Her

Just when I thought I was through with her she came roaring back into my life. Why can't I shake her off or at least shake the hold she has on me? I thought I had freed myself from her grasp, but tonight I realized I haven't. Maybe I shouldn't spend time with her. I haven't in awhile. There was something different about her tonight. The usual tension seemed to be gone. We were able to joke and laugh again. It felt like how we used to be. Maybe I am just being naive.

She was the first girl that made me feel strong and confident. I knew my place and I knew she would let me take care of her. She really began my transformation into being this person. I admit I like the guy role. I like to be the protector and the provider. I like to be the one that is curled up on. I like to be "in charge" so to speak, even though I know I am not really in charge, you never can be when a woman is involved. My point is she encouraged that role and it made me feel good to have someone who wanted that from me.

The problem is I was her first. That was both my mistake and my great fortune. Perhaps I pushed her. Maybe I should have kept myself under control and not kissed her that day. There are a lot of maybes, but I don't regret jumping off that bridge. I don't regret the way we made each other feel during those first few days. I regret confusing her. I regret adding more stress to her life. Eventually, I learned to back off. I'm not sure what to do now.

Tonight she told me things. She told me she misses me. She thinks about me when she wakes up in the morning and goes to bed at night. She also said she doesn't want to hurt me anymore than she already has. She did indeed hurt me then. That is the biggest reason I cannot understand why I feel such a strong pull to her. When I was with her tonight it took everything in my power not to just hold her hand. I just needed to touch her. Any small touch would do, but I knew I couldn't because it would have left me wanting more. My chest felt tight and it got hard to breath. I could feel my heart pulling away from my chest. It wanted to be near her so badly. I hate that she makes me feel this way. I love that she makes me feel this way. I am unsure if I should just run as fast as possible in the other direction or if I should stand strong and see what happens. I hate how strong my emotions are for her. I thought they had finally gone away. Apparently not....

Sensitivity

Today, I was confronted with something I had not experienced before. I was picking up trash at my work and from above I hear "hey homo." I looked up and saw a large crowd of teens on a raised walkway. I kept walking then I heard it again followed by something flying by me. I never saw what it was but I figured it was trash or spit. This incident angered me, but not enough to do something about it. I am not sure what I could of done since I didn't see the person or people who actually yelled. But I was definitely irritated. I can't believe someone would be that insensitive. I kept walking from where I was and as I walked I thought more about it. I began to wonder if I would have been more offended if I was straight. As a gay person, I was disturbed that someone would just yell hey homo; if I were straight I probably would have been bothered by the fact that someone called me gay. I would have to say I would have been equally offended either way. What really got me is that these kids just threw that word out there and meant in a derogatory way. It was no big deal to them to just yell and possibly spit at another human being. I forget how taboo being gay is when you are in your early teens. Most often it is looked down upon, especially by boys. So they feel the need to throw words like homo, gay, fag, etc. to make other people feel bad. I've never really been offended before by the phrase "That's so gay." It has become a part of the vernacular of most teens to twenty-somethings. But now I have a different perspective. It took time for me to realize that this term is just plain rude. I'm not going to preach about it though because I even catch myself saying it sometimes; however, it is almost always in reference to something stereotypically gay a lesbian friend of mine does or says. I don't want to sound hypocritical. I just want to explain both sides of that issue. Kids these days are raised with such different standards than I was. I would have never called someone a homo publicly, even if I was thinking it. It seems odd to me because I was their age only seven years ago. Could the world have really changed that much in seven years? Apparently so. Part of the problem is that kids aren't raised to know any better. A lot of adults in the south and homophobic or at least anti-gay and that feeling rubs off on their kids. This creates environments of hate and teaches kids it's okay to be discriminatory. I guess it is the die hard patriot in me that still believes in the land of the free.

Caught Red-Handed

It seems to me that most of the people that are so publicly anti-gay are the ones caught with their pants down, so to speak, in a very gay situation. Today, I was reading about Reverend George Rekers. Yes I did say reverend. He is about as right wing as you can get. He doesn't believe that gays should be able to adopt and has even testified as an "expert" witness in adoption cases in both Arkansas and Florida. He also heads up the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). All I can say to that title is WOW! Rekers is accused of hiring a male prostitute from rentboy.com to lift his luggage on his recent trip to I for get where. Naturally a right wing bigot would hire a male prostitute to be his luggage lifter (oh the innuendo that I could spin off of that statement.) I continue to be amazed that the most bigoted people in the country are the ones who seem to have something to hide. They are so ashamed of their sins that they come out the strongest against them. The excuses that these people, mostly men it seems, come up with make me laugh. "I didn't know he was a hustler until midway through the trip." Really? You are a very important political figure and the assistant that hired your luggage boy didn't bother to make sure he wasn't a prostitute? Perhaps someone was just playing a cruel joke on the reverend. Or maybe the reverend has some inner demons of his own to wrestle with. I just wonder why these people that are so anti-gay, banging their bibles on their pulpits and screaming at the top of their lungs that gays should have no rights always seem to be the ones that get caught in places they really shouldn't be i.e. gay bars, with male prostitutes, you know the usual. Any thoughts?

ODD

Let me tell you a story. My mom is a teacher and she is also very liberal. One of the teachers she works with is VERY conservative, lets called her Q. She asked my mom one day just how liberal she was. My mother replied with well I have a lesbian daughter. Then Q started asking my mother if she was worried about me going to hell and all that. My mom said no that she is very proud of her daughter, etc. My mom came home from school and told me this story and I just laughed. I got the impression that Q is one of the staunch, slightly homophobic conservatives and I told my mother I would really like to meet her. My mom wasn't so sure that was a good idea. A few weeks later I was up at my mom's school doing some volunteering and a woman walked up to me and asked if I was her daughter. I said yes I was and she said that she had been looking forward to meeting me. I was a bit confused as to who this woman was until she introduced herself. It was Q! I then got a huge grin on my face and shook her hand. That was about the extent of the exchange between Q and I, but it got me thinking. I'm not sure what Q expected when she first saw me. I honestly think she expected me to be some big butch with lesbian tattooed on my forehead.

I got the impression from Q that I was the first gay person she had ever met. She seemed a little surprised that I seemed like a regular 20 year old college student. It really did make me chuckle inside. Why are gays such an oddity to so many people? When Q first looked at me it was like I was an alien from another planet. Being gay is becoming so mainstream these days. This is my reality, my normal. The look on Q's face made me realize how foreign gay people are to her and so many others. This is a side effect of living in the bible belt, where if you are gay you are generally not out of the closet. This is a sad state of affairs. I refuse to live that way. I have fought too long and too hard with my inner demons to just be shoved right back into that awful closet. I am no different than anyone else. I was brought up in good southern democratic home. I was taught southern values and a particular way of life. Yet, many people I meet are taken aback or are made uncomfortable by my gayness. Why is my normal so unusual to many of the adults in my area? I think the only way to fix this is awareness. Many older people in my state have never met a gay person. They have the old world belief that being gay is a disease or just simply wrong. I can tell you that is is NOT a disease or else many of my straight friends would be gay by now. Haha! As to the belief that being gay is wrong I could turn that around and say being straight is wrong. Being straight is most of the world's reality. Being gay is my reality. I simply choose to accept both realities and I learned to make these co-mingle. I wish more straight people would think this way. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I did not choose to be this way. Let me propose this question. Did you (a straight person) choose to be straight? Did you wake up one day and say hey I am going to be straight from this moment on? I don't think you woke up one day when you were about four years old and consciously thought I am going to chase the opposite sex on the playground today. This is my normal and always has been. So why is this so odd to you straight people? Well of course I have an opinion on this too. I think it is because you have no concept of what it is like to have feelings for the same sex. Think about this: I have no concept of what it is like to have feelings for the opposite sex. Think on that for a little while and tell me how odd I am!

My Year

So much has happened this year and it has finally come to a close. (At this point in my life I still think in school years.) Today was my last final, my dorm room is packed, and I will be on my way home very soon to enjoy a, hopefully, relaxing summer. For now, I am sitting here pondering this year. I have overcome so much and became a whole person again.

I had a lot of firsts this year. I had my first girlfriend, my first one night stand, and my first serious heart break. I now realize that my first girl wasn't ever going to be my last one. She was not right for me. She was just simply my first. She was my first serious heart break too. She hurt me in a way that I couldn't imagine. I believe I am stronger for it now. She taught me a lot about myself and about what I want in a woman.

I came out to my family and surprisingly they are very supportive. As I look back now I wonder why I was so surprised. My family members are some of the most liberal, open minded people I know. It kind of makes me laugh thinking about it now.

I lost some friends and gained others. I gained a best friend in an unlikely person.

I made mistakes and learned from them. I learned a lot about myself too. I learned that I am confident, slightly cocky even. I can give respect and take it away.

I went to church for the first time in two years. I learned that it is possible for me to believe in God, not that I ever stopped. I guess I really learned to not feel guilty when I worship God.

That is this year in a nut shell.

I am not just your lesbian friend!

This drives me crazy! People who think I have changed just because I am gay bug me. This was one of my biggest problems when I started coming out to my friends. One minute I am just me; I am the person they have known and loved for a long time. The next minute I'm gay and for some reason that makes me a completely different person. I had several friends do this to me when I came out to them and unfortunately we are not that great of friends anymore. This makes me sad because I am the same person. Being gay did not change my personality dramatically. If anything, accepting myself made me a happier person. I began to love myself for the first time in my life and I finally had confidence in who I am. The only difference between who I was before I told them and who I am after is that I happen to love women. I am the same person. My personality and identity did not change just because I came out. I am a person who just happens to be gay. This is just another detail in my life. Being gay can be equated to something as small as my job title. I am exactly who I want to be. Being lesbian is my sexual orientation and nothing else. Straight people don't introduce their friends as this is so-and-so, my straight friend. I sure as hell don't introduce my straight friends that way, but for some reason some of my friends insist upon introducing me that way. Do they even consider what awkward position that puts me in when I am meeting someone for the first time? It's like being gay is the only important detail other people need to know about me.

Is it a choice?

I know I wrote about questions in my last post but I thought this particular question deserved special attention. I have been asked once or twice if being gay is a choice. There are many that believe it is, usually the right wingers who are fundamentally antigay. I would have to disagree.

My first instinct is to wholeheartedly yell at the top of my lungs that it is not a choice. I have talked to many gays and lesbians as my own sort of research project and they all agree that they did not choose to be this way. I did not wake up one day and say I'm going to be gay today. I have felt different since I was very young. I really cannot remember a time when I did not feel the need to be a bit masculine. That is my identity. I believe it is this way for many gays. We all seem to have the same reaction to this question. Believe me, if I had gotten to choose I probably would've chosen to be straight because it is a hell of a lot easier than being gay, but I like who I am. All of my feelings, emotions, and attractions since I was very young have been toward women. I have always been more comfortable and felt more natural being around and with women. Loving women is just my nature. I know that many lesbians would agree with this too. It is just unnatural for many of us to be with men. We did not choose to be gay because we think it is "cool." This is not a political statement for me. It is simply who and what I was born to be.