In Our Gay Family, Two Little Best Friends Became Brothers

Knowing that a family like this exists is worth living for. Thank you.

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Some of those fighting marriage equality these days, want you to believe that there is only a single possible right way to create a “real” family.  The  way they suggest is by means of unprotected, unplanned, procreative sex.  Or, as Nan Hunter observes,  “accidental procreation” which then warrants 1500 protections and benefits by means of a “bribe (for) heterosexuals “ to get married.  Only the biologically created family deserves marriage, they argue, and all the rewards to stay together.

The notion is insulting and absurd, not only for same sex coupled families, but for opposite sex families as well.  Real families come together in a variety of ways, the best of which is when all the members love each other and deeply desire a lifetime bond.

That is what happened in my family.

My partner  and I had pursued various options to expanding our family beyond the two of…

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Awake

Today was one of those days when I shouldn’t have woken up. When the urge to wander into the sea and keep going becomes stronger by the hour, and all I can do to resist it is take to my old tear bucket, WordPress. No, nothing specific “happened”, just the realization that life is made of all different kinds of pain and a little stray smile here and there.

Between imprisoning people for speaking the truth and making the liars rich and safe, insisting on making decisions for others while fighting off calls to take responsibility for own wrong doings, the abuse from so-called friends and the hurt from people allowed to get too close, what is really to look forward to? The occasional awkward smiles make up the smoke curtain that keeps us from seeing how pointless the whole exercise is. In times like this, it almost makes sense to believe that there is a big bully up somewhere fucking with us. These are the times when you stop to think, look around and realize that there is really nothing that tomorrow can bring to wash off the bitterness. Short of a jackpot win. Always go for a jackpot win. You’ll get nothing anyways, you might as well dream.

This moment of clarity is brought to you by Tumblr, where I saw a gif of my most frequent dream, the one of jumping off a high rise. So simple, so effective, and you get a free flight with the deal. And what is flying without dreaming, and what is dreaming but attempting to escape the constant indignity of ground life? If life was a business, it would go bankrupt in no-time-to-sneeze, because it takes bullshittery on a huge scale to hide the worthlessness of a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ scenario. It takes a lot of suspension of disbelief (trying to avoid saying gullibility) to buy into a promise of “your time will come” and pay for it with real feelings. You have to be so close that the pixels are screaming at you to miss the big picture. And the big picture is that you can never have a moment of peace without paying dearly for it. To paraphrase Murphy, it’s not possible to get something clean without getting something else dirty, but you can get everything dirty and nothing clean.

** Uncannily, I fell asleep (it’s night time here and I’ve totalled five hours of sleep in the last three days) and dreamed that I was getting close to a light, like falling into the sun, and jolted awake before I got to touch it. If we create our own demons, you don’t want to see the monsters in my mind.

But seriously, I have no reason to believe that the future is going to bring anything good for me. Haters gonna hate and lovers gonna hurt. Nothing short of a jackpot win is worth going through that, because perfume rubbed into wounds still hurts like ten hells.

And before you judge me, I’m not being ungrateful. I never asked to be born. I would trade places with the next hate crime victim in a heartbeat. I wish I hadn’t been born in the first place.

Good Enough

I’ll never be good enough. Never been, as far as I can remember. Always a minute late and a dollar short. You’d think I’d gotten used to it by now, but I stupidly keep trying, even when there are real people out there, and every one of them is better than me, I still have a thread of hope. A walking, talking, fighting recipe for disaster, that’s me.

It’s time to stop holding on to that slippery rope and make my dream come true. The dream where I die the most peaceful death, just sinking into warm green water, no fighting, no despair, just peace and quiet. Warm green water, I should be so lucky…

I don’t know how many people have so frequent, vivid dreams of dying. Then again, I don’t know how many people are so useless and misfit as I am. Strange how I want so much to kill this body, but I still feel pity for the animal within. It keeps trying to breathe another breath, put one paw in front of the other, hoping to find something decent around the corner. Not me, I know better. I learned my lesson many times over. I’m just waiting for the curtain to fall.

Dreams

“People say to the mentally ill, ‘You know so many people think the world of you.’ But when they don’t like themselves they don’t notice anything. They don’t care about what people think of them. When you hate yourself, whatever people say it doesn’t make sense. ‘Why do they like me? Why do they care about me?’ Because you don’t care about yourself at all.” ― Richey Edwards

 

I am flying downward in slo-mo, as if in a dream. Try to enjoy the illusion of freedom that envelops me like wings that I won’t unfurl, just enjoy the sight of lights passing me by and, before I can make up my mind, I hear my skull hitting the pavement, that familiar shattering feeling like a bad cold, hear my bones crunch and collapse inward. Strangely, I hear music as well, getting louder, pounding its way into my brain beat by beat. I kiss Death goodbye on smooth pale lips, mutter a quick apology like I’d just been caught in the honey pot and turn my morning alarm the fuck off.

 

Out on the windowsill, having a smoke, looking out at the river. I always lived close to water. I love water and always seek it because it gives me an illusion of inner peace… or as much as something like me can find peace, shreds and wisps here and there. Sometimes the cigarette smoke calms me, other times it chokes. Today is the first sort. I inhale deeply, feel it burn my throat and can’t help looking inward… what do I want? As usual, I find I just want to die. Why can’t I just disappear? You know, fall asleep and poof! I am gone. Gone to a warm, velvety black hell for good, never to come back out again. A lot of people would like me to do just that, would love the freak to disappear, go somewhere else and stay gone. I agree with them. I wish I’d never existed in the first place, but it’s a bit late for that, innit?

 

Long hearty suck, another drag of the cigarette. And all I want is to die. I am already a brain-eating (heart-eating?) zombie inside. If you’ve been there, you already know that if you ever wanted it enough to try, honestly give it a valid try even once, it never goes away, that place, that possibility stays with you forever. If not, newsflash sweetheart. It is a decision you’ll have to make constantly afterwards, weigh the pros and cons. Is it worth hanging around, or should I just check out? Is there anything interesting to come? Are they going to be stupid to me today? Mean? “Funny”? Do I care? Is it going to get better? How much better? Good enough to hang on? Nah… or maybe… mmmm…maybe… ah, fuck it. Just one more day.

 

As someone well-used to being a plaything, in turns kicked around, doted on, vivisected and thrown away, someone who’s seen the highest and the lowest of human attention, I don’t mind being a toy, being played with – just as long as I can choose the players. Either way, I find comfort in knowing where the exit is.

When you can never understand that somebody can love you because you hate everything about yourself.
When you don’t want to live, but you don’t want to hurt one person who means more to you than death.
When you want to obliterate yourself, but you feel too sorry for an animal body to hurt it too badly.
When you know where the exit is, but you are compelled to stay for one reason.
When you do the one thing you ever distrusted the most: fall in love.
When you are dragging around an empty shell because one person loves its scars, and that person means more to you than ridding the world of a pest.
When everything is hopeless, except one spark of love.
When you don’t belong, but someone is holding you.
When you are useless, but someone needs you.
When you wish you’d never existed, but one person would miss you.

Welcome to my world.

No Fears

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” – Frank Herbert, Dune.

I guess this is as good a start as any. Start with the end, because starting with “There was once a very old kid who chose death because life became too much of a burden to carry around and having its face rubbed in it every day became unbearable” has been done too many times before. Different heroes, same old story.

I will talk instead of death itself, my old friend who keeps waving and smiling at me only from afar. It is only fitting, it’s a friend’s job to make you feel safe, and peaceful. But I have no such friends, so peace has never been on the menu for me, and safety – or the illusion of – always came at a price. And what friend charges for their service, right? So I will have to stalk Death and, being kicked out of the door, break in through the window because I need that peace. Oh, don’t feel sorry for me, I’ve always given as hard as I took, and I’ve done my share of very bad things. Such is life, like a gang, requiring you to do things you wouldn’t otherwise do just to stay in the game. To quote Neil Gaiman, it is a rigged game, but it’s the only one in town. And my old friend Death rejected me every time, so I have to hang out with crooked players.

But I’m rambling. What I wanted to get to is that I don’t fear Death. I don’t even begrudge it, even though it’s treated me so badly. I pine for it, my escape, my home and the only friend I know for sure will never let me down, if only I show it how much I want it. Why are so many people intimidated by death when they seem to rush into allegedly permanent relationships? Okay, it has a dark sense of humor and it’s no stranger to irony, but then what would you call the fakeness of life? No, I will choose death, thank you very much. It’s real. What you see is what you get, every time. Life always tries to con you in one way or another, death is honest. I can hide away in velvety black folds and sleep a dreamless sleep. I can be myself and not be judged for it. I don’t have to meet or exceed anybody’s expectations, kiss ass for every disappointing review, I can just be. What’s not to like?

But that comes at a price also. The price you charge the people who care to have you around. The people you could possibly, at some point, perhaps help. Make life a little nicer place for them to be in. So then you have to ask yourself, are you really doing them a service? Or are you just helping them run the hamster wheel?

Incredible as it sounds, I know such people. Well, I know one, my boyfriend, whom I love more than death, who would really be different if I dumped Life in pursuit of peace. If you ask me, he would be happier without me, with somebody normal who would love him as much as I do, but who could offer him so much more than I ever could. Ignorance is bliss, and he could be happy. Such is my dilemma. To give him what he asks for, or to give him what I think it’s best for him?

It’s fair to say that this keeps me up at night, trying to divine the best path. I know what would be best, but I couldn’t rest knowing that he resents me. That he couldn’t let go and would measure everyone against me, even though pretty much anyone else would fare better than me. But then it’s not fair to them either, trying to compete with an illusion. I mean, how do you compete with an idea? Have you seen Inception?

Decisions, decisions… And in the meantime I have to play pretend in a bad C-movie with atrocious actors, big empty egos and no one taking responsibility for anything. Be part of a sick joke without a punchline for the sake of somebody who deserves so much better than a broken spirit.

Anyways, this is my problem to deal with, and I only write it down as an apology to anyone who didn’t get me, or who found me distracted. It’s not you, it’s me. I had other things on my mind when I was looking through you and not listening to what you spoke at me. It was a matter of life and death.

I think we all know how this movie is going to end. I’ve come far from the gutter, and at least I know I offered some free entertainment to anyone who cared to watch. I’d hope you got the joke, but I doubt it. Still got a few laughs out of it though, so it’s all good.

In the meantime, every day is decision time. Even for a master procrastinator, there comes a time when you can’t ignore it anymore. I hope you enjoy the show.