved to a new home about 2 blocks from our new house so we were still together. He went to a school at his church and I went to public school, but we were together every afternoon and spent most weekends at each others house. We were just the typical two little boys have having a good time...then came the teenage years!!
Well since Chris and I went to different schools we both developed a different set of friends, but we managed to mix the two separate groups together pretty well, but we were not as close as before. We still spent a lot of time together but we also spent a lot of time with other friends. We went through all the trials and tribulations of puberty together and explored all the things little boy explore as they are growing up, so needless to say we knew each other pretty well and shared a lot of things.
By this time I had already learned that I like boys more then girls and I was learning what it meant to be gay. The major problem was that I didn't have anyone to talk to about this and I felt like I was left out on an island all alone, even when I was around my friends. This was a time before the internet and there was no real outlet to the outside world beyond the small town life that I lived. One major problem, or fear that I had was that my mother was born and raised in this town and so was her mother, so she pretty much knew everyone and everything that went on. To add to my paranoia about being gay in a small town, my dad had stopped traveling when I was 6 and opened his own business, all three of my brothers were high school football stars, and my parents best friends (my god parents) were the high school principals secretary and the head coach of the high school football team. So needless to say, everyone knew me or my parents or my brothers, no matter if I knew them or not. My mom would know what I did before I woke up the next morning. It was like being under surveillance 24 hours a day...every day. I was scared to death to take the wrong step or try to explore what I felt on the inside so I decided to hide.
I learned to keep more to myself and to become more self aware of what I was doing at all times. I still hung out with my friends but I would spend a lot of time alone. I was so scared that I would do something or say something that would give my secret away. Living day to day with such a huge burden on such young shoulders and to be so scared that you would not live up to your parents expectations really effected my personality and how I interacted with others. When I was young and before I became aware of my sexuality, I was an extremely out going little boy that was always smiling and laughing and enjoyed life, but that all changed. I mean I still had fun with my friends and family, but now I had a wall up and was always on guard as to what I was saying but the worst part was that I started listening to what others were saying very closely and would turn these words against myself. I developed a habit of always looking for meaning in everything everyone said, and in my own paranoid mind, these words always took on a meaning that reflected what I was thinking they might be thinking of me. This is the main reason I started becoming more of a loaner. If I wasn't around others, they couldn't see what I was doing and they couldn't say anything about me, so I wouldn't have to worry what they thought of me.
We anyway, I am getting off on to me instead of Chris, which this post is all about. Chris and I continued to be friends into about 9 grade when his dad got a promotion and they moved to Atlanta. After this we kind of lost touch with each other. I was lost in my own little world of life and fantasy, wishing what I could have but never trying to obtain it. After Chris moved to Atlanta, I got to go see him a couple of times, but not until I was in college and I could drive my self up there. My dad was not fond of Chris, he never told me why when we were little but looking back on it, he thought Chris was gay and didn't want me hanging around him. He thought he would change me...little did he know. I wish I would have known, and we could have had each other to talk to, I know things would have been so much different for me and for him.
Once I got out of Waycross and off to college things changed for me...but that is in the next post.
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