If he follows through with what he says he is going to do, Raymond is leaving Norfolk today and moving back to North Carolina where he will resume his career as a makeup artist. He is extremely talented and will be working at a new branch of a high end spa where he formerly worked that has locations in various parts of the USA and in Toronto. That was the career he loved before getting involved in the real estate investment field in this area which has crashed as has the real estate market in general.
I know we need to be apart - in some ways we have needed to for a long time. Without living apart, I don't think either of us can find the healing and regeneration we both need. In many ways I think we are both victims of the fucked up society we grew up in and still live in.
On his part, at least in my view, he's never gotten over being disowned and thrown out by his family after he came out as a teenager and ex-gay treatment and exorcisms failed to cure him. He was basically on his own at 16 and has never healed from that and the anger that he has kept within him that still haunts him. I think it motivates much of his approach to life and to relationships. He wants control since so much of his early life was spinning out of control. Did he/does he love me? Most certainly. Does he regret and is he sorry for the extreme drama and hitting me recently? Most certainly.
On his part, at least in my view, he's never gotten over being disowned and thrown out by his family after he came out as a teenager and ex-gay treatment and exorcisms failed to cure him. He was basically on his own at 16 and has never healed from that and the anger that he has kept within him that still haunts him. I think it motivates much of his approach to life and to relationships. He wants control since so much of his early life was spinning out of control. Did he/does he love me? Most certainly. Does he regret and is he sorry for the extreme drama and hitting me recently? Most certainly.
Do I care about him and love him still? Most certainly. Despite all the drama we have endured and our fighting and disagreements, there is such a beautiful part of him. He is generous to the unfortunate to a fault and - I know some people might disagree - but inside there is a goodness and happiness to him that makes me think of the young teenager who existed before homophobia and family bigotry took its toll.
I will truly miss that part of him with us apart. However, he will always be a part of me. Always and forever. Can we ever fully reconcile and be together and happy again someday? Only time and fate will determine that for certain. The photo I have posted is one of us on a trip to the Outer Banks. Here's part of his remembrance of the trip:
Remember the great time we had here in North Carolina - you and me going to the shops and dinner? Using the the jacuzzi while it was cold as hell? LOL, but we still went. And the drive to the point [the tip of Cape Hatteras, where the cold south flowing current collides with the warm water of the north flowing Gulf Stream], with me seeing your face, looking with awe at the power of the crashing waters? Seeing how the waters tossed and churned - you looked so at peace there, Michael.
On my part, if we had met later in my coming out journey, maybe I could have been more of what he needed. I was so racked by guilt and issues related to having been married and having children, the divorce and issues with my law firms that I know at times I was not there emotionally for him. Or not to the extent and in the way he needed. Never having been in the closet, much less married with three children, I know he could not understand what made me tick at times. I have know my soon to be ex-wife for nearly the length of Raymond's entire life time. I think no one who has not endured decades in the closet can know the damage it does or just how long it takes to get over it. When we met, I was still highly damaged goods, but he did not realize it at the time. Do I regret things I did or arguments I triggered? Most certainly. Would I do things over differently if I could? Most certainly. Sadly, I do not get that chance.
Would that both of us could have grown up in a society where we could have simply been allowed to be who we are. No punishment and exile for him and no closet and self-hate for me. I know I am idealistic, but that's what I wish could have been. I know at times I come across in my posts as angry toward religion and self-righteous hypocrites in particular. In fact, I am angry. Very angry at times because so many of us in the LGBT community have been hurt, tormented and scarred by perverted versions of religion and bigotry. So much need damage to innocent kids, young adults, and even us older individuals.
On my part, if we had met later in my coming out journey, maybe I could have been more of what he needed. I was so racked by guilt and issues related to having been married and having children, the divorce and issues with my law firms that I know at times I was not there emotionally for him. Or not to the extent and in the way he needed. Never having been in the closet, much less married with three children, I know he could not understand what made me tick at times. I have know my soon to be ex-wife for nearly the length of Raymond's entire life time. I think no one who has not endured decades in the closet can know the damage it does or just how long it takes to get over it. When we met, I was still highly damaged goods, but he did not realize it at the time. Do I regret things I did or arguments I triggered? Most certainly. Would I do things over differently if I could? Most certainly. Sadly, I do not get that chance.
Would that both of us could have grown up in a society where we could have simply been allowed to be who we are. No punishment and exile for him and no closet and self-hate for me. I know I am idealistic, but that's what I wish could have been. I know at times I come across in my posts as angry toward religion and self-righteous hypocrites in particular. In fact, I am angry. Very angry at times because so many of us in the LGBT community have been hurt, tormented and scarred by perverted versions of religion and bigotry. So much need damage to innocent kids, young adults, and even us older individuals.
4 comments:
Maybe you could have been at the forefront of making the society open, pluralistic, and tolerant that you blame for making you victims and implicated in your problems?
Many people who made other choices have had various healthy, successful gay relationships, for 25 - 35 years, without blaming society nor giving it the credit.
While I am empathetic towards those who chose against their best interests, for whatever reasons, I don't support their victimhood at the hands of society claims. While gays and lesbians still encounter opprobrium and hostility, we probably always will, as most minorities do.
But unless one chooses to be a part of the minority, work for change, work to make a relationship, to seek the minority's as well as one's own benefit, it seems rather narcissistic and lame to blame others for one's own choices. It's like, "the devil made me do it."
Could it possibly be that the two of you are not suitable in a long-term relationship, or only further time with distance will help determine that, rather than society is to blame for its current state? "The Blame Game" and "Everyone But Me Is Responsible" is not very courageous, honest, much less accurate, since too many counter-examples of success avail.
Gay Species,
You misunderstand. I am not playing "The Blame Game" or "Playing Victim." Yes, I made decisions that perhaps were wrong or might have been made differently. Although, I have no regrets over having three amazing children, each of whom strongly supports gay equality.
And, although I was a bit late on starting to make things better for the LGBT community, I have sinced, pushed activism, publicly debated against Virginia's marriage amendment, helped form HRBOR, helped expose a fraud like "ex-gay" Michael Johnston (http://www.washingtonblade.com/2003/8-8/news/national/exgay.cfm)and other hypocrites.
If I have pity for either one of us, it is Raymond, who by your standard did the right thing by never being in the closet, has always been out and proud, and paid a very heavy price for it in his younger years.
Michael,
If I remember, you were the one who used "old life" versus "new life," as if you had to distance the two. I trust you see it's all one life, through many sea changes, choices, difficulties, and variable commodities (including children).
You wrote, "could have grown up in a society," as if you were outside the society, or as if it was your enemy, or your nemesis. We're all in that same society, and some of us made different choices in that same society than you did, and you made different ones than we did.
You're obviously angry; in fact, you state you are. But at who? You deride hypocrites in this post and on your blog, and clearly you've been hurt by choices made along the way. But you have to face the hypocrite in the mirror, to forgive him for being him, for making his choices when he did, that begat wonderful children. If you cannot face your own hypocrisy, you'll never cease to blame, delay, and retreat. I doubt it really was true hypocrisy; it is more like a sense of imposed choice you consented to accept, rather than buck. But millions bucked, when you accepted. They fought, while you did what you thought you had to do, or chose to do.
No one deserves blame. No one is a victim, who voluntarily chose his choices. Could most of us change some earlier choices, if we could. I daresay few would not. But many of us braved the unknown, the foreign, the taboo and discovered early on it was nothing of the sort. Others have been more timid, and they have had enablers. Psychoanalysts and Religion, especially, have persecuted gay men and lesbians. And not just the Church of Rome. Judaism. Protestantism. Islam. And yet, many went through their institutions' fires and came out the other side scorched, yet emblazened, with a new found freedom (maybe with a little less responsibility).
You're still a young man, your still new to the dynamics of being open and alive to gay sexuality, sensuality, and sensibility. But, one thing I assure you. Having had a "straight" relationship can either make you a romantic for other men or a cynic to all relationships. One thing women teach us gay men is the joy of foreplay (a lost art among many gay men). You should at least have that art, and believe me, many will prize that art, because it is so unlike men in general, and those gay men who have had straight sex discover what men in general rarely discover. Sex is not making-love, and love-making is not sex. It's nice when they go together, but not all know they do.
So, begin by accepting YOU. Accept YOUR state now. It may change again. Welcome those changes. But your anger is so diffused because of this situation being unlike other situations you're accustomed too. Your fighting yourself more than anyone else. Encounters will continue to happen. Lust, romance, and values will again swirl in the unexpected, the foreign, and you should welcome those swirls, not try to find blame, fault, guilt, victims, etc. You must be in love with you, without blame, guilt, trespass, and victimhood, or you'll never move to the next stage, phase, and movement in your development.
Do not publish this comment. This is just between me and you. I don't want you to defend you. I want you to accept you, as you, now. Accept your past histories as being an integral part of who you are now. Accept that those rocks of life have carved a very unique and unusual individual unlike any other individual but you. And accept that you can only Ride the Wave, you cannot reform, rebox it, alter its course, its force, its dynamic. I invite you to read my post, Riding the Wave, which was written at the end of June, 2007. Spend time with it. Try to grasp is universal significance, not my own personal comments. It's a very different way of looking at life if you're not familiar with it. It will look foreign and strange unless you've been out and openly gay for some time. But key concepts are built into that post, aside from my own personal application, that wiser heads and minds have taught me. And after pondering its implications, you have questions that do not make sense, seem out of reach, or whatever, you write me
dshsfca@sbcglobal.net
or if you prefer, write and I'll give you my phone number and we can talk. But I want you to at least meditate on that post in particular first (the subsequent one is even more germaine, but it is also far more personal and less generally applicable). You're hurt. You're angry. You want love. It may seem to have been within reach, but not if you are not in love and acceptance of YOU. You profess to be a Christian, and the first commandment is to love god and others AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF. You cannot love god or others if you cannot and do not love you.
And for YOUR penance and healing, I impose 1 John 3:11-22 for a 30 minute meditation. Then YOU choose what follows. But stop the self-hate, it only begets more of it, and has no positive outcome. And then I'll tell you about Fr. Fessio and Ave Maria. (smile)
I love you Michael
from your beloved
Raymond
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