So as I wrote in the first entry, I have relocated -- new never-before-lived-in region of the country, new job, new living arrangement. For the first time in seven years, I am on my own (except for Winston, my dog, of course). My relationship with Nigel is still intact, but we are both struggling with what this new situation means. Actually, Nigel is struggling with the new situation. In all honesty, I am struggling (or perhaps agonizing would be a better word) with the fact that he is struggling. You see, though it's all admittedly in the early stages, I would rank my decision to take the job (offered by a former boss who herself is new to her job) as one of the best decisions that I have ever made.
I was pulling into the garage of the house I'm renting and immediately had a flashback to another moment when I was driving. That moment happened almost exactly eleven years ago as I was preparing to leave North Carolina to head to the job that would take me to the Midwest. I was on my way to visit my dearest couple friend at the time Mark and Allison (not their real names, of course), driving up one of those wonderfully scenic two lane state highways to the small town where they lived. As I passed by open fields, I started musing about the new life ahead and began imagining all of the possibilities that existed for filling that life. I was going to a place where no one knew me. I could actually live a life free of the expectations that had over time so constrained my life or rather that I had allowed to constrain my life.
Then the thought came to me. Is this the reason why this opportunity had been brought to me (or I to it)? Is it possible, particularly for people like me, who spend more time trying to discern and fulfill other people's expectations rather than our own, that God had to move us from place to place; that when we are in one place for too long we allow ourselves to conform to and be hemmed in by the image in the mirror of who we are that is reflected back to us by other people -- the dutiful son, the conservative churchgoer, the polite co-worker, and so on? We allow this to happen when in reality there is so much more to who we are and so much more to who we are to become, but we can't see it. We can't see beyond the other mirror or maybe we don't attempt to because it's so much easier to say you, other, tell me who I am and I will be that rather than asserting my true self that proceeds from the core of the soul that God has created and formed this flesh around. So much easier, but so very empty.
I do believe that some people can remain in the same place for all of their lives and be as true to the person God created them to be as anyone could hope. They draw strength and encouragement from the familiarity of their home, their family and friends, the very ground beneath them that they have trod for so many years. I also believe that I am not one of those people. For me, with movement comes the space to move out of the shape I've conformed into, the space to bring myself back to myself.
And that is what happened with that move. I moved and within two years, I finally accepted my identity as a gay man after 34 years of wrestling with that angel. I moved to a more authentic state of being, but I see now I also, through other life experiences, lost sight of other aspects of self that God created in me and has called me to honor.
And thus another move. Some new space. A new opportunity to grow and, in doing so, yet again, come home to myself.
I was pulling into the garage of the house I'm renting and immediately had a flashback to another moment when I was driving. That moment happened almost exactly eleven years ago as I was preparing to leave North Carolina to head to the job that would take me to the Midwest. I was on my way to visit my dearest couple friend at the time Mark and Allison (not their real names, of course), driving up one of those wonderfully scenic two lane state highways to the small town where they lived. As I passed by open fields, I started musing about the new life ahead and began imagining all of the possibilities that existed for filling that life. I was going to a place where no one knew me. I could actually live a life free of the expectations that had over time so constrained my life or rather that I had allowed to constrain my life.
Then the thought came to me. Is this the reason why this opportunity had been brought to me (or I to it)? Is it possible, particularly for people like me, who spend more time trying to discern and fulfill other people's expectations rather than our own, that God had to move us from place to place; that when we are in one place for too long we allow ourselves to conform to and be hemmed in by the image in the mirror of who we are that is reflected back to us by other people -- the dutiful son, the conservative churchgoer, the polite co-worker, and so on? We allow this to happen when in reality there is so much more to who we are and so much more to who we are to become, but we can't see it. We can't see beyond the other mirror or maybe we don't attempt to because it's so much easier to say you, other, tell me who I am and I will be that rather than asserting my true self that proceeds from the core of the soul that God has created and formed this flesh around. So much easier, but so very empty.
I do believe that some people can remain in the same place for all of their lives and be as true to the person God created them to be as anyone could hope. They draw strength and encouragement from the familiarity of their home, their family and friends, the very ground beneath them that they have trod for so many years. I also believe that I am not one of those people. For me, with movement comes the space to move out of the shape I've conformed into, the space to bring myself back to myself.
And that is what happened with that move. I moved and within two years, I finally accepted my identity as a gay man after 34 years of wrestling with that angel. I moved to a more authentic state of being, but I see now I also, through other life experiences, lost sight of other aspects of self that God created in me and has called me to honor.
And thus another move. Some new space. A new opportunity to grow and, in doing so, yet again, come home to myself.
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