we came this close

so today is the last day of my mother's visit and we almost got through an entire visit without some negative commentary about my "lifestyle" being made on her part. almost but not quite, for this morning on the way to breakfast, she decided to bring up again the subject of the end of my relationship with michael.

i had hoped to get through the visit without even discussing that michael and i were no longer together as i had felt no need to share it. it's not as if in the 12 years that michael and i were in some form of relationship that she had ever met him, and i can count on one hand the number of conversations we've had in that time about him. plus, i knew the news of our not being together would delight her -- not because of the issues in my relationship with michael, but because she has an issue with my being in any relationship with any man. unfortunately, when she was asking probing questions to confirm what i believe she already suspected about the status of my relationship with michael, i had to relinquish the information that she was seeking. as i shared in a brief chat with sean this morning, she somehow managed to restrain herself from doing cartwheels when i shared that michael and i had indeed broken up back in October.

and so today she thought it would be a good idea to follow up that conversation with the fact that she had an issue with my continuing to provide michael with some temporary financial support (support that will be ending next year). after a few moments of back and forth on that, i had to say that we needed to stop talking about what was already a difficult situation. from there she then was compelled to share the guilt she felt over how her actions had contributed to the lifestyle i was leading. rather than engage her in that conversation, i chose to just say that she shouldn't feel guilty. her response was that there was nothing she could do about it but pray. and i replied that prayer is always appreciated. that conversation ended then and there and i started to count the minutes until i would be dropping her off at the airport later this afternoon.

someday, i would like her to apologize for how she contributed to the struggles i've had with my self-esteem and how the fact that she was so negative about people being gay robbed me of the ability to come to terms with who i am much earlier in life. perhaps with that difference in my life, my present circumstances would be much different in a positive way. now that would be a conversation i would be willing to engage in.

someday this is how i will see life again

there is one more song from the musical if/then that i'd like to share. it's one of those "big showstopping" songs that is a required element of every broadway musical. every time i hear it, i know that it expresses a perspective that i need to have on life and that i am not quite at the place yet to do so. i think i may be making slow progress toward that goal and hopefully i will be there before long. hopefully, this song will inspire some of you who are also going through times of loss and transition.

always starting over - idina menzel from if/then

and if you liked that here's idina performing it live at this year's tony awards

the visit

so the long anticipated (well, truth be told, the more appropriate word would be "dreaded") visit from my mother began this past weekend. two days down six more to go, and all in all it has gone well for the most part. there have been the usual minor criticisms about my choices in food or household products or television shows, but i'm so used to those that they pretty much don't even register any more.

while i'm pleased that there have been no major disagreements or contentious discussions, i was struck by an interesting thought today, stemming from a trip my mother and i made yesterday. we had taken a long car drive (six hours round trip) to visit a friend of hers that had moved to my state of residence earlier this year. it was a nice visit and a pleasant car ride there and back. when we left our host, i said a few words of thanks for the hospitality and well wishes on a newly embarked upon business venture. as we were driving back, my mother thanked me for the words i'd expressed to her friend and said she was proud to have me as a son. it was a nice moment.

this morning, as i was getting ready for work, i recalled that moment and was again reminded that while my mother may be proud of me for many things, there is one element of who i am for which she is not and that one thing is the fact that i am gay. now understand, i am not one of those gay men who feels like being gay is just a part of who i am. i believe that our sexual orientation is such a fundamental part of our core identity that it substantively affects how we see and respond to the world and vice-versa. as such, it's not a mere characteristic like eye color or preference like loving chocolate. to object to or even ignore this aspect of who i am is essentially rejecting me and denying my existence.

and yet, when it comes to my mother, objecting to and ignoring the fact i am gay is exactly the approach she takes. as i stared into the bathroom mirror, it then occurred to me why i dreaded extended visits with my mother so much. it wasn't really the possibility of her directly confronting me with religious pronouncements about the displeasure god feels about my "lifestyle" (though those aren't much fun either). it was the fact that, with respect to our relationship, i'm back to where i was pre-coming out.

as many lgbt people can attest, prior to coming to terms with your sexual identity, every compliment, every kind word about you feels qualified. you think, "yes, they say feel this way about me, but i wonder how they would feel if they knew i were gay (or whatever other identification you may have)?"

coming out liberates one from that qualifying factor because after that act you now know whatever is said about you is said with full knowledge of who you are. this works most of the time. the exception occurs when the person chooses not to accept who you are. when that happens an even more unfortunate dynamic is created. now you are all those good things in spite of the fact that you are this "terrible" thing that being gay is. the relationship strain becomes even greater when you come to the belief, as i definitely have, that being gay is actually not only one of those good things about you, it's actually a great thing and you wouldn't have it any other way.

and so that's where i am with six days left to go in this visit. it's a good thing i have a therapy appointment this week. i wonder if i need to double up?

and that reminds me

another therapy session today. no intense display of emotions  this time. no fatalistic opinions expressed. the main focus of discussion was on this perspective of being alone and apart from the general flow of life that i expressed in this blog entry earlier in the week.

while no tears may have been shed, i did leave with a subdued mood. that feeling has persisted into this evening. i would say that the primary source of the sadness i'm feeling is a recollection that happened at about the midpoint of my session. i was sharing that my feeling of being an outsider made me question the possibility of ever connecting with someone and establishing the fulfilling relationship that i desire. as i was talking, i was reminded of the fact that michael never really understood me (this is not just my view; michael himself had shared this with me a few times during the course of our relationship).

as i shared this fact with dr. s, it then occurred to me that the very relationship that i had looked to for love, care and a sense of belonging was actually reinforcing the belief that no one would ever "get me" and that i would likely always feel alone even if i were actually in the midst of a relationship. this was not exactly the best kind of reminder to have come to mind, and as i've shared, it pretty much colored the rest of my day in a murky shade of grey. and when i think of how quickly michael has found a new relationship, it seems to just emphasize even more that i was the one that was the issue in the relationship. i was the one that didn't belong and wasn't able to be loved. and with that thought the grey fades to black.

so now i spend a quiet, lonely night. soon i will climb into my bed and likely yearn for a touch, a caress, a gentle whisper of love, a sense that i have someone that i matter to and someone who matters to me. i continue to wonder why this seems to be too much for me to ask for from life. i guess there's a reason that there were no tears during therapy today. i think i was reserving them for the evening ahead.

at the root of me

it seems to be the week that evening chats with sean prompt some thought that ends up being the subject of a blog topic the next day. the funny thing is that the thought in focus today was prompted by my telling sean about yesterday's entry. as i was sharing my "i don't think i'm marriage material" reflections, it occurred to me that here was yet another time i seemed to be out of synch with societal norms and expectations. instead of feeling like an emboldened iconoclast, however, i actually felt tired and sad. it appears that this one simple thought tapped deep into my psyche into what i think is at the root of much of my emotional pain (and if not that root well down the trunk of the tree) -- it's this feeling that has persisted all of my life that i am an outsider to all things about this world, and, as i put it last night, there is a weariness that comes from "being a square peg trying to fit in the world's round hole."

in just about every aspect of life, i have felt that i don't belong -- from family to school to work settings to social gatherings to religion to perspectives on life -- in each and every one i have felt like the proverbial "stranger in a strange land." as a result, from up until i was in my mid-30's, i think my focus was trying my very best to assimilate. no matter how different i felt, i was going to live my life in a way that completely fulfilled the expectations of others. that approach really didn't work so well for me as i realized that despite my best efforts i couldn't escape the feeling that instead of feeling more a part of the world around me i was losing any sense of who i really was and what i really wanted from life.

since that time the approach has been to just be true to myself (i think that this new perspective emerged at the same time i came out as gay is not coincidental) and really to be the best me that i can be. that perspective has served me fairly well, but as most of us have experienced, old habits die very, very hard, lingering well past their expiration date. as such i feel i spent most of my relationship with michael driven by the very same "try to please and be who he wants me to be" attitude that existed in the previous stage of my life's journey. that did stop with the first break-up and is probably why we never really were able to make it work after that. we tried, but my need to be true to me always resurfaced. and being true to me meant not being in a fundamentally dysfunctional relationship.

and while the break with michael was certainly the right move to make, i find myself now back in this all too familiar place of feeling out of synch and apart from what feels like the normative flow of life. perhaps it goes without expressing, but it's not really all that great place to be mostly because it leaves me with a feeling that there is no place for me, and there will be no one for me to know and love in this world. in short, being apart means being alone.

i think what's even worse about being in this space is i'm not really clear what happens from here. i've mentioned before that while i am not necessarily fatalistic about my life improving in terms of finding meaningful, enriching relationships with men, i can't exactly say i'm overly optimistic about it either.

what has been helpful about being reminded of this long standing dynamic in my life is that i have a clear sense of what is really at work in affecting my emotional state and overall outlook on life and knowing, as they say, is half the battle. what's also helpful is that i know what will be a key focus of my next appointment with dr. s. tomorrow. it should be an interesting conversation, and i'll do my best to remember to comment on here what transpired.

marriage material

another evening conversation with sean, another shared thought that was more affecting upon reflection than in the initial telling. in this case it was a comment i was making about weddings, of all things. he has a trip to one coming up, and i was sharing that the great thing about getting older is that you don't have to deal with the expense of gifts and travel and any other things associated with being present for your friends when they say "i do." at my age, all of your friends are either married or have decided they don't plan on being so.

it's my next comment that has stayed with me. i shared that truth be told i didn't anticipate that i would be having a wedding of my own moving on through this next phase of life. in that statement, i wasn't referring to not having the ceremony someday but rather not entering into the kind of relationship that would prompt the need for a wedding. i had to quickly dispel the reaction that this was my being fatalistic about the idea of meeting someone special, it's more that i really don't think i'm marriage material. i think i would be happy if i could find a guy (or two) to date and enjoy his company. and when i look over my life i think i've actually deep down always been like that.

it is kind of funny that even as more and more lgbt people move toward the normative standards around relationship, i find myself not really interested in doing the same. mind you, i do support marriage equality very strongly and some years ago i was very much the kind of person for which a marital relationship was very much the goal. today my feeling is, well, not so much.

i desire companionship and love and intimacy in my life, and there are so many people who believe and espouse that the only path to those things is to be married. maybe they're right, but for me, i'm pretty determined to see if i can find a different route.

sleeping alone

this is one of those nights that i miss having someone to sleep with.

i wrote words to this effect in an online conversation with sean last night. a casual remark, i thought, expressing what at the moment was a gentle sadness that had cropped up in the hour or so before sleep. i'm not sure if it was the various online conversations with a few interesting men that day, including sean, that prompted it, but i do know that by the time i was chatting with sean, the feeling was so prevalent that i felt a need to comment on it.

i thought that the occupation of that feeling in my psyche pretty much would end then and there, but the feeling stayed with me throughout the conversation (prompting me to comment on how the emotion was stronger than i realized) and well into the night. i had a restless sleep, and i awoke this morning with the same feelings i had when i went to bed.

i have to admit that i find it bizarre that even though the amount of time i have spent sleeping alone over the course of my lifetime far exceeds the time that i had a partner, i am still acutely affected by the lack of a companion in my bed. you would think that my body would recognize the former state as the more common and the latter as the unnatural, but the reverse is true. i have always preferred such sharing and tended to sleep better with someone beside me than when alone.

naturally, my phrasing of the term having someone to sleep with refers to not just the act of sleeping but also to the physical closeness and intimacy that accompanies having a bedmate (at least from what i remember. it's been so long since i've experienced that particular aspect and i'm talking about a trend that goes back to long before michael and i broke up). for me this has probably been the most difficult aspect of being alone. it is one thing to have friends to help in feeling connected and cared for, but there is nothing like sleeping with someone else to banish the loneliness. then again, reflecting on my last several months with michael, i have to acknowledge it is very possible to share a bed with another person and feel like love and intimacy are as far away as the earth is from the moon.