this was the one

during every walk there is usually a song that starts me to weeping a bit. this was the one during this evening's walk.

will you still love me - chicago

the kind of not well

sorry to report it was another rough saturday. the week has been a difficult one. the brutal conversation with sean on tuesday night surfaced some old hurts from friendships past. my therapy session on thursday was like reopening every painful wound that i've ever experienced. i spent much of the day today running around getting paperwork together for michael to help him get a home loan on a new place closer to work (something that is required by a newly diagnosed medical condition). i don't feel well at all. in fact, it's the kind of "not well" that has me questioning both if i every have been well before or whether i ever will be again.

sticking with jt

up on the roof - james taylor

more boxes

anyone who has gone through the process of moving knows the experience. the moving van leaves and everywhere you look there are boxes waiting to be unpacked. and as you set upon the task of finding a place for everything and putting everything in its place, you find yourself feeling as if there are even more boxes than you remember having been packed and loaded on the truck and even start to question if maybe the movers gave you someone else's belongings in addition to your own. this is certainly the experience i'm having now but it's not exactly the experience i'm going to focus on in this entry.

the thought of "more boxes" first came to me before the actual move itself, right after the packers completed their work and had everything i had brought into my last place of residence nicely and neatly put away in moving boxes of various sizes. what i was referring to with that thought was that yet again i found myself in a moving scenario. and the thought brought more than a hint of sadness and weariness.

you see, this most recent move is my fourteenth as an adult, i.e., since graduating from college (if you add the moves of my childhood this would be the twentieth move of my lifetime). some were big moves across many states. many have been smaller moves across the city or town i was living in at the time. and the fact that i can state with some certainty that this is not my last move may also be contributing to the bit of melancholy that i am experiencing about this whole scenario.

i've reflected before in this blog on how unsettling a move can be for me, and i believe i've also shared how all of this movement has left me with this feeling of being without a true place to identify as home. i remember sharing with michael as we were searching for the place that he continues to call home that i was looking for a "homestead" in which we could settle and establish roots. a place we could live out a significant amount of the rest of our lives (at least until retirement). well, that was eleven years and four moves ago, and the hunger for such a place has only grown more acute.

while i'm sure that some of this desire has to do with being ready to not have to go through the motions of packing and unpacking ever again, i'm also highly confident that the more significant element is wanting to have a place where i feel like i belong. and from yesterday's conversation with my new therapist, i see that while the physical relocations have not entirely created this decades long struggle i've had with the feeling of belonging, they certainly have not helped. i'll be honest that i'm not actually sure that finding the place to settle down is the solution to the problem, but i am certainly ready to try and find out.

time for some sweet baby james

this seemed to be a fitting song to mark the occasion of my first day back in therapy.

fire and rain - james taylor

another encouraging word from kylie

as promised here's tonight's song.

into the blue - kylie minogue

fine

so today's moving day and so i'm going to keep it brief. in part because i have stuff to do and in part because i'm still recovering from the after affects of a conversation last evening that seem to take the broken pieces of my psyche, ground them to powder and then cast them to the wind (but then again i do have a penchant for understating conditions). so, in my stupor i, put on the one cd that i have unpacked by one kylie minogue, the patron saint of those of us of the homosexual persuasion. as i half-listened two songs stood out; and, based on numerous testimonials, as she has done for countless individuals, i gained a bit of inspiration and encouragement from miss kylie. i even caught a glimpse of the person i used to be and hopefully can be again. don't get me wrong, i still feel pretty broken, just not beaten.

so here's one song (with lyrics even) and look for the other tonight (provided my ipad and 4G connection work effectively).

fine - kylie minogue

fine, you're gonna be fine
you don't have to worry don't you turn and run, run run
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun

standing in heaven but don't feel the light
the brightest colors are the black and white
you wanna dance but you don't trust your feet
you know the rhythm but can't feel the beat

the night, the night, the night is full of tears
you cry, you cry, you cry
when you feel everything's impossible
just know you're gonna be

fine, you're gonna be fine
you don't have to worry don't you turn and run, run run
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun
fine, you're gonna be fine
it's gonna be OK a brighter day will come, come, come
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun

turn your face into the sun, sun, sun
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun

you got it all but you don't feel complete
even the sweetest things are bittersweet
you're riding high but you just fear the fall
don't even recognize yourself at all

[editor's note: god this song is so my life right now except i'm not riding too high]

the night, the night, the night is full of tears
you cry, you cry, you cry
sometimes this world can leave you in the cold
but everything will be

fine, you're gonna be fine
you don't have to worry don't you turn and run, run, run
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun
fine, you're gonna be fine
it's gonna be OK a brighter day will come, come, come
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun

fine, you're gonna be fine
you don't have to worry don't you turn and run, run, run
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun
fine, you're gonna be fine
it's gonna be OK a brighter day will come, come, come
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun

turn your face into the sun, sun, sun
turn your face into the sun, sun, sun



Read more: Kylie Minogue - Fine Lyrics | MetroLyrics

song for a lonely night

holding back the years - simply red

a casual disregard

there are times in my life when it is not a good thing for me to have so much alone time. this is one of those times. this weekend and now running into this week has provided me ample time in isolation to think and to ponder and to reflect and to ruminate and to think some more -- none of the subjects have been positive and at times it's felt as if my head would split in two from all of this depressed mental activity.

as it has for much of the weeks past, my friendship with sean has been the focus of several of these recent times of reflection. there is a certain sense of melancholy that continues to linger with respect to this relationship, and it only seems to be growing.  this morning i woke up and looked at my skype to see if there had been an overnight instant message. not a one. i checked my phone to see if there had been a text. none in sight. and for whatever reason, i felt a bit deflated. the usual explanations came to mind -- he's busy, he has company, he had a late night, he had an early start, etc. logical and reasonable explanations all, but my heart doesn't seem to be in the mood for logic or reason.

i headed out to get a cup of coffee (since with my coffeemaker and pretty much everything else i own packed away in boxes), and, as i was driving, i was nagged by a particular perspective. it feels as if there is just a significant imbalance in my friendship with sean. whereas, i would describe my approach to our relationship as "attentive" (maybe overly so), it seems that for him, from my admittedly limited vantage point, there is this kind of "casual disregard" -- kind of like when he's engaged he's fine with being so and when he's not he's equally fine with not being so. the phrase "out of sight out of mind" comes to the fore at this time.

i wrote yesterday in this blog that i could not imagine my life without sean being a part of it. it's a message that i also wrote to him through that same skype instant message channel mentioned earlier. there was no response of like kind about me (actually there was no real response or acknowledgment of the statement at all). and i suppose if there is no like perspective than to expect such a response would be both futile and foolish (states of being with which i continue to be developing an ever increasing association).

i can't imagine that i am the only person that has wondered what another person for whom one has a deep affection thinks about you. in this particular circumstance, it is not only a question of what but even if i ever cross his mind when we are not in immediate contact. i know the answer for me is yes and often. then again does that even really need to be shared? i mean, if that were not the case, would i even be writing this particular entry?

i don't know. there are moments when i stare in the mirror of this particular relationship and i feel so diminished by the reflection staring back at me. i think we all have a desire to no we matter to people that we care for and about. i think at this particular time in my life i have an even deeper need for that kind of affirmation. i have been so willing to extend that affirmation so freely to other men in general and to sean specifically and yet i wonder to what end because it does not seem to be returned in either word or deed. and naturally (at least for me) the challenges i'm experiencing have me questioning if any man will ever find me worth the time and effort to engage in a relationship of any kind.

and with that i guess it's not any wonder that i'm finding it difficult to make my way to my phone and send another text. truth be told, i'm not sure it will be missed anyway.

time for another trip to the past

and to what i consider to be one of the greatest songs of the 20th century sung by one of the greatest artists of same.

what's going on? - marvin gaye

pushing through the gloom

there is a unique kind of torture to the experience of having to complete a significant task at the same time one is dealing with overwhelming depression. i liken it to being told that you have to push a boulder for two miles up a steep incline on your knees. oh and you have to push it using your tongue.

such was my experience this weekend as i continued my preparations for this week's move while attempting to manage my emotions. actually, "manage" would be an overly generous term. it was more like doing my best not to be completely destroyed by them. there were moments that if a firearm were available, i would have held it up to my temple and squeezed the trigger. this was as much of a sign of the moments of pure insanity i was experiencing as it was the desperateness that i felt to escape the emotional and at times physical pain.

and the day after? well, my body is feeling the usual aches and pains that one experiences from a weekend of multiple trips of carrying boxes down two flights of stairs, loading them into a car, and up an additional flight or two at the new destination. and emotionally i am dealing with a hangover marked by a slight headache and some confusion sprinkled with a bit of disorientation as to what i can hope or want from life. of the two, i would rather just have the achy body. at least with that i have some reasonable expectation that the pain will subside and eventually go away. with the emotional bit i have no such confidence.

any brief scan of the recent entries of this blog will provide ample evidence that this is a difficult time in my life. this weekend i was confronted again with the demons of doubt and despair (my indefatigable twosome) and the sense that even the simplest of desires were beyond my grasp. in particular, the plans to have another meet up with sean (actually, for much of the weekend i was hoping for just a conversation let alone our moving forward in firming up our plans). and as the day wore on yesterday, i found myself questioning not only whether i still wanted to meet up but whether i still wanted to continue with the friendship at all.

was this particular relationship worth the mental anguish i was experiencing or was the mental anguish i was experiencing (both clinically and situationally produced) making the relationship more problematic? are those dynamics even mutually exclusive?

i wasn't able to reach a definitive conclusion as the day ended yesterday. and in the haze of a very early morning start, i'm still uncertain. i did express with this particular situation in an isolated message (my new term for "i.m." that occurs when there's no one present at the other end of an instant message) that i could not imagine not having sean in my life. at the same time, i'm not sure how much life i will have left if i keep having to endure what i experienced this past weekend.

but do they hear me?

does anyone?

calling all angels - train

the meet cute

i recently had an opportunity to catch up with an online friend. he's been going through a rough patch and the chances to chat have been few and far between. as we were catching up, which didn't take long as not much had changed for either of us, i asked the question of whether he was still seeing the guy he had briefly mentioned meeting the last time we had chatted some months back. he was and so i decided to take the present opportunity to learn more about him.

after all the usual questions about how long they'd been dating, what he looked like, age, and what he did for a living, i asked the question about how they met. it turns out they met while my friend was looking for a birthday card. they literally collided in the store with my friend's new beau not having seen my friend in his rush to get to where he needed to get to. this resulted in their having coffee and then going to a movie that evening and then the rest, as they say, is history. i shared with my friend that many years back, his situation would have been called a "meet cute," which given that my friend is much younger, he found to be amusing. and with that, we parted to get on with our respective days.

as i was getting prepared for my day, i thought about my friend's encounter that led to if not love at least a new dating relationship. i was happy for him and this nice development that had occurred for him during this difficult time in his life. unfortunately, it didn't take long for this happy occurrence in his life to create a moment of sad reflection on my own.

"of course, something like this (the meet cute) would happen for him," i thought, "he's young and attractive." this led me to think about how quickly michael had also met someone and while young may not be a fitting characterization, he is attractive and certainly looks considerably younger than his age. for someone like me, who is neither young or particularly attractive, i couldn't help but reflect on how my friend's birthday card search encounter would have transpired for me. i imagined that the collision would have resulted in a hurried apology and check to see if i was ok at best and nothing more. "meet cutes," i surmised, were not the types of occurrences that happened for me.

that realization left an aching pain in my heart and made for a very sad start to my day.