between the dust and dust

I went to a funeral of the father of a co-worker. It’s been awhile since I was at a funeral. It brought up many issues, as funerals do. Most of those brought on tears, many in good/hopeful ways. Some in sadness with my own issues of familial loss and God complex questions.
What hit me the most was the slide show of his life. A small child in the 30’s. A very handsome man in the Navy for WWII. 50’s-like photos with his wife. Photos of their family as their children grew up. Their grandchildren. Their great-grandchildren.
His wife died a year ago, almost to the day. He slept with his wife’s pajamas every night this past year. He is now buried with them. They were married for over sixty years. Built a life together. Raised a family. Survived old age together. Basically, died together. (And, with my beliefs/hopes, are together now.)
I was filled with hope, filled with love for the family, filled with a nice sort of jealousy. (Yes, reader who anonymously left the ever so helpful narcissistic link, it is all about me!) I want that! I want a life like that. I want a life like that with Smokey. I believe that we are meant to have that life. I don’t believe that is how it has to be, I/he/we could sadly choose or do differently. I want to see faces grow old together over the years. See photos of the life we build together. The other lives we touch. It’s more than wealth. It’s more than writing or getting published. It’s more than the house. More than anything. This family didn’t have much money or means, but they did have each other, and devotion to each other.
What more could you ask for? What more could you want?
Beautiful.

skinning the pig

Granted, I have never been a football fan. This year has made that fact a thousand times more true. Reason? One word: Tebow. You would think a handsome man like Tebow would at the very least make my mind wander to images of him in the locker room.
Not so much.
A little of my distain is for Tebow, but in actuality, the vast majority of it is directed at all his disciples. Today, on the car in front of me, was a bumper sticker of the purplish blue Rocky Mountains in front of an orange sky. In big white letters splashed over the mountain-scape: HOLY TEBOW.
Vomit.
I respect that Tebow has the right to his religion and his beliefs. Of course, I’m talking about his views on homosexuality and his reported support of Focus on the Family. However, to make it such a public proclamation, and be made into a near Messiah-like figure disgusts me.
Even at the rodeo (maybe especially at the rodeo) we went to last week (that will be another blog…), there were these huge posters of him with John 3:16 painted like war-paint under his eyes. It’s not the Bible verse that irritates me, it’s that once again, the ‘hero’ of the Christian world is someone that actively works to deny my rights and equality, and sees me as damned.
It also disgusts me that once again a sports figure it turned into a hero. No, he’s not. He plays a damn game and gets a shit-load of money for it. Not the definition of a hero. (However, I’ll admit, I’d be saying something different if he were a gay man willing to stand in the face of the world while at the top of his football career and speak his truth—so I can see my own bigotry).
Maybe my strong reaction is also brought on by my family who has never given a moment’s thought to football or any sport. We were never that family. Ever. What did I see in my folk’s house last week? Tebow’s book. Really? Really… They are even talking about how excited they are to have such a role model Christian be in the spotlight and being such an example. They shouldn’t even really know who Tebow is. They’ve always been oblivious to sports before. My brother’s reaction to this made me laugh though. After all the talk, he simply said, ‘Yeah, till they find out he’s molesting children.’ Now, I know he isn’t (well, I don’t know, but I’d bet more money than I have that he isn’t), however, the point being, those skeletons always come out of the Christian heroes (not that they don’t of very human).
Poor Tebow, I’m sure he is a very nice man, very kind and blah, blah, blah. I wish him health and love with his family. However, as long as he keeps supporting those who hate my gay and lesbian family, I won’t be able to help smiling every time I hear of a football fumble.
(Nice to rant about something besides my own insanity)

again and again and again and again

Honestly, I received enough negative feedback from the last blog that I’ve been hesitant to write again. Then, I remembered, which I really do forget sometimes, I do this blog for me. Not for affirmation. Not for attention. Simply to get out some of my crazy. Just putting it out there makes things a bit better, a bit more manageable. Like letting steam out of a pressure cooker. Ideally, blogging helps me figure something out, but most often, it simply is to get some relief from the crazy inside my head and chest. So, yes, I am fully aware that the last blog highlighted my neediness, clinginess, emotional vampirism, and showed me being someone pathetically gross.
Whelp… truth hurts.
Be glad you’re not in my head. It’s exhausting.
Hence, the blog.
Mentally, it’s been an emotionally up and down weak. Ninety-nine percent not at all due to Smokey (one percent yes), but all due to my own sickness. If I cut out that sickness, things are really, really great between us. He expends so much time/effort to make sure I know how much he loves me and that he is fighting for us. We have so much fun together. I really don’t know how I could love him any more. Even as I say that, fear spikes through me for all I could loose. (See? Exhausting! Ridiculous!)
I am starting to realize my own insanity more and more in that area. I’m hoping that awareness will come with actualized change. For my sanity and for his. He is a patient, patient man at times with me.
What? Another entire blog about being needy and letting fear overtake the joy in your life? Yep. Looks like it!

insanity lines

Turns out, I like to torture myself. I know, we already knew that, but it is frustrating and exhausting, nevertheless. Things between Smokey and I have been nearly perfect for about a week, which is saying something considering how the past several weeks before them had been. He’d been really affectionate, going out of his way to show me how proud he is of the work I’ve done in order to get published, making sure I know how much he loves me and wants me. I’ve been working on suppressing my neediness and using logic and breathing and praying and eating and working out and whatever it takes to work through it. We have an awesome, long weekend at Valley View this weekend, and I couldn’t be more excited. So, what do I do last night when I go to dinner with two of my best friends? When one of them says he’s been studying palmistry, both of us stick out our hands. Even as I did so, part of me said, ‘Don’t do it! You don’t even believe in it, but you’ll believe it enough to fuck you up.” It sucks to be so smart that I could see the future and so stupid that I didn’t stop the moment in order to change it. My friends hand was read: long life, something jobbish, a short but deep romance and then the love of his life, and he could never cheat. The problem? He already has cheated, something was off with that reading.
Then it was my turn. Looking at the mid line across my hand. Gonna have health problems around forty, then again around fifty, then die around sixty. “Wait a minute? Wasn’t that line the career line on [other friend’s] hand?”
“Oh, yeah. Opps.” Looks like you’re gonna have a couple career changes and retire early.”
Yay!
Life line (the right one this time): Gonna live somewhere between mid-eighties and one hundred. I guess that’s good. And wrinkly.
Love/relationship line: I love extremely deep. Impossible for me to cheat. Gonna have a few different loves, all who I love deeply, all who are brief and leave, continuing late into my life. There it was, worst fear spelled out in the palm of my left hand.
My heart sank, I nearly started to cry. It’s been a heavy weight ever since.
When it took longer for Smokey to contact me after his overnight (even after he texted last night to let me know his phone died), I nearly hyperventilated until I heard from him. Ridiculous!!! Exhausting!!! Pathetic!!! All because of a palm reading by a friend who says he really doesn’t know what he’s doing, who messed up on our friend’s past cheating, who mistook my career line for my life line and killed me a couple decades early. True, I come by this worry naturally, but things that seem to confirm it, well…..
I drive myself crazy. I just want to rest in what is so very wonderful. Want to do the work when I have to or need to. Then rest in it once more.
Say some prayers for Smokey: he needs to have strength, patience, and a lotta love to deal with this nutcase.
On a side note, I have an email to a preferred therapist that may be out of my insurances’ district. Please hurry up, better mental health!

need to make an appointment!

Today’s installment will probably sound like complaining, and it really isn’t. It’s just free therapy time.
I really find anyway to drive myself crazy. Number one culprit? My needy, co-dependent, clingy disposition.
Smokey is out with his friends tonight, and probably will end up staying with them or at his house. This is a good thing for him. He needs space, and it’s healthy to have a little time apart, I know it’s all good. However, I sit here and feel rejected, worried he won’t return, wondering why I wasn’t good enough to be with this evening. Fucking ridiculous. Truly. It’s none of those things. I know he loves me. He shows me so very much, all the time, I also know he’ll return—whether it’s tonight or tomorrow. I also know my weaknesses and how I tend to think and feel about things. Even so, knowing all I know, having done so much therapy, it still is all I can do not let it overwhelming me. I think its fear that begins to consume. Just expecting things to either be ripped away or run away on their own. It’s my tendency to hold on tight enough to asphyxiate a python. It’s so frustrating to feel like I’m a pretty smart guy, especially around relational issues and such and still allow myself to play this mind fuck game. So frustrating that I allow it into the relationship that means that most to me! I do know this, I’ve got to start getting this under control. For both Smokey and myself. No pressure! But really. I have all I’ve been dreaming of right now, why can’t I just let my spirit rest in that? Argh!

Thankful

Good lord, where to start, where to start!?!
Two wonderful updates…

January 5, 2012, I signed a contract with Dreamspinner Press to publish Submerging Inferno, AND the following two installments! I never dreamed someone would buy all three, especially with two yet unwritten! None of them will be published until all three are written, so it is still a couple years away, but still! They are now looking at The Shattered Door. Since it is a stand alone, if they like it, it could be published ASAP. I have my hopes up, but we will see. I am thrilled, THRILLED, with the contract with them I have. I have lots, lots, lots to do. However, what a different experience it will be to sit down and write when not only has someone said they will publish what I’ve already written, but what I’m writing now! Wow! Totally thrilling! Such a long, long road, so many years. I can’t believe how amazing it really is now that it’s here!

The other news is that Smokey and I doing great, this past week really made a difference. Those three weeks were really rough, really scary, really hard. We both know there will be plenty more of those, but it’s amazing to be by his side and walk this journey together. The wonderfully fun parts, and hard, painful parts. So in love with him.

My folk’s response to my publishing deal wasn’t the best—tears and pain, nothing bad said, just they feel I’m not using my talent in a good way writing these kinds of books. Even when you know it’s coming, it’s hard to hear. Smokey, however, made the great situation even better. He’s nearly as excited as I am, and beyond proud and supportive. I’ve been dreaming of coming home and telling him, ‘Guess what?....’ Well, it was even better than I dreamed.

I’m doing my best to simply be happy. I scares me to feel like I have it all right now, finally what I’ve always dreamed about—the two things that mean more to me than anything. The man I love more than my own life, and a publishing deal! Really? Talk about amazing.

Father, thank you so much. The love you are lavishing is overwhelming. After so many years in darkness of soul and spirit, after so much hurt and doubt, to now be enveloped in love of the man I hope and plan to spend my life with, and in validation of my writing, well, it feels miraculous. Thank you. Please give me the strength to trust in it, to be able to rest in it, to have faith that you won’t rip the rug out from underneath. To trust that, like my favorite scenes from Job, you are blessing what was once withered and dark. I’ve given you so much anger and wrath in those years, along with the trust I could muster, I now give you thanks and praise and all glory for what you have given! I rest and trust in you, help me make that ever more true.