Expanding Whorizons

I keep waiting for you to stop caring.  The sad part is that it’s been the hallmark of our ‘relationship’ this expectation… like I need you so much more than you need me.  I don’t think you ever realized how important you’ve become to me.  So much of our time was spent talking about what was going on in your life—not that I begrudge you that.  You have been dealing with a bunch of stuff—stuff that I don’t envy you at all. it’s just that, really, you were the only friend I felt I had in Seattle.  You were he one I wanted to spend my time with—no so much out of desperation for another person in my life, though.  You were the one that mattered.  You… I feel… I love you.

I’m often confronted by the realization that what I want frightens me.  I know that’s… vague.  but that is what the experience is—a vague feeling of fear.  I want, but I’m afraid of, responsibility. I want, but I’m afraid of, major purchases. I want, but I’m afraid of, intimacy. I want, but I’m afraid of, sex. I’m coming to grips with a lot of the above.  And, reading over that list, the one that feels the most vulnerable to admit to is the last.  Sex, as a youth, meant furtive masturbatory experiences.  There was no place for it in polite conversation, or in my every day.  Sex, in college, meant struggling with what I was told was ‘right’ with what I felt was right.  I ‘should’ want a relationship with a woman, I felt I wanted—no craved—the touch of a man, instead.  For years, I continued to struggle with that juxtaposition and, afterward, with the bifurcation of my personal life with my ‘family’ life.  Secrets kept until my mid-to-late 20s.  I understood that part of my

***Warning: Not the least bit sexy*** I will admit to a certain amount of melancholia at this time of year.  Birthdays do that to me.  It’s a reminder of where I am, and where I thought I’d be, and how disparate those two really are.  Add to that a certain amount of upheaval—new job, new lifestyle (working from home)—and it’s a bit of a recipe for disaster. So, imagine how my evening turned out when someone posted a link (below) with little preamble.  Once I clicked on it, I found it to be an 11 minute section of Prayers for Bobby.  Never having seen it, I watched it.  Fair warning—if the rest of the movie is anything like these 11 minutes—it’s an amazingly moving story, heart wrenching and uplifting in turns.  All the more so because it’s not just a story.  Bobby was a 19 year old boy who, having come out to his mother—a Christian (capitol C)—was greeted with all of the litany of things I feared when I grappled with the realization that I was gay.  You see, I was raised—at least

Sex involves a certain amount of vulnerability.  In my life, I’ve been vulnerable—and clearly made poor choices with whom.  The result is that it’s not easy for me to be open to sex, or to be open with people.  One of the things I’ve chosen to do with my life is approach sex, and vulnerability, and try and gain back some of what I think I’ve lost. I rarely feel visible, in uncontrolled settings.  Take that for what you will.  In light of that, over the years, a couple of ways to deal: 1)  self-medicate so that I feel less inhibited 2)  pay for sex The former rarely has worked out well.  Though it has afforded me a handful of interesting stories to share.  I’ve shared them, though admittedly left out the ‘buyer’s remorse’ that typically hits the next day.  Sure, there was the time in NYC during gay pride when I knelt before two men and took care of their dicks.  Sure, there was the pair that I sucked off in a back alley in Chicago.  Yes, there was the time, at Folsom, where I ma