Beck

Eye lock...

2012-01-18T09:22:00.005-07:00

January is always a very hard month. It isn't the post-holiday blues. Nor is it the increased darkness, cold, inversions that sink the soul. No, for me, it is something more...

January is the anniversary of my "coming out" to my wife. It's now been seven years! Where has the time gone? With each passing year, there are moments and events celebrating great improvement, but with each January, it's like those emotions of the first "revelation" of my attractions bubbles up again and renews its ugliness, if only in the sense of increased anxiety, emotions on edge, self-doubt and worthlessness all hitting her hard and thus affecting me as well.

In that environment, an amazing thing happened. It was a week ago in church. I was on the stand as usual and she was sitting second row back with clear eye contact with me. I could tell in reading her eyes that her emotions were close to the surface, ready to bubble over. We sang the closing hymn and our eyes locked. This particular hymn has special meaning to the two of us for a variety of reasons - it's one of "our hymns". As we sang, we didn't look down at the words - we knew them by heart - we stayed in an eye-lock.

In that connection, I tried to portray as I was singing, that I loved her, that I still did even after seven years of the "revelation", and that I hoped she felt that, too.

I started singing in our shared second language, and she could tell from my lips that I was no longer singing in English. I could see her change to our second shared language as well. It was then that I was hit by a spiritual feeling that overwhelmed my body - something that I hesitate to share but feel I need to. In that moment, I felt an assurance that I still did love her, that I did want to stay with her, that we are meant for each other to be connected despite my attractions otherwise, and how grateful I am for her still being there with me after these seven years!

It was an incredible moment of peace, knowledge, assurance, pure intelligence all in one. I started to tear up and so did she. That was it... and then it was over.

***

More than not, I wonder if sharing such personal feelings really has any value to this community anymore. I'm at the point of thinking I have nothing more to share... I've hesitated to share this very personal experience. But I hope it has value for others as they read this.

The feeling that came did not say that my feelings for men will go away or even decrease, they just are... and that is the way it just is... but it's okay, and it's okay to still share my life with an incredible, amazingly wonderful woman, and how grateful I am for these last seven tough years.

I hope that has value to you.

Thanks for listening.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T13:21:00.004-07:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS...

May those of you who still come here to read of Beck (and this one particularly important and vital aspect of who I am), find peace and serenity in your various paths in this coming year.

That is my prayer for you and me as we continue to figure this out together.

BUON NATALE!!

A brief encounter...

2011-12-22T08:44:00.002-07:00

CASE IN POINT: It's a gay thing, I guess...

The other night I arrived at the airport after a long business trip. The airport was seasonally busy with lots of activity in every direction. I was tired and anxious to get on my way, to be with family, to settle back into the warmth of home. Boarding the bus for the long-term parking lot, I got smashed in the middle of mostly businessmen hanging on in very tight standing-room-only personal space, shoulder bags and bodies mashing together.

It was in this scenario that I found myself staring into the face of a most exceptionally beautiful man. He was in his late 20s or early 30s. His eyes were piercing blue, with amazing lips and smile. His blond hair was neatly groomed and his nose beautifully proportioned. His neck and body fit and lean and strong. He smelled sweet and intoxicating and I couldn't help but drink him in. We bumped together and leaned in unison around the bends and up and over the overpass. Our eyes met a couple of times and we smiled with brief small-talk of being pleasantly crushed together.

He wormed his way through the mass of bodies and got off at stop no. 1 and so did I quickly following his path. He headed in the direction of my car and I followed closely behind, admiring his shoulders and buns and manly walk. I wanted to keep drinking him in and found myself enchanted by his mere essence. Before I knew it, I had followed him past my car and into the next lot. I found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. When he stopped at his car, I finally realized I had completely forgotten what I was doing, and came to my senses and circled back to my car.

Sigh...

I've pondered this since and wonder if I get so mesmerized and consumed and overwhelmed by such brief encounters with gorgeous men because of my gay celibacy or is it "just a gay thing"?

Is this normal?

Just wondering.

An early Christmas Gift!

2011-12-17T15:06:00.004-07:00

I received an early Christmas present - one of those parental pay days! My oldest graduated from college today! I wasn't sure how I was going to feel, but sure enough I felt pretty proud and excited as a proud papa should be.

Sometimes I wonder if I had never married, never experienced fatherhood... that was, indeed, a real possibility. But naively, I married and eventually parenthood followed. This child, in particular, has faced amazing challenges from the very beginning - physical, emotional, spiritual, and social challenges that would have completely stopped me (and most anyone else)but she's a survivor, a fighter, an amazing woman. What a blessing!

There's an emotional wave coming over me as I put all the feelings together of watching this significant achievement in her life. You worry and fret and push and pull and route for your children to grow and succeed and find their own path into adulthood... and you wonder if it will ever happen, and then it finally does. Now the waves of anxiety over the potential of future opportunities of where life will go from here come forward as reality hits that it's over and real life starts.

That's for another day. Right now, I'm just so excited and pleased for this, her personal goal, obtained. It's been a struggle with times when we thought this day would never be realized. But what an example of perseverance, hard work, self resolve and personal sacrifice to make it to the end.

And now a beginning!

yes... proud indeed...

What a great gift!

Peace is not the absence of conflict...

2011-11-23T08:49:00.003-07:00

As my "inner Maurice" and "outer Clive" continue to act out their play in my mind's stage, and manifest themselves in real life, I continue to search for peace - peace between these two conflicting aspects of my being. Will my Maurice and Clive ever get together and work it out and come to terms and live at peace together?

Occasionally one hears something at Church and it registers enough to linger in the back of the mind, compartmentalized for future pondering.

One such pondering has been this:

"Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of God no matter the conflict."

As one "conflicted" as I, this thought has lingered: the peace I seek and sometimes find, is not because of the absence of conflict in my life (be that from the pain resulting from serious family issues, or the stress from living a less than authentic life), but because I still feel the presence of God and his acceptance of me, the real me, and my family.

That's what I'm most thankful for this Thanksgiving... that peace, despite or in spite of the conflict, internal or otherwise, that still comes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Locking the window...

2011-11-07T07:57:00.006-07:00

There is another level to my feelings about the film "Maurice" that affects me on a daily basis, that pulls me back, that keeps me checked, even left to lock the window tight at night, though longingly looking out at others...

This is in the world of the MOHO community here.

I have been part of the Maurice and Clive world of meeting on a mountain rock, or grassy memorial ground and gently caressing a fellow MOHO's hand, fingering through his hair, or tightly touching his torso... that connection of bromantic friendship that Maurice and Clive experienced.

This stirred emotions inside me that were exhilarating, exciting and "stimulating", a stimulus that in other world would have been embarrassing, but in this time and space were miraculous and beautiful.

Holding him tightly, I felt the "excitement" expand to the point of him feeling it... whereupon he brought it to my attention, and I kept holding him whispering... "I know, isn't it wonderful!" My inner "Maurice" was outwardly expressing himself!

I wanted to go forward, pursuing even more, and becoming more and more "stimulated" to the point that I had to be checked... checked by my other self, my inner "Clive" where propriety ultimately wins out. I got scared. I backed off. I checked myself. I pulled back. I cut off ties. I broke the connection. I locked the window.

Fast forward to this weekend: I wanted so very much to attend the "Circling the Wagons" conference. I wanted to be part of that community, to open that window, to step out onto that balcony, to climb down that ladder or at least allow others to climb up to greet me.

Situations developed within the family that precluded me from going. Our child took some serious missteps that could lead to serious legal penalties and I had to be there to deal with the family situation, supporting my wife and child. I longed to be elsewhere at the conference with fellow MOHOs, but I couldn't. I guess I could have, but I chose otherwise. Family comes first, right? Sometimes it takes personal sacrifice. And sacrifice is defined as giving up something great for something better, right?

I couldn't sleep Friday night. I wanted so much to figure out how to do both - support my family and support the inner me, being fed by those of you who could help me to be more accepting of myself at this special once-in-a-lifetime self-affirming experience. Yet, I was scared. After being out to my wife and two of kids, it still is something that I don't openly express or allow expressing. I pull back. I fear the outwardly "excitement" or expression. I don't allow my inner self to have priority - so I hold back, I don't allow connections. I lock the window, and find myself looking out again, longingly...

I feel very sad to have allowed this to happen. I allow it to happen. I allow circumstances to make my choices for me, instead of creating my own circumstances and being in charge of my own life.

Yet, I did choose well. I don't totally regret my choice. I connected with a child who needed me in a unique circumstance. I supported my wife, not leaving her alone in a time of urgency and real need... and I found myself later on Sunday, "dancing with her in the kitchen" again (what has become a symbol of bonding commitment between us), holding her, loving her... sacrificing something great (my inner self) for something better (our family relationship), placing it above all else.

Is this life always a choice between "great" and "better"? Is there never a choice that allows one to experience and have both "great" and "better"? Is that possible? Or is there always the choice of one verses the other?

For now, I must live vicariously through the input and view of other bloggers who were able to attend this weekend's conference, but also symbolically watching how you live your lives and make your choices. I'm still locking the window, securing the house for another night, longingly looking out at that special mountain rock or grassy memorial ground, my inner-self left to watch and wonder...

Maurice: EM Forster's Classic...

2011-11-05T10:03:00.009-06:00

At the suggestion of a dear MOHO friend, especially with my current gay-themed movie watching mood in full bloom, I sat down and watched "Maurice", EM Forster's classic autobiographical gay tale of growing up and coming to terms with homosexuality in Edwardian turn of the century days as a student at Oxford. I had seen snapshots of the story on YouTube, but never had I taken the time to watch it in its entirety.

Until now.

The Merchant-Ivory beautiful period piece of pre WWI England captured me completely. A huge fan of "A Room with a View" and "Howard's End", I watched it intently and devotedly, and came away thinking how much I have been or am part of the two main characters, Clive and Maurice (pronounced "Morris").

In one scene, Clive is the pursuer of Maurice's affection, and Maurice is the innocent and affectionate friend, never imagining that their caresses or fondness for each other, their playing with each other's hair, or long embraces meant anything but bromantic friendship. How this was me with my Italian friend during my mission... he affectionately in love with me, and me incapable of recognizing his advances as anything more than romantic friendship. Nothing happened until he professed his love for me, and I rebuked him, still some 30 years later feeling the pain of having done so.

Later Maurice rethinks his friend's confession of love for him, and sneaks into Clive's window and hugs and kisses him and professes his love as well... This scene reminded me of being in my friend's bedroom after my mission and returning to the mission as a RM and wrapping myself on top of him and kissing him - and now him shocked, reminding me of my RM status, and that I was to be going to the Swiss Temple that next morning, and shouldn't I return to my own bed.

The roles reverse again and Maurice finds this discovery of male contact insatiable and desires to have it more and more, while Clive returns to the role of proper gentlemen, marrying, keeping up proper appearances, status and decorum. This is when I come to my senses, stop pursuing a life with my friend post-mission, and return home, settle into a proper, righteous role as priesthood holder, provider and companion to a wife, marrying within 1 year. My friend comes to visit before entering the MTC, he still physically wants me, hugs me, kisses me in that guest bedroom, my wife down the hall left to wonder, and I hold back his physical advances reminding him of his temple visit that next day in preparation for his missionary service, and that we must keep our relationship within bromantic terms of friendship, with proper appearances, dignity, worthiness of temple blessings, and decorum above all else - passion be damned.

Oh how I bounced between these two characters, sympathizing and truly understanding each.

Maurice seeks to be cured by a doctor who puts him in a hypnotic trance. I've sought counseling as well, in hopes of finding the cure, or at least the cause for why I'm this way. So far, for Maurice the hypnosis did no good. So far, for me, the counseling has either been of no use or self-indulgent.

In the end, Clive is resolute to a life of self-hatred. He resolves to be a slave to his position, or station in society instead of a slave to his passion. I, too, have resolved to be a slave to my family, marriage, church position, and job status and predominate culture, instead of releasing my reigns and being a slave of my passions for men. I have done a pretty great job of hating myself.

In the end, Maurice throws caution to the wind, potentially losing his status, career, and opening himself to public ridicule and abuse, and allowing passion to win in the end with a man he loves. This part I can certainly understand but haven't yet embraced. It's a nice romantic idea, but not very practical. The two had nothing in common, but their passion. Their interests, education, and common experiences were so vastly different that in "reality" it would have never worked... but the story ends with the observer left to wonder if "passion conquers all", and that being authentic in one's attractions of who one is, is the most important thing.

"Now we shan't never be parted..."

I'm left wondering... wondering if I will forever be the proper gentlemen, secure in my stately home of position, with a loving wife who always wonders who I'm talking to , or what I'm thinking about, and me locking the doors and windows tight from those outside intruders, but while doing so, longing looking to see if anyone may still be coming to steal me away. Or wondering if I could have ever found happiness with my Italian friend had we given it a chance, despite our differences of culture and experience, allowing passion to rule the day, recognizing that church membership, family, position in society, etc. would be lost due to our relationship... but would we be happy? Would the physical passion be sustaining enough? Or would we be on to other more suited to our likings?

"I was yours 'til death once if you'd have cared to keep me..."

Oh the questions. I will never know. My friend, upon returning home early, acquired AIDS and soon thereafter died a miserably painful death. And I, the Clive of the story, was too proud to embrace him in his time of need, of reaching out for my love and affection - leading him to a pathway to self-destruction.
EM Forster's "Maurice" was hidden from being published until after his death, and even upon being published, it was shunned as an inferior literary work in comparison to his other novels. Yet, this film's 1987 interpretation feels real, genuine, and thought-provoking. I want to read his words. I want to obtain a copy and read it for myself. For you see, like Forster, like his two protagonists, Clive and Maurice, like my Italian soul mate and me, we are lost in the world of homosexuality amidst a backdrop of intolerance and bigotry...

What did the hypnotic doctor state - something along the lines that "I would advise you to live in some country... France, Italy, where homosexuality is no longer criminal...Will England ever come around?... England has always been disinclined to accept human nature". What a great line!

It's interesting to read some of the YouTube comments:

"aren't we so fortunate to have been born in a day where it's less sucky to be gay"...

...whereupon another responds: "Man, how can we expect change when even all you guys are fighting about what the "right" attitude should be for homosexuals growing up during this time. Of course he wanted to be cured, who wouldn't want to be cured of something they are told everyday is wrong. When it's shamed in the house and in church. Now we have people to talk to, supporters, and support. Seriously, don't judge what you don't understand. We weren't there, we didn't live it".

Whereupon I respond with a chuckle... little do these commentators recognize the world that is mine that is still as Edwardian England here and now in the 21st Century Utah, as in 1913 England, where we are still and always will be "disinclined to accept human nature", where we still make choices that may seem counter-intuitive or incapable of living authentically... and where we "shouldn't judge what we don't understand."

I am there. I am here. I am living it still.

Catching up with Bobby...

2011-11-03T18:34:00.005-06:00

I've seen bits and pieces of it, but never have I sat and watched the entire movie before now. I know, I know... I should have my MOHO membership card revoked for sure. But maybe I didn't feel ready for the emotions of "Prayers for Bobby", until now...

I was alone this past weekend and I really had so much work to get caught up on, but I felt so empty inside - I couldn't work. So, I took this "opportunity" and watched Bobby's suffering. Whether it was the exact time period represented of my high school and early college years that registered so deeply, whether it was the overwhelming self-righteousness, whether it was simply the loneliness of not being understood, even by oneself, or whatever, I came undone. I came completely undone.

I haven't allowed myself to cry like that for some time. I sobbed uncontrollably, (grateful that no one had seen me break down so terribly) shaking and blubbering to the point that it scared me. What was I crying for like this? I knew the storyline, and even the ending. I wasn't surprised by the portrayal of family misgivings, heart aches, and coming to terms with such deep tragedy, but I was surprised by being swallowed hole by the grief and angst within my own misunderstood soul.

I just let it come out... as if this grief and pain was coming up and expressing itself from within the secret depths of my being. Why was this happening? What is going on? Why do I feel so ashamed? What am I ashamed of? Am I ashamed of who I am as a confused gay man? Or am I more ashamed that I have allowed myself to refuse to express the emotions and feelings and anger of a hidden, frozen man - thus permitting life to happen instead of be lived.

Except for the fact that I would not permit myself to recognize these feelings of my high school self, this could have been me - the perfect, sensitive son of a "perfect all-American, religious" family, the son who could do no wrong, and desired nothing more than to please his parents and embrace their beliefs and make them proud and happy, to the point that forever, I would keep from them the longings of a grocery store stocker boy who drooled over the beautiful young men parading through the supermarket. The son who wanted to kiss a girl to prove to himself that he could, only to be found receiving a mission call never having kissed anyone (guy or girl) and a friend (who was a girl) who wanted to be sure I could honestly tell my companions that I had kissed a girl, laying a big fat one on me. The son who was the obedient, faithful missionary, who found out while serving at the end of his mission how fantastically amazing it was to kiss a man instead - and the amazing way it made this missionary son feel, until the time to return home and face the family - amazement being replaced by fear, guilt, shame.

Only once did I feel like taking my life, the despair and pain of "coming out" to my wife and the grief, frustration and hellacious agony it caused her to suffer... such suffering that made me realize it would be better for her , for our kids, for everyone, if I were to disappear from this life. I contemplated how to do it... it wasn't the freeway overpass in front of an 18-wheeler, but instead the leap from the hotel balcony window at the corner of 2nd South and West Temple. I parked my car across the street and contemplated how it would feel to jump and be free of this fear, guilt, and shame, and free those I loved from their agony over what I was, what I had become.

That was nearly seven years ago. Seven years! Seven years of suicidal thoughts. Seven years of driving my wife crazy with confusion, self-doubt and depression, sucking her into my closet, instead of opening up and coming out. Seven years of looking over my shoulder wondering what she is thinking or feeling as I might tough a guy or give him a hug beyond the 3-pat back slap priesthood quicky hug.
And so there is no relief. Coming out to her just complicated things. Yes, we are closer and understand each other better, and in some ways we are improving because of my coming out to her, yet, it has certainly complicated things.

Why didn't I jump? I guess, like always, I'm just as afraid to die as I am to live...

NOTE: there was a particular scene that struck me as funny. It was the one where the two religious leaders were sitting in hard-back chairs in front of the family on the sofa, trying to offer some condolences, but coming up short. One by one, family members left until the mother was left alone with the clergy. It made we think of home teaching and how often I felt like the clergy in the chair uncomfortable in being there and the family not really wanting me either. I chuckled a bit. There was another meaning, though, where I thought: What if those were their home teachers? What would they have said? Would they have been able to have compassion and offer sincere and meaningful hope of the unconditional Love God has for each of his children, including and maybe particularly for his gay children?

Would they? Could they? I hope so... Could I? Most definitely!

"Touched"

2011-11-01T09:44:00.007-06:00

As noted, while finding myself in the bachelor mode for a week or so, I've felt inclined to look into watching a couple of gay-themed films. I rewatched Latter Days and Brokeback Mountain. I've commented on these in the past and the only thing I can say now after a couple of years, is that how much I feel for the plight of these men portrayed in these films. I've noted before how real Latter Days was for me, having developed a bromantic / romantic relationship (innocent as it may have been) similar to Elder Davis' with a simple hug and kiss... Had it not been for a very understanding companion at the time, I'm sure I could have been sent home as well, and faced some sort of discipline.

With Brokeback Mountain, I was so emotionally charged the first time I watched it. This time I felt nothing but emptiness, even a void of emotions. It was like being suck dry. The only part that really gets to be personally is the deception played between Ennis and his wife and that she knows and when he is caught, what torture I feel inside with the portrayal of real deception.

Upon my search for some other films, I came across this short film called "Touched" that "touched" me more deeply - maybe because it was new to me and caught me off guard, or maybe because I can definitely identify and see myself literally in the main character (a 53 year old pudgy Mormon man with glasses, who was married for 23 years with 7 kids, coming "out" at 45 and now searching for meaning in his life - stopping in a gay bar for no other reason than an exploration of a "spiritual" journey of hoping to "touch" someone or be "touched"). Other than the gay bar and the 7 kids, this could be me most definitely!).

I typically don't clip videos, but this one may be an exception. (NOTE: WARNING - viewer discretion: the language is pretty rough).

What is amazing to me, other than seeing myself in the main character's eyes of a man being attracted to a beautiful young man with a gorgeous young beard and smile, a young man half his age, easily the age of children (now if anything sounds exactly like me - that is me!), is that the biggest desire is to connect, to hug, to simply be held, to be "touched". There is no sex. There is no nudity. There is nothing other than a hug, being held, connecting. As much as the young man needed it, it was wonderful to see the older man offer himself to someone who wanted to hurt him - and being rewarded for the "connection" he needed as well.

Maybe I'm the only one, but in my world, in my situation, with my circumstances of "lack of connection" and "lack of touch", this really registered deeply... more so than with Christian and Aaron, or Ennis and Jack.
How do I do this on my "spiritual journey"? How can I safely put myself out there without going to the "gay bar" or without the deception and hurt of Ennis's wife? Even the guy in this short film had to let his marriage and religion go, to be placed on this journey... I'm not ready to do that (if ever)... yet the yearning is still there.

I'd be interested in your comments as always...

Is he ever going to grow up?

2011-10-30T18:42:00.008-06:00

Since I've become a bit more active in blogging recently, I have noticed that most of my readership, or at least most of those who choose to leave comments, are fairly new to me. And so you, the new reader, may stumble across this odd corner of the MOHO bloggosphere and wonder who this Beck guy is.

I feel the need to reclarify for you AND for me, why I'm still here, why I still blog and what is my purpose for still hanging around.

I "joined" the MOHO community before it was even called "MOHO". I started searching for connections to others in my situation about six years ago soon after coming out to my wife. I was seeking support from others who had faced such situations, particularly as married gay men to straight women.

Through the miracle of the Internet I found a few loosely connected bloggers who had begun to give voice to this "predicament" of being active members of the LDS or Mormon Church, finding themselves undoubtedly gay, and how to deal with those juxtaposed ideas. Again, I found a few men who were in my situation of being married and the complexities of that situation. This intrigued me and I soon began to blog myself. That was over 5-1/2 years ago!

Most of those first timers have either gone away to better things, or have moved into different, more quiet directions than blogging on a regular basis. I understand this. I, too, have dropped off the radar quite a bit. My first few years I was blogging two and three times a week, or ten or twelve times a month on average. But now, I'm lucky to feel so inclined as to blog once a month, though I've tried to be regular. I guess I felt like I had said what I needed to say, that life had settled down for me and that I had come to accept with joy, who I am, including my gayness and fondness and deep attraction for men.

I was content to take down my blog and move on, as so many others have... particularly with the MOHO community growing to vast and large and numerous that following so many is completely impossible, and so much more difficult than when the intimacy of a few faithful bloggers used to be. I'm grateful that there are so many of you out there. I'm grateful that this "community" has come together, informal as it seems. I'm grateful for all the support and opposing as well as supportive views and comments I've received. This process has opened me to much broader thinking, less judgmental thinking, and more acceptance of others as I've come to accept myself.

But as I've chosen to physically isolate myself from other MOHOs, a choice I do not take lightly, I find myself still needing an outlet to allow my alter-ego, my hidden self, my gay voice to be expressed and to allow this side of me to have expression, even if to voice "silly" emotions, immature thoughts, or confusing messages. And so I still blog... sometimes more, sometimes less. I still do this for me, in order to receive some self-therapy through the written word and interaction of communication - a communication that is silent in my "real" world.

Thus, I am still here. Thus, I still blog.

But, dear reader, know a few basics about me:

1. I am happily married, and have been for 30 year, to my best friend, a beautiful, supportive woman who loves me deeply and I her. I say "happily" because I really do feel it. I always haven't... 20 years of those 30 were literal hell, as we pulled away from each other - or at least I allowed myself to pull away from her, but we are coming slowly back together and I find each day a bit better.

2. I am a firm believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have a firm witness in my personal Savior and know He is my Lord. I accept his plan and do my best, each day, to emulate him and serve those around me.

3. I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I hold a significant leadership position and find joy, peace and spiritual enrichment in that service, particularly with my connections in helping others around me where I feel I can offer help and encouragement.

4. I struggle with my testimony of all that the Church teaches and professes. I am currently really having a personal struggle with the prophetless leadership that I feel is going on, and I seek to understand why I feel this way. I struggle with the way the homosexual issues have been treated by leaders in the Church and I wrestle with personally resolving them in conjunction with the core beliefs I hold to be true in items 1, 2, and 3 above.

5. I have chosen to be faithful and completely devoted to my marriage, my family, my kids. This is my priority and I put them above all else.

6. I still desire very much to have emotional and physical touching relationships with other men. Sometimes the craving is so strong that I feel beyond the ability to cope. But the above keep me anchored. Why, because I have felt the Spirit assuring me that I'm okay, that my efforts are accepted, that God understands me and where my heart really resides.

If along the way, I blog about things that seem silly, stupid, repetitive, naive, or adolescent in nature, if I go in cycles or circles and you seem frustrated with the lack of progress, well, join the club. This life is a life of repetition and cycles. I am a work in progress. I may not be making the choices that are best for me, still living deeply in a closet, cloaking my thoughts and feelings and attractions in a facade that may seem fake, or lacking authenticity to some who may choose otherwise, and see my choices as folly.

So be it. I recognize my alter-ego I allow to give expression in this blog may be pretty silly, immature, or adolescent, and I need a good dose of authenticity and grown-up-ness. But, please, gentle reader, recognize that I am more than just this one side of me who, like a giddy school girl, longs to kiss a man... I am a whole and real person. I try to be as real and authentic as I can. I hope you can accept me for who I am.

Until I can come to the "unity" of my two lives withim myself, until I can find a way to bring it all together into the "real" world, until that time, I still need you. I still need your feedback. I still need love and support. I still need a good slap on the head, or a blunt wake-up call. I still need this community and its support for me. I hope, as this community has evolved to the numerous bloggers, with very view reflecting my exact predicament and circumstance, that there still is room for one like me in it. I sincerely hope so...

Thank you for listening and understanding. Like always your feedback is gratefully requested...

now back to the silly blogging...

Hum a good hymn!

2011-10-28T12:37:00.005-06:00

I hate it when this happens. It shows how little self-control I have... and how truly weak I am... and maybe how much a man like me needs to be married to a woman.

You see, my wife is out of town for over a week - and when that happens, the temptation meter jumps to the max! I feel overwhelming desires to do things, think things, that she wouldn't approve of (and that my core values wouldn't approve of either). I want to watch gay-themed films, and doing so will undoubtedly trigger desires to long for some guy to hug, which will lead to me really needing to kiss a guy. I know I don't have anyone in my life that will provide that connection (unless... um... any takers? :) ), and so these desires fail to linger in the real world, but instead, they linger in the mind - a dangerous place that destroys will power, positive image, self-mastery, self-worth.

UGGHHH!

I really need her here to keep me steady, sane, safe, in control...

Is there value in mixed-oriented marriage after all? Is it normal to fall off the wagon when the parole officer is looking the other way? Why do I feel like a playing mouse when the "cat" is away?

Or am I a just a slutty boy simply wanting to get it on with anything male that moves?

Why does this happen? Is this really my "core value"?

I hate this... got to stay strong... got to stay clean... I need to think of a favorite scripture or hum a good hymn!

One last wish...

2011-10-22T11:43:00.011-06:00

I love autumn!

Truth be told, I love all the seasons and look forward to each one. I certainly can imagine life lived without the changing of distinct extreme seasons, but I don't know that I could live such a life, even as spectacular as the tropical paradise may be.

There is something magical about the blazing beauty of the brilliant leaves caught in that brief moment of full jaw-dropping splendor, particularly with the low-angle sunlight of a fall late afternoon. Such a light caught the mountains out my window for such a micro-moment. I snapped a couple of shots before it was gone - a burst of color, of life shouting like the Whos in Whoville that it is still here all around us and to embrace it, wake up and notice and be thrilled, even touched by the spirituality of the miracle of life's cycles.

A few days ago I noted this comic in the paper and it gave me reason to pause...

I wonder! Yes, I still wonder if it is possible for me, once my "work is done", after I've done my duty and played my part well, that I will "get one last wish" to be what I "really want to be". I have a resilient hope that this is still the case. This hope is resilient, but maybe foolish.

I have chosen my path... and thus, this is my color, hidden behind securely closed doors, lacking the brilliance that can only be found in being seen in the sunlight. Is it too late? Some readers, as I've found out in recent comments, actually follow my slow pace of change, are still hoping, still awaiting that day when I get that "one last wish" to show my true colors. At this stage of life, is that really practical? Even possible?

I firmly believe that none of us is a finished product. We are all a work in progress, and that work is not finished. There is still time for improvement... there is still time to be better, to open the door, to come forth.

I sat on a plane yesterday and had a very interesting conversation with a fellow stranger - something I don't readily do, being much more intent to keep to myself, read, organize thoughts or sleep. But he was much more interested in having a conversation with me. He told me of his life, of travelling all over the globe on business, of being once a member of the church, of being recently divorced, and of having lost his daily connection with his kids. It was easy for me to tell him that it wasn't yet finished... there is always hope, and that none of us is a finished product - we still have much to do to be better.

He responded that I had touched his life, that he was going to give it some thought and re-investigate his options and look forward to finding spirituality and enlightenment again in his life.

I have pondered how easy it is for me to encourage others, but how hard it is to encourage myself, particularly when I face these inner struggles of authenticity consistently bubbling to the surface.

Will I allow my inner colors to shine? Will I see that living in darkness will never permit the real "me" to be seen in the light? And is that okay? Or really, in reality, it's just too late?... Winter is coming and that's reality.

The game continues...

2011-10-18T08:13:00.005-06:00

This game I'm playing seems to get more and more complicated...

I survived Sunday in teaching the youth about "anchors" in our lives, and digging deep and searching for answers, and finding something inside of us that serves as a
"firm foundation" when all else feels like lake bed sands of liquefaction.

I had to dig deep and find something upon which to stand firmly, something I believe in, something real. When I get in these funks where I find nothing but void in the direction of the prophet, I turn to my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon, Alma 5, and I find a quiet place and slowly read those words addressed to the members of the church who are doubting or unsure, and I find wisdom in the counsel to remember how I felt, to dig deep and recollect the "mighty change" that occurred in my heart, to remember those that came before me and their "mighty changes" as well, and to ask myself: "Am I converted still?" I find wisdom in the teachings of that chapter in avoiding pride and envy, and instead, remembering the poor, the needy, the afflicted, and to remember the process of fasting and prayer to obtain personal revelation... all good stuff. Nothing in this chapter says that because the prophet said so, so be it. Instead, it's search, ponder, seek, help, lift, remember, find your own personal revelation and find again your own "mighty change" of heart.

Though I'm still funking over my disconnect with an ineffectual status-quo prophet (who, as as youth I held in such high esteem, waiting with eager anticipation for the day he would be prophet), I do feel deep inside the ping of remembrance of "change", though I need to dig pretty deep, and it gets harder each time... I need to fill the void.

I have found service is the way that fills my void. Trying to befriend and lift others, offering fellowship and brotherhood in ways that I can... but though that works to fill voids, I still am empty inside. This disconnect of my soul feels like a Carlsbad Cavern of sorts to fill, not a small cave.

And yes, the game continues... Tonight we, the leadership, have an activity with the youth where they are to ask "tough questions" to see if they can stump us (some questions have been written in advance for us to prepare somewhat intelligent responses). The goal is to find enlightenment with the discussion that will follow the tough questions. I hope we can admit that we don't have all the answers. Wouldn't that be a good thing to admit?

And I hope good things will follow... yet, I'm trembling to know how the Bishop or I will answer this question that we received yesterday:

"If the only sin of a gay couple is that they are not married, why would the church be so against gay marriage? Those getting married are only trying to obey the commandments, right?"

This question shows that the incredible youth of the Church today are thinking, questioning things, trying to figure out why the brethren are taking such a stance when logic and reason dictates that wouldn't gay marriage strengthen commitment and help stabilize relationships instead of hurt them? And it's interesting to see that the questioner does not see being gay as a sin as much as not being married is a sin. I find that very interesting and intriguing. In my day (yes, I'm not acting as one of the ancients), this would have been an abomination to even think such a thing, let alone ask it in a church function. These things were not discussed. You were an abomination to even have such thoughts of homosexuality. The closet door for most of us in the 70s was firmly shut and chained and locked with those Harry Potter vault locks, and keys or combinations thrown away forever. Why do you think it took some of us DECADES to come out to ourselves?

He asked me if I would take this one. I said "Sure, but you may not like my answer..." I think he'll end up taking it, but look to me for support. I guess I'm now struggling with the ethical internal battle of whether there should be a difference in what one "personally" believes and holds to be the truth on the matter, verses the "party line". And what changes when one is speaking "for the Church" in front of vulnerable, yet inquisitive and savvy youth, verses speaking "for oneself".

So any thoughts of how to handle this one? What would you do? Should there be a difference in the response based on the role and setting (Think President Hinckley with Larry King regarding similar questions)? Or should there be the personal answer first and foremost?

Oh the balance of playing the game of the one who is anchored, secured, tried and true, who knows all answers, while feeling untethered, unsure, and a bit empty. I'm so tired of hiding, or wearing this facade. I'm tired of being in these positions of authority and feeling such a hypocrite. I don't know how much longer I can play this game...

The angst unfortunately returns...

2011-10-15T10:54:00.003-06:00

I find myself in the situation where I have to teach the youth of the church why it is so important to gain a testimony to anchor oneself in this world of amorality, not so much "immorality" as "amorality" - that moral relativity of no right or wrong, no absolute truth, no need to worry about anything as long as you don't hurt anyone else, and no consequences to any personal actions.

I've personally seen the disastrous affect in the life of someone very close to me who has declared his amorality, and how that position has pulled his anchor up from the rock and how is tossing helplessly in a rough sea of life. Watching this happen to one I love so much, has been painful and stressful as I seek ways to help anchor the anchorless.

So, I should be amply supplied with motivation to address this topic, no?

It is important to be anchored, to have core beliefs that provide that foundation upon which to build a meaningful life, right?

So, why then, am I so hesitant in approaching this assignment? I am an anchored person, a moral person with a firm foundation upon which I remain fixed though torrential storms of life pound upon me. So why am I in a funk...

I've been so these last two weeks since General Conference. I really sought for guidance and inspiration at the feet of those who have been called to lead and teach, particularly at this time when I feel like my family is coming undone at the seams, and that the lives of those I love are suffering so tremendously with pain and depression, loneliness and loss of hope. So why did I come away from conference so empty and void?

I particularly love Priesthood Session where I can feel of the brotherhood and enjoy the male bonding of singing and being taught together. Usually I come away uplifted, and I know what the spirit feels like inside me. This time I came away empty. Maybe it didn't help that I was distracted by the most beautiful guy sitting across the aisle from me. He was wearing a crisp black suit and tailored shirt and sharp stylish tie. His eyes were piercing blue and his blond locks cascaded to his shoulders, his blond short beard glistened through his tanned complexion... but I digress.

Yes, I was distracted... and I fought that distraction and tried to concentrate. I took copious notes in hopes of keeping my attention to the speakers' messages - but the spirit was gone. All I could think about was him.

I came home depressed. I couldn't laugh it off like I have done before. I pleaded with Heavenly Father to touch my spirit, to help me to know he was there, and that he really did understand me. I needed to know that the Prophet who typically spoke on Sunday morning, was in tune, and that he understood the bigger picture, and that he understood me. I wanted something more... I wanted to be assured that prayer was real, that my prayers were being listened to, that this was all real and true.

When I heard the prophet tell of the power of prayer, I had hope, but then that hope was crushed as his example of knowing the truth of prayer was centered around leaving a $5 dollar bill in his pocket and it was taken to the laundry and he prayed as a 12 year old boy that it would come back to him because he "really needed that money". And when it did, he "knew" that his prayer was answered!

I about fell off my chair! I audibly gasped a sigh of ultimate frustration! It was as if all truth fell away from me. I came undone. I walked around in total disgust. I know the stories in Fast and Testimony meetings of lost keys, of lost money, of finding this or that, and I can chalk those up as being what they are - limited views of the power of God in our lives and witnesses of his "love" for each of us to remember us and help us with the little insignificant things in comparison to the bigger issues. I get it: Heavenly Father finds our keys, our cell phone, and sends help and inspiration when we need it. But where is He when we face depression, loneliness, helplessness, and hopelessness? Where is He to help me to understand that my "attraction" to the blond beauty in priesthood is just the way I am and it's all okay (I've had that feeling before - and even in the Temple - in a very profound way that I've blogged about last year, but not this time - this time it was just a feeling of "you're really no good and unworthy" - that feeling of angst that I had for years and had moved beyond after that "profound witness of the spirit in the temple that I was loved and understood by Him", for this last year or so... well it all came back and consumed me in hopelessness).

And I became disgusted with the prophet - disgusted that he was no different than the little ones who worship the God of lost keys and money, but not the God of one who can accept me for me and help me to stay "anchored" as loved ones are being tossed to and fro.

I became disconnected with the prophet. I have spent the last two weeks struggling with the gulf of disconnect that has overcome me. I have become lost, my tethering rope to my anchor is gone. I feel afloat and hopeless. I feel alone. Everything has come into question again in my life. I feel that if the prophet doesn't get it, then who does? And if this isn't the truth, then what is? Or is there really no truth, no absolute, no anchor, no right and wrong... am I left not with morality or immorality - just amorality?

And now how am I to be an example of an anchor for these youth tomorrow when I feel so unanchored myself? when I don't feel like I'm guiding my family, my loved ones and giving them strength in their serious time of need when I feel so weak? when I feel angst returning and assurance fleeing? when I start asking the haunting question of who I really am?

I'm broken...

I guess I'll keep faking it. Un-authenticity continues to be my core mantra.

The role of agency...

2011-09-24T14:21:00.005-06:00

Agency is a frustrating and ill-conceived eternal principle. How I would like compulsion to be the over-arching and governing principle of this life. I think Satan really did have it right in the Pre-Existence in that pre-mortal war in heaven. Except for who-gets-the-glory angle, the concept of "making" us choose the right and thus we return to the father, doesn't seem all that bad from this vantage point.

I started attending a group class to help me understand my role better. The first of 12 steps of helping loved ones to overcome addition is to "let go" and admit that one has no control over another person's life and choices. This is the hardest step of all for me. If this is just step no. 1, how will I ever be able to get to step 12?

I would much rather be in control. I would much rather use compulsory means whereby to "make others choose the right". For you see, I know better. I have the light and know what is right for others, particularly my loved ones, and thus, isn't doing right more important than desiring to be right? And I can see the decisions others are making for themselves are "wrong" and therefore I just help them to see the errors of their ways, no?

If not, what should I be doing? Particularly as a parent? And don' tell me all I can do is show "unconditional love". Of course I know this - but is that all that I am left to do? Ultimately, when all else is stripped away, are we really left but one alternative - to love?

I have asked that of them, my family, to accept me, and to offer me unconditional love as they've one-by-one come to terms with my homosexuality. And for the most part, such offering has been made.

So, now it is my turn... to love unconditionally, even those, and especially those who are now choosing different paths from my own.

Even with such turn of events, it ain't easy to do so. The unconditional love is always there as a parent, but the idea of not doing something more to influence the decisions of others, is very difficult.

I am sure others are convinced that I am deceived and on a path of inevitable self-destruction in my willing acceptance of my homosexuality, while others are convinced that I am deceived and doomed for self-destruction for denying myself and not embracing it fully and honestly with all in the open. The path I have chosen is my own, and all I ask is for love from those who know me. So, why then can I not ask simply of myself to love those family members who have chosen paths of their own self-destruction?

Oh the hypocrisy! Is there no other way to learn other than finding one's own path, even if that path is full of misturns, detours and dangers along the way?

The gate may be strait, but the path leading to it may take several different courses. And it is through those different paths of exercising agency, that we learn - as there is "no other way".

Why does agency always have to win out in the end when my way is better?

Tapioca pudding...

2011-08-17T08:00:00.002-06:00

It's interesting how inspiration or insights come to one who is seeking for some kind of direction in a difficult moment. Whether it's happenstance, divine intervention or just one's own mind seeking to fill a void, I'm not sure, but it's all good no matter the source...

Three recent examples:

* It's amazing what impressions may come while sitting on the toilet. The other day I picked up a book I'm reading about Lincoln, and flipped open to a random page, while doing my business, and my eyes were drawn to this:

"I have been very, very indulgent with my children - chided or praised for it. It is my privilege that my children are free, happy, and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to lock a child to its parents." - Abraham Lincoln.

I DO NEED TO LEARN RIGHT NOW TO LOVE MORE UNCONDITIONALLY...

* Coming up the stairs, there was left a wrinkled up sheet of paper. I don't know where it came from (maybe from a lesson my wife was preparing), but I picked it up with the intent to throw it away, when I looked down at the paper and printed in huge 36 point font Swiss Roman letters was this quote:

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." - Mother Theresa.

I DO NEED TO LEARN RIGHT NOW TO BE LESS JUDGMENTAL, PARTICULARLY FROM A RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION POINT OF VIEW, IN ORDER TO FIND ROOM TO LOVE...

* I had a very emotional day at church on Sunday. I guess it was obvious to some that observed my emotions very close to the surface. Afterward, a sister (who I am not particularly close to) came up to me to take care of some business. She stopped, stared into my eyes and said: "I don't need to know what's going on, sweetheart, but I promise you it will get better. Just go home and eat some tapioca pudding!" I burst into tears of both grief and laughter and we hugged. (NOTE: Interesting aside - that evening this ward sister (who has never stepped foot in my house after living here more than a decade)brought a huge plate of the best nutty brownies and said "I didn't have any tapioca, so I hope these will do instead..." held my hand for a moment, squeezed it tightly, smiled, and then left.

I NEED TO LEARN TO BE MORE WILLING TO LIFT OTHERS SPONTANEOUSLY AND WITHOUT AN ASSIGNMENT TO DO SO...

House of Cards...

2011-08-13T09:56:00.005-06:00

Why does life have to be so hard? Now that's a question that nobody else around here has ever raised before, right?

Where is the joy in making life so hard?

What's the big deal about self-denial and obedience first above all else?

Where does mercy outweigh justice? Shouldn't there be consequences to be paid? Drawing lines in the sand are not meant to be crossed - and yet, when they are crossed, then what? Is there mercy or justice? Does one offer more unconditional love by being empathetic and understanding? Or is that a disservice to the offense and that instead one should "pay" the consequences of one's actions? There are always consequences, right? And if not, then aren't we just enablers?

It's called tough love, no? You are supposed to show the way and it needs to be followed. And if it isn't followed, then what?

And why, when all emotions and anger and flare ups boil to the top, as they always do, does it feel like it comes back to one point... that you don't know how to love in the right way... you don't know how to love your spouse... you don't know how to love your children... you are a bad father because deep down, you're all screwed up yourself and really, you don't know anything about love.

So tempers flare... fights break out... family rules and "drawn lines" are crossed. Are there consequences to be faced - justice to be paid? Or is there forgiveness and empathy?

And even though others have their own choices to make that really have nothing to do with you, why does one feel so guilty? Why do you twist the situation to be so self-centered and selfish as to think that it's all your fault because your gay?

If you weren't so gay, maybe you'd have loved him better and been there for him, but you couldn't, or worse, wouldn't when he needed you, because you were so caught up in your own self-reflection. Where were you when he really just needed a father to love, to talk to, to share with, to have fun?

If you weren't so gay, maybe she'd have felt the love that she needed from her father and wouldn't have become so depressed, despondent, deluded.

If you weren't so gay, maybe you'd have loved her better, been a better companion and help-meet, someone who really is a partner for eternity who loves and knows how to love - but because you're gay, well... there really is just a facade - a house of cards - and sooner or later it just takes a little instability, a little lateral shear force and the whole incredible structure collapses into a heap of ruin...

Sure, you're the great provider - the one thing you do well - you "provide" for everyone, making sure all is taken care of and needs are being met - at least physical needs. But what about the other needs? The needs that make a person whole and complete without the need for anti-depressants and other stimuli to get by?

But this really isn't about you - you just twist it to think that it is. Your self-reflective, self-absorbed life leads you to think of it in no other terms. It must be about you. You're the problem.

Otherwise, why hasn't all that you've tried to do in "doing what's right" and staying on the "right" side of the line, and doing all that you're supposed to - keeping yourself from yourself, not revealing the authentic you because this other "you" is the "better" you that you believe you should be - why hasn't that paid dividends in helping those around you? Why are they hurting so much, feeling so much pain, suffering the loneliness and heartaches of lost hope, depression, and I-just-don't-care-anymore-isms?

It must be because of you, right? You and your totally screwed up, lie-filled, house-of-cards, unauthentic, incapable-of-love, anger-induced life!

There you go again - you're making it all about YOU again! You self-centered no-good!

So the "D" word comes up... you talk about divorce, and the inevitability of it all. Yeah, you're certainly a good provider, but that's about it. You're incapable of love because you don't know how and never will.

Maybe you don't and won't because you can't first love yourself enough to forget about it all and just let it all go. If you weren't so gay you wouldn't be so self-reflective and you'd be able to see the pain of others in the mirror instead of just your own, and what that pain must have inflicted on them. But because of the way you can't see past your own image of pain, you cannot see how to really forget yourself, forgive yourself, and begin to see others, know their own personal pain and grief, and forgive them, and extend mercy where mercy has been extended in abundance to you.

But, of course, it sucks to be you and because you are who you are, you'll never get to that point...

Yeah, life is hard. It doesn't have to be this way, but, it is...

Any suggestions?

2011-07-14T12:37:00.004-06:00

Open question to anyone reading this:

Have you ever wished that if you were in charge, you'd just once wish that the conversation of a lesson would be on "fill-in-the-blank" subject?

If you were in a position to teach the 5th Sunday lesson of the combined Priesthood and Relief Society, and the Bishop was scheduled to be out of town, and he's turned it over to you, leaving the subject matter completely open and unstructured, entrusting you with that task, what would you teach?

With the amount of lessons recently centered on "chastity", "family values" and "marriage", reaching a saturation point (to the point of driving faithful single sisters away from church literally in tears, there must be something that is more of worth for the adult population of a very large and established (read mainstream Utah) ward to discuss.

This is your chance! No chains of sanitized curriculum! No mandated subject matter from higher authorities! Fling the door wide open and throw away the key! It should, however, be faith-based and faith-reinforcing...

Any suggestions?

Why are some relationships eternal?

2011-07-08T00:21:00.008-06:00

We met 31 years ago this month. It doesn't seem as long ago as that sounds. We hit it off immediately. I was smitten completely. And the surprising thing was, I had never been so smitten by anyone in that way before. I was confused. I was uncertain of my emotions, and yet I felt deeply an attachment that went way beyond the norm.

We ended up working together that school year, which brought us together every day. And what followed was a natural budding friendship which grew into something much, much more. We had so much in common and shared the same passion for so many things. This friendship blossomed into love - and at first and we became scared, and I was even more confused than before. But then, in time, we came back together, drawn together in a connection that even our confusion and fear could not break.

We became inseparable. We became a couple. There was talk. Roommates speculated as to what was going on between us. Could it be? Were we really in love? Indeed we were, and a few months later we were engaged and then married. That was 30 years ago this last week!

That may seem an eternity to some that may read this. Others may not comprehend how we could have stayed married these three decades. To be honest, there were times when I, myself could not comprehend it either. It is a miracle that we did get married, particularly with my homosexuality always hanging around and never going away, and even a bigger miracle that we have stayed married.

To say that it has been all bliss and roses and beautiful memories would be untruthful. To say that it has been horrific and painful and depressing would also be untruthful. In these last 30 years, there have been many moments of all of the above. The heartache and coming to terms with "deeply hidden secrets" and coming to terms with myself so very late in life, has taken its toll indeed on our relationship. Since coming out to her, we have never been the same. It is true when they say that you can't take it back once it is "out" there. It's like that toothpaste that has already been squeezed out of the tube... it gets messy trying to deny any longer or take anything back.

And so we've moved on. The continuing miracle is that we have moved on together, side by side. Though there is a long road ahead with many bumps of understanding to go through, we are still willing to go along together and make this work despite it all. And we have become stronger and our relationship, nearly dead... no, more like extinct... seven years ago, is now vibrant and alive and blooming. I wouldn't say it is thriving, but it is very much a living union of love.

Is there still hurt and pain, confusion and grief? Of course. For us, this has taken a lifetime to get to this point and will require another lifetime to come to figure it all out for certain. But this I do know: I am better because of her. I am a better man, a better father, a better husband. She makes me smile. She fills my heart in no way that any other woman has. She is my partner, my companion, my best friend, and yes, within these last years, she has become my lover. We had stopped intimacy for nearly 20 years and this nearly killed her, and it gave me relief. But now, we are happily imperfect lovers again.

This last weekend we slipped away to celebrate this indescribably complicated life that has been our journey together. Despite my occasional bromances, my desires for love and a soul-binding and physical and emotional relationship with another man, despite even my most recent encounter with my friend mentioned in the last post, despite all the blogging, all the MOHO friendships and possible connections with fellow men who understand me and me them, despite all that I say or wish or do within these electronic pages, I am left with the conviction that I need to be who I am - the real me - the one that she still loves, at her side...

For it is, indeed, a beautiful thing!

Why do some friendships never die?

2011-07-07T08:20:00.012-06:00

We met eight years ago by chance in Southern Utah. There was instant chemistry. We spoke the same language, shared the same height and eyes and hair color and smile. He, a dozen years younger, not decades. An unexplained and unexpected bonding followed. Long distance friendships are hard enough to maintain, but from just a once-in-a-lifetime chance meeting of two souls meeting on a red rock cliff admiring the same view for just a moment together... could there be a hope for a lasting friendship?

Emails shared, common connections expanded. Was this to be something more? Is there destiny after all?

Christmas gifts... then 5 years later a visit with hugs and kisses. What was happening?

More emails... work opportunities, followed by my visiting him a few months ago at his house across the pond on the other side of the planet... meeting his family, breaking bread, sharing together his town, walking the streets hand-in-hand, kissing in that oh-so-European way.

And then last week he came to my town. Walking hand-in-hand here in Utah, hugging, and kissing in that oh-so-European way! I didn't care who saw or what others thought. He was here. He was with me. We shared a bonding that keeps increasing. And now he is gone again.

I allow this pattern to occur in my life. I can't have what I want except with these little glimpses of "what if" sprinkled every now and again along the way.

And yet I can't help but think... why did we meet? Why did this meeting not die like so many others do? Why, instead, does it continue to get stronger? What's the point? What is in this connection that makes this bonding grow, even with 10,000 miles between us?

Sigh...

The story of my life... fleeting bromantic friendships that though real, powerful and beautiful, are fleeting and fruitless... and beautiful!

When the belief is gone...

2011-06-04T10:28:00.003-06:00

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, it was recently pointed out to me how the son demanding his inheritance while his father was still alive, was wishing that his father were literally dead. Despite that ill-will being wished upon him from his son, the father went ahead and gave his son his portion and he took his leave of all that his father had offered him.

I have been pondering this and can't get over the ability of this father to go ahead and let his son go. How does a parent do that? How does a father watch his son walk away, turning his back on his father and all that he stands for and believes?

And yet, that same father stands "watch" ever looking for the return of that son. It was the father who was doing that very thing, being the first to "run" to him and fall upon him at his return, symbolizing that he had never given up on that son no matter how terminal their relationship seemed to others.

I am entering a similar situation, and I don't know that I'm as loving as this scriptural father. I keep asking myself how this situation has become mine. Where did it come from? Why does a child no longer cherish or honor that which we believe as a family and what we believe we are eternally? How does a parent act when a child demands no part of the family, disrespects his mother and father, and moves forward on distancing himself from all that has to do with family, church, and all that goes with both?

I have gone through a lot of self-doubt, angst, and pain regarding my sexual orientation and all that that has brought into my marriage, my family, and my belief system. It has been a lonely journey, filled with guilt, confusion and doubt. But, I find myself coming out on the other end of this journey with self-acceptance, clarity and belief.

So, if I can make it through this journey, keeping my family together, and marriage even stronger, how now can I watch a child despise all that I am and believe and wish nothing more to do with what I hold sacred, and want to walk away, his inheritance in his pocket?

How does one respond to this? Can I "love" unconditionally as the Prodigal Son's father, always looking on the horizon for his return? Can I "never give up hope" when things seem so hopeless? Can I just watch this happen and not do anything about it? Should I force him to stay, to love us, to participate in church, to believe? Can anyone force another to believe when belief is gone and not even any desire remains? How do you restore a desire in one's heart when there is none? Is that proverbial flame ever fully snuffed out? extinguished? Why do I feel myself all of a sudden becoming a mighty fan of that pre-mortal alternate plan where I will "make him" obey and bring him back safe and sound in the end under my patriarchal wing whether he wants to be there or not?

Am I just proud, angry at how this is reflecting on me?

Do I love him enough to let him go?

I know this gay-gig has had belief-shattering and hope-struggling moments, but this new chapter(that I know many readers have gone through)has me shattering and struggling all over again...

Any advice?

The hunger that never goes away...

2011-05-19T11:10:00.007-06:00

Reading Invictus' last post really got to me... The idea of being hungry, of the desire and longing that doesn't goes away. Sure, that's part of the human experience and it's just part of life.

I know personally of others here who feel strongly otherwise, but I've done well, I feel, in controlling my appetite and managing my hunger. I've been able to find a path that keeps things in balance for the most part, I've been able to build a family, career and fairly nice and respectable life, a happy life full of fulfillment and good will,and yet...

as much as I try to do what I believe is right and true and best for me and for my loved ones, as much as I try to serve and give and please others, as much as I try to stay in balance, and work hard and long and stay busy doing good things, as much as I give of my "time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed me or may bless me", as much as I strive to repent and endure to the end...

as much as I do all of the above (and as much as my wife hopes and wishes and prays for it to diminish)...

I just wanted to testify once and for all of one truth...

that that longing, that desire, as much as I try to control or manage, or overcompensate in other good things, NEVER, EVER GOES AWAY!

Will it ever?

Finding Balance...

2011-04-30T11:59:00.011-06:00

It's been a while since I've blogged... I guess I'm allowing myself to get out of the habit of blogging. I've even allowed my bloggiverary to pass by without comment. It's been over five years now since I started this on-line journal. 2006 seems like a lifetime ago! How totally different this community was five years ago... so many have come and gone. Some things have changed with me; many things are the same - but both are mostly the way they are by choice, and being content with my choices has been a good development.

Being seriously busy with work and life has kept me from concentrating too much on other "aspects" of my life. It's like I get into these modes where I allow one part of my life to overrun all others. Right now it is the pressure of work that is running the show, dictating almost all else that is going on, even the drama and dilemmas facing my family. The "gay" hasn't diminished, but has become more manageable - not sure whether that is good or bad. That's proven to work for a while, but then it tends to catch up - funny how it finds a way to seek its own equilibrium whether I desire it to do so or not. Before I would describe this phenomenon as a volcano ready to erupt inside me with angst boiling to the surface. Lately it's been a mild rumble stirring below the surface. Someday I'm sure there will be another eruption - it's a bit dormant verses extinct - I'm just not sure when or with what form it will take... but I'm sure there will be more to blog about when (not if) it does...

Meanwhile,

I'm still not sure if coming out to my kids was a good idea or not. Neither wants to discuss it, and neither has become "closer" to me, though I haven't sensed any drastic pulling away either... maybe it's finding its own equilibrium as well. I'm trying to show that I'm not any different and hope they sense no difference from me.

With work taking me on the road a lot, my marriage suffers and I have to remember to rebond with my wife when I return home, even if it isn't the natural thing to do. I miss her, but not in the form of the movie-cliche of rushing home to her awaiting arms and swallowing her whole. Yeah, it's still work, but dancing in the kitchen, cuddling, and just talking through the stress of the family brings us together again.

Balancing! Someday I hope to obtain it. It's what life is all about - hopefully I can keep myself from turning into knots in the process...

A time to process...

2011-03-21T09:46:00.004-06:00

Still not sure how to blog about what's going on... still need more time to process.

But, a quick update...

Son has come home and I've "outed" myself to him. It went fairly well, but because he doesn't have a problem with it and he "already knew" makes it fall short from the discussion of "the issues" that I wanted to result from coming out. There may be more to come, but it seemed so anti-climatic that why do I feel disappointed?

Daughter isn't taking it as well. I've learned that daughter has felt great pain and confusion over the reality that Dad is gay... to the point of distancing herself from me and even feeling like life is such a big lie and joke... there still is a lot to still discuss, but the time and right situation are very hard to create. Why is it so easy for one and so hard for the other?

Despite the upheaval, my wife and I are doing well. Dancing in the kitchen has become a daily ritual of joy! She stands beside me and is beyond supportive of the "good man" that I am, trying hard to teach said son and daughter that attractions just are, and no one should judge anyone for having such attractions. In my mind, that is huge!

Some good developments... still a lot of wrinkles to iron out... no quick or easy answers.

The need for a miracle...

2011-02-14T16:52:00.007-07:00

Last week I somehow (I don't remember the link) came across a discussion at "Times and Seasons" that discussed whether the church still believed in miracles as described in the four Gospels as performed by Christ, or whether for some reason we have become a church of cessationists - meaning we confirm that such miracles no longer occur, even in the restored church. It was a good read in preparation for this week's Gospel Doctrine discussion on miracles.

What I describe next concerns me that I might be trampling on sacred ground - but in the hope that it will be received in the spirit it is given, I feel it is worth the risk:

What put this in perspective was last week's Fast and Testimony Meeting. In this meeting a brother from the ward appeared in the chapel after a six week absence. Six weeks ago, he suffered a spinal chord injury that paralyzed him from his shoulders down. The doctors were baffled as to what to do. A priesthood blessing was given and IMMEDIATELY, his right toe began to wiggle. Six weeks later, he walks to the podium, gingerly, but under his own power and stands before us bearing his testimony of the power of the priesthood and that miracles have not ceased. With tears flowing off the faces of the congregation, absolute silence filled the space and the spirit bore witness that something special was being witnessed of epic proportions.

Fast forward to yesterday's, SS class, and there was a discussion on the IMMEDIACY of Christ's miracles, and an interesting note was made that this IMMEDIATE recovery of the sick and afflicted bore testimony of the power and divinity of Christ to the Jews. There was a discussion about whether such "immediacy" was a requirement of a healing to be considered a "miracle" in today's church. Most concluded that it did not, though many feel that a miracle that took six weeks wouldn't have the "wow factor" of some to believe, but the "wow factor" of seeing this brother in last week's Fast and Testimony meeting was, nonetheless, a full-out miracle again of New Testament proportions.

Then, quietly, a humble man stood in the back of the room and began to speak. Heads turn and all discussion stops. He spoke in a way that everyone became silent again and the spirit bore witness that something special was happening. This brother reminded us that last year he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, his body overcome with the disease and tumors that filled his body, deemed inoperable, and they sent him home to die giving him three days to live. Several priesthood blessings followed, faith was exercised, and today this brother is healthy and whole, despite medical science remaining baffled at his recovery.

Both of these brothers I personally know very well. They have blessed my life as I have had the chance to offer blessings to them. Have miracles ceased? Does the restored church still believe in the gift of healing? Is God involved in our lives beyond helping us to find our missing keys in the snow or under the tire (the typical miracle quoted in our meetings)? I can only stand witness to what I saw, felt and understood.

As great as these miracles of healing are to build our faith and to strengthen our testimonies of the divinity of Christ and the power of faith in Him, the greatest miracle remains the one where our souls are healed...

Fast forward again to now: My heart is really heavy today. The foundations of my "house of cards" that I've built through the years is cracking and crumbling. I ache knowing the pain and confusion I've caused dear loved ones due to my own pain and confusion of who I am as a man attracted to other men. I do not deny who I have become by accepting this fact. Yet, I am pained at the suffering my hidden world has caused.

Is there a miracle big enough to put my house back together and heal our cracked and aching souls? If one kind of miracle is indisputably manifested before me that He is real and this is real, can there be hope for this other type of miracle to strengthen and "heal" my own foundations? And can such a miracle be deemed less miraculous?

WOW... sorry... this post is pretty heavy for Valentine's Day... but hey, I didn't pick the day this earthquake occurred in my life. More to come... (maybe)...

Don't pity me! We are our best together!

2011-02-12T12:14:00.009-07:00

Lately I've blogged less, as I wait for something to happen that may be worth blogging about - and thus, I concentrate maybe too much on the perplexities (and therefore the implied miserable and pathetic existence) from my life's choices as a closeted gay man. In my last post I received one comment that called me a "liar"! And another who "cries for my situation"!

There is a pitied implication that I am a sad, frustrated, angry man. I am not! Just because my blog concentrates on this one aspect of my life in a direct way with often frustrating overtones does not imply that I am unhappy. I am full of gratitude for the goodness that has touched and continues to touch my life in so many wonderful dimensions.

I do not feel that I am a liar. I admit that I have been. I've made a lifelong career of hiding the truth of who I am from everyone, including myself. But whether I am "totally out, partially out, or not out at all" is not so important to me as being honest with and accepting of myself.

I am content with my choices. Whether you think I'm "settling" for something less than true joy is not for you to say or judge. I have not revealed, nor discussed all aspects of my life, situations that affect my decisions of what may be viewed as "settling". I want you to be content that I'm content with my choices.

Who are you to tell me that I would be better off making better choices? Or how can you say that I would be happier if I were, for example, to leave my wife and kids and family situation? Or church affiliation? Caspita'! Or more in a more appropriate Italian exclamation: Porca miseria! (Pig misery!)

Don't pity me! I don't need your pity! I'm neither seeking it nor requiring it, especially from this readership that I would hope would have a better understanding. And don't "cry for my situation"! I am happy in my situation. With every choice there are pros and cons, compromises to be made, and I've had well enough time to weigh those choices before me. I am thrilled with my life and count myself blessed.

If my choices are more reserved, less inclusive of what you may feel would be my "full potential" if I were only to... (fill in the blank), then I ask, instead, that you see the good in what I am doing and the steps I'm taking as I journey along this selected path. Celebrate with me this journey as I try to celebrate yours.

Maybe I'm feeling a twinge of jealousy as I observe you moving on with your lives?. Maybe an inkling of envy? Maybe, but I hope there remains room in this MOHO community for one like me who, against others hopes that the misery factor of a MOM will finally bring me to my proper senses. Not all MOMS are miserable existences! Mine certainly is not! I have found great joy and passion and love. Obviously my wife has, too. We are best together than apart. She makes me better, even my best, with her at my side. She is my better-half. She compliments and completes me. It takes work, it isn't easy, it isn't even preferred, but it is still wonderful. And as long as we create that miraculous romance-movie "magic" for each other, then don't judge our MOM to be some kind of torture chamber filled prison sentence - the only reason for enduring such a marriage is that false hope of some eternal exaltation.

Don't shake your head in pity or disdain for my continued devotion to my family, my marriage, and my beliefs. Instead, let's work together to lift, motivate, encourage, love.

Maybe I'm over-reacting. I tend to do that, so I'm sure I am. It's another characteristic of mine that needs a lot of improvement. I feel more and more challenged in my decisions as I fail to deviate from my path as I've witnessed others doing. Maybe that is more implied inside my head by my lack of assurance that what I'm doing is completely right for me? Maybe...

Do you really need to drape yourself on everyone?

2011-02-09T00:03:00.008-07:00

Bravone, among others, can testify that I am an indiscriminate hugger. I have been this way ever since my mission. (NOTE: If you've followed this blog over the last five years, you may remember the story from where I acquired this propensity to hug). I have mentioned in the past that if I find myself holding back, extinguishing my sense of touch and natural affection, then I feel like something inside of me is dying, describing it like a wrinkled last leaf on a withered vine. I told myself, after sensing this "dying" affect, that I wouldn't be that way anymore. I would have to be the way that I naturally am and that this is just the way it has to be for me to find some sense of balance as a man in my situation.

A few weeks ago, an anonymous person commented on my blog and got all over me about me "hitting" on men in church, particularly young men, and essentially called me a pervert, accusing me of using my position of authority to get close to them and get my kicks from them in church settings in a predatory sense. I was very concerned about this reaction to my blog. This person expressed how she would hate to be in my ward and would want to be sure to keep her young boys away from the likes of me. This person obviously didn't follow that the "young men" that I was describing as my friends are in their mid to late twenties now, and married, and very much adults, choosing to be affectionate with me as a sign of a straight-friendship and brotherhood. It makes me wonder though, how I must come across to others... Am I putting myself out there too much? Do I unknowingly drape myself on others whether they want to be recipients of my signs of affection or not?

Case in point, last Sunday: After church, I was in the foyer greeting and saluting folks as they departed for home, and as I am wont to do, I hugged indiscriminately... young men, old men, widows and elderly sister, and wives of my "young men" mentioned above. I must have hugged a dozen or so, when my wife caught me hugging one of these young-straight-married-late-twenties friends in what she thought was a full-body groin-grinding hug. She called me on it and said she didn't like what I was doing, and that it made her feel like I was being unfaithful to her. She left a bit upset. Her reaction made me a bit upset as well. I had to stay behind to take care of things, one of which was giving someone a blessing... I was very confused and befuddled inside wondering how mad she was going to be of me, and whether this was going to spiral out of control, and I started to doubt myself and wonder whether I was fooling myself for believing that this was all as innocent as I meant it and portrayed it to be... It was difficult to feel the spirit as there was a confusion inside me.

When I finally came home nothing was said. Yet, I could sense the coolness in the room. The proverbial elephant had returned and taken up residence in the parlor. The more I thought about it, the more assured I was of myself. I am an affectionate person. I, as a gay man in a straight lifestyle, am needing to express that to others. I do so as a natural extension of myself and this is the way I've got to be. Choosing to not be in a gay relationship, but staying committed to my marriage, has been tough, but I am okay with this decision, but I'm not okay with holding back the natural tendencies of affection.

But, that night she brought it up again as we were getting ready for bed. She wondered why I did it. Why did I have to hug everyone? And why, especially, did I have to hug young adult men to whom she knows I'm attracted. And why, knowing that this is hurtful to her, do I continue to do this.

I decided it was time to talk... I told her that I had to be the natural person that I was and that if I couldn't be who I was then I might as well die. I explained that I was hugging all sorts of people, not singling out or isolating myself to special "men" that I am attracted to... In fact, I honestly told her that my attractions for this particular friend has diminished substantially since he moved back into the ward, that seeing him every week was actually better than not seeing him for a long time.

She still didn't appreciate the fact that I had to be so affectionate, and particularly in long hugs. (It's interesting to note that I heard on the radio this last week that a hug longer than 3 seconds is too long for most people... I'm just getting going at 3 seconds!). I told her that I wasn't going to stop, that I couldn't stop and that I needed her to not request me to stop, and to try to accept that this is the way I am. I tried to be sensitive to her feeling, but asked her to be sensitive to mine and realize that I'm not trying to inflict pain on her as I do this particular questionable behavior. She felt like I was betraying her or being unfaithful to her and I told her that I am not doing it for anything but brotherly love (which is true - it hasn't always been the case, far from it, but that was when I was still figuring out who I was / am). Yet, right here and now it is where it is - I'm extending myself and my brotherly love for my brothers AND sisters - evenly and universally).

I explained to her how I've tried to re-earn her trust, how I have been FAITHFUL to her and tried to show her that I only want to be with her. She admitted that she felt that way, that I was being faithful and that my devotion to her has increased and that I have been affectionate to her... but she still didn't like it.

She's going through a vulnerable and stressful time right now, and I can see and understand that these expressions of affection I make, particularly to some, triggers past pain and deep hurt. So, I understand her feelings of uneasiness and jealousy. That said, I can't stop. I'm not a pervert and I'm not getting my kicks in church.

Finally, yesterday, she was particularly upset and I came and gave her a full-body hug, grabbing her tight to me, pulling her into me from below. We full-body hugged and kissed each other for quite some time (maybe 20 times the legal limit of 3 second hug comfort of most) and then she softly asked if I hugged anyone else this way... and I said no. I showed her that when my arms are up over the shoulders of the huggee, I am pulling my shoulders and head to mine, but not our groins. It was such a simple gesture - something so obvious to me, but finally she got the difference.

As I held her, she whispered: "I trust you. I want you to be you. I want you to be free to be yourself. I will try not to be jealous of the attention and affection you shower freely on others. I will believe you and trust you when you say that you are not feeling unfaithful or that your attractions aren't getting in the way of your affection for me. Just remember to pay attention to me, too!"

I smiled and gave her a big hug and kiss... so much for another baby step...

OR

Am I really just an unfaithful, insensitive husband, as well as a confused pervert, getting my thrills where I can, and church is full of easy targets?

A chill...

2011-01-19T09:19:00.008-07:00

Unrelated to my last couple of posts, I want to share an experience that happened last week in church...

On Sunday, I was placed in a position of authority and a situation where I was teaching a class in church that was structured as an "open forum" of sorts for tough questions. I enjoyed the challenge of stimulating thought and discussion, something that unfortunately is rare in church settings that follow the "curriculum" approach of manual reading.

Some great questions were asked, and good discussion followed...

Then this series of questions was asked: "Why does the Church persecute the gays? Why are gays hated? Are gays damned?"

I felt a chill slither down my spine. I was thinking of how I was standing here before this group of saints as an "authority" of sorts and was supposed to "toe the line" and say what the other authorities / manuals / handbooks would say. Yet, there was so much that I wanted to say that I couldn't say because of not being "out" and also being in this "position of authority" in an official church meeting - not a sidebar "off the record" one-on-one conversation. I took a deep breath and then let it rip...

I mentioned how silent the modern scriptures are on gays, how silent the early church teachings are on gays, and even Christ's teachings, and how the teaching of "hatred" or "damnation" of gays evolved during the 60s and 70s as a result of other cultural world view shifts. I mentioned how the brethren have changed their opinions and policies in the handbook of instructions, how from once even admitting to same-sex attractions being viewed as a sin, is now being emphasized that same-sex attractions in and of themselves are not sinful, nor to be ashamed of, or feel guilt (wow, did I really say that?). I mentioned that this generation of leadership is changing and with another generation (as well as evolving world views) more acceptance will undoubtedly follow - that sometimes continued revelation comes when one is willing to ask the difficult question and be prepared for the answer. I noted that we are individuals, co-equal with God in our unique characteristics of what makes us who we are, that one of those core elements is who we are attracted to, heterosexually or homosexually, and that there are some things that we just don't know the reasons why things are the way they are. But, I testified that Heavenly Father loves me for who I am, that he loves each of his children as surely as I love my own, and that gays are not damned for being who they are, and that the Plan does not damn anyone for who they inherently are. I testified that we are here to do the best we can with what we've been given, among other things...

After the meeting, a couple of sisters came up to me in tears. One sister admitted that her adult son (that I do not know) is gay, that his patriarchal blessing promised him a wife and children. She asked me what was she to believe about those grandchildren she will never have?

I stared into her eyes and told her that I believed that the Plan was just as valid for her son as for anyone else, that Heavenly Father knows him and loves him and knows the promises he has been given, and that who are we to say that he won't receive "all that the Father has"? I told her that I was not willing to condemn or judge her son and that she shouldn't either, and that hope for what is best for him is never lost, and that I was convinced that Heavenly Father has a plan and promised blessings to be fulfilled for her son. I then emphasized that just as God's love is unconditional, her love for her son should be just as unconditional.

I didn't know if I did well or not. I know she wept in my arms and I tried to offer her strength and encouragement. I don't know whether I succeeded or not.

After the meetings, I saw her later in the foyer and I pulled her aside and she said: "What, you're going to make me cry again?"

I replied: "No, I just want you to know something," as I stared intently in her eyes. "I want you to know regarding what I said that I know from whence I speak".

She stepped back for a moment in kind of a shock but didn't say anything.

As I walked away, I added... "you understand what I'm saying?"

She nodded and smiled.

After I walked away, I realized what I had just did (or somewhat did). I had come out to this sister in church, and all of a sudden, a chill returned, but this time it was a chill of panic. What was I thinking? What had I just done? Why did I just say that? What if that gets around? What if the Bishop finds out? What if it comes back to haunt my family of what others might speculate from that statement?

All of a sudden, I didn't feel as confident as I did at that moment. But since then I've decided that what happens, happens and I will not deny what I said or believe.

So now what? So far no call from the bishop... So did I do well? Or did I screw up? Did I go far enough? Should I have gone farther? What would you have done in my position? Do you think I should be in trouble? Do you even care? Do I ask too many questions?

Okay... I'm going to disappear again...

Everything will be okay...

2011-01-18T09:45:00.004-07:00

What a new year!

This has been a roller-coaster ride that puts Space Mountain (that makes me nauseous every time) to shame.

Yesterday was not a good day. Stress levels and family issues running high speed translates to all aspects of life feeling like they are on the verge of cracking. (Am I being too dramatic?)

In the end, my wife begged me to come out on the front porch with my camera... and this is what I saw.

All winter it has been cold and grey and miserable... and then yesterday, of all days, a spectacular sunset burst overhead overwhelming me - and just for a small moment, we embraced, and everything seemed to be okay.

Faking it...

2010-12-30T08:37:00.007-07:00

Ever since the "phone call" with my missionary son on Christmas, I've been thinking a lot about what I can offer him as he struggles to know why he's really there serving full time and preaching to a people about making changes in their lives and sacrificing and committing themselves to a new plan of life, even though he doesn't fully believe in that plan for sure himself.

It's a hard dilemma. He is finding a lot of "success", and loves the people, the culture, and the connections and bonding that he's making with them, and I keep emphasising that that is a miracle in and of itself - the ability to get beyond one's self, to care so deeply about others and their needs that desires and passions are centered on serving, helping, assisting and connecting with them. That is one of the greatest miracles of life!

But when he asks me if I believe he really should be there and "fake it" to the end, and will it be worth it? And is it the right thing to do? and "why do I still feel empty inside"? I can't help but wonder what to tell him... I hesitate. I stumble. I can't utter the words that I know it is the right thing for him to do. All I can come up with is that I want him to find happiness in his service and find joy in his love for the people he is serving and to not worry about the rest. But that comes across as shallow and empty. Honestly, I don't know what to offer him. Do you?

Ned's most recent post used the term: "fake it until you make it". That clicked with me as the title to what this thought process has been as I contemplate advising my son, and then reflect on my own life. When I think about it, I've been playing the "fake it until I make it" game so long I don't know how to think or act otherwise. And that makes me sad. Yet, I'm the good and faithful father. I'm the patriarch that knows all. I need to be the guiding light, the messenger of hope, the champion of what is right and true. So, why do I feel empty inside when I should feel full of light and knowledge?

***

The other night I finally watched "Inception" and it struck me that I've been living my life in different dream states. I have layered dreams of varying realities, stages upon which I play my life... sometimes I'm a gay man fantasizing about life in an open, loving relationship with another beautiful man. Other times I'm a married man to a wonderful wife, with family and kids and everything is well and we're working together for the common goal of "perfection" through living the Gospel and experiencing that redeeming effect of the atonement. And then there is the layer where I spend most of my dream state of reality being pulled by both other dream states until I feel like I'm going to literally rip apart.

I've been playing these roles within these dream levels that I find it hard to know what is real and what is just that - a dream. So, I keep "faking it until I make it" survival mode.

If that's the case, what then is reality? Like the Leonardo di Caprio character, once one lives his life in these different dream states for so long, it becomes very difficult to even recognize what is real and what is just a dream.

***

So I feel hypocritical in telling my son that what he is doing is the best for him. I feel hypocritical in telling him to just keep "faking it" until he finally gets it and gains that conviction that he personally feels is lacking. I do have my convictions that have come at a terribly personal sacrifice and price, and I cherish them, but I don't "know" it all, and as such, I keep "faking it" until some day I might "know"...

but the idea that he's got a gay father who hides this basic truth from him, a man who pretends to be one thing on Sunday, the priesthood leader and faithful husband and devoted father and believing, never doubting, church member; and then another thing all together opposite in his mind, a conflict and battle raging inside of dream states of drastically juxtaposing worlds where love and expression and honesty and faithfulness create images and feelings of a fantasy that can only exist in a dream world, for they NEVER could be reality...

leaves me void of advice and council to give my son. Do I tell him that the only way to live this life, the only way that I know how to survive living in this life...

is to "fake it until you make it"?

Where is the wisdom in that?

When he asked me point blank what I thought he should do, and if I could even understand what he was going through as his doubts are getting the better of him, I wanted to reveal to him right then and there my "secret"... It was the first time that I thought he might be able to understand and accept me for who I really am, but with wife and daughters listening in, I couldn't do it - it wasn't the right forum for them. But the thought has resonated with me since then... I can see the day that he will be able to accept this truth about his father. Yet, I am haunted by that possibility: Will he accept the hypocrisy that has been the story of my life once he knows the truth?

Maybe none of this is real!... maybe I'm just lost in a fourth-tier dream state and there is no way of getting out without losing my mind.

My 5th Christmas with you!

2010-12-24T12:05:00.005-07:00

This is my 5th Christmas as Beck on this blog! I'm still here!

I want to wish each reader a MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hopefully you can find in these silly meanderings of my mind some kind of value for you in yours. I'm still here for my 5th Christmas because of just that - value and validation I find from this community, and I thank you for expanding my beliefs, questioning the status quo, pushing me to think outside the box, and encouraging me to find ways to be "me".

Though my path may not be yours, though I may frustrate you in the slow pace I'm taking in my coming-to-terms-with-my-attraction-for-men journey, I appreciate the love and sustaining support that I feel along the way. I sincerely hope that I can extend to you the love I feel toward you and I thank you.

There is so much to hope for! There is always HOPE!

Thank you for being out there!

BUON NATALE!

Beck.

Vanity Christmas Shopping, etc....

2010-12-22T11:38:00.005-07:00

I went vanity Christmas shopping yesterday. This is where I tell myself that I'm shopping for the wife and family members, but end up gravitating toward the "mens" departments and stores and find myself vanity shopping for myself. Seeing that I don't really do a lot of shopping, and can count the times I enter a mall during the year on one hand, I tell myself it is appropriate, particularly when I've told my wife that I no longer what her to buy me any clothes.

In the past, I've allowed her to buy me clothes and she's done a great job for the most part, but she tends to buy on the "extra large" size. In the last year of so, I've been trimming down quite a bit. I've stayed at 165 lbs (and with my 6'-3" height, I'm pretty thin - but still needing to work on the lean and fit part). In the past, I've been embarrassed that I'm skinny (a major hold over from my teenage years where "skinny" translated to "weak, wimpy, and sissy.") So for decades, I wore over sized clothes, bulky sweaters etc. as a means to try to disguise my wimpy skinny body.

As I've been slowly embracing my gayness and self-expression, in a way to say that I'm "changing" and becoming more "self-affirming", I have gravitated in the last year or so to much more tight-fitting clothes, low-rise jeans, and now skinny-jeans. And I really like the "new me" that is emerging. I'm tired of hiding under layers of ill-fitting clothes.

I have loved my 30" waist low-rise bootleg jeans, and thought I should venture into the "skinny jean" world. After all, it appears that "skinny" is in and is the new cool and hip. Could I do it? Could I pull it off? At my age? Is it appropriate? Am I nuts?

I bought a pair of 30" skinny Levis and took them home without trying them on, but soon found out that the skinny cut of the jeans is tighter than I thought, so I had to take them back and upsize to a 32" waist in the skinny cut... And I love them! Is that vain? I figure it's about time that I became more self-affirming. Is this stupid or what?

***

Anyway, yesterday, I went to Macy's at the mall to buy my wife some clothing, and sure enough ended up in the Men's department looking at the "super skinny" jeans. I was proudly sporting my new "skinny" jeans, wondering what the "super skinny" jeans would feel like. As I was browsing, I noted out of the corner of my eye that there was a great-looking 20-something standing near another display of jeans. I caught him looking at me as I glanced his way. Our eyes locked! I didn't turn away. He smiled and I blushed a bit and smiled back.

I moved to the dress shirts, as I wanted to get some "fitted" shirts, tired of wearing dress shirts that swamp my gazelle-frame. A couple minutes later I noticed that he was looking at dress shirts as well. He was kneeling down sorting through some shirts near the floor while I was looking at the fitted shirts on a table. He looked up at me again and I looked at him and we locked and I smiled this time more readily. He was sporting tight jeans and a tight-fitting shirt and a scarf that looked hot. I had a scarf on too but unfortunately my shirt wasn't as nice-fitting as his (that's why I was seeking out the fitted shirts).

This was the second time. I was beginning to feel my heart beat faster. Was this really happening? I mean, this really doesn't happen much, if ever, to me. After all I'm an old fart... why would a 20-something be doing this to me?

I moved to another aisle of shirts and he stood up and stared right at me. I could feel his eyes burning through me and I was beginning to not know what to do next. So I looked up at him shyly and said "hey", and then slowly walked off. This was the third time! I didn't know what I was supposed to do... After a few paces, I turned around quickly to sneak a peak and he wasn't watching so I assumed that I had blown it and kept walking.

***

So there you have it. I bought some fitted shirts, some skinny jeans, and some tight sweaters... and I'm loving it. I'm ready to toss all my extra-large clothing out of my closet forever - both physically, but also symbolically.

And now I think I'm vain enough to actually believe that I was being checked out by a 20-something hot guy.

So you have my post of yesterday where I'm the cool-headed, omniscient, self-aware and got-my-head-on-straight kind of guy. And then the next day, you have me being vain, adolescent and juvenile, thinking a guy could actually be hitting on me.

I guess I've got a long way still to go. I don't have this gig figured out as well as I think I do...

Another way?

2010-12-21T07:51:00.005-07:00

I received an email from a faithful reader after my last post. It said:

"I fear you've been drinking too much of the prevailing "koolaid" in the MOHOsphere. Your choice isn't just in living a "lie" or divorce. It's a false dichotomy. Maybe you do need to step back and reconsider things?"

As I read this I realized that maybe my writing style may be too subtle in trying to get over the message that I'm trying to portray. What my last post was trying to point out is that those like me in long-term MOMs do not need to necessarily fall in the trap of this false dichotomy of thinking. There is more to our choices than just a) living a "lie" or b) divorce / leaving the church. What I'm trying to say here (and I think I've been trying to say it now for nearly 5 years of blogging) is just the opposite. I'm trying to make the point that there are other ways, different choices and paths, that allow us to shine, be passionate, reflect the full color spectrum of life AND be happy in our marriage and still have a testimony!

Sure it's hard. And sure, there are compromises. But there are hard compromises in every relationship and situation. I'm not here to say that mine is the chosen path for you. I'm not trying to be the poster-boy of the MOMs out there. I certainly have demonstrated that I don't have all the answers, or even a few. But I am saying this:

1. I chose to marry at a different time and space. In that mentality, I was completely satisfied with my chose and felt it the right and passionate thing to do.

2. I came out to myself more than two decades later, and came out to my wife a few months later. With this time delay, I had created a wonderful life with my marriage, marrying my best friend, and we had created a family with kids and home and career and callings that bind us together in ways that I treasure.

3. But with this revelation, came grief and sorrow, confusion and frustration. I was convinced we were heading for divorce, even if I completely brushed it under the rug and never came "out" again. So, in one sense it was to choose to live the "lie" or divorce.

4. In the last six years of living with this revelation between us, I have had varying success of being able to find another way. Sometimes it's easier to not talk about the elephant in the room. Sometimes it's hard to feel alive when I'm constantly looking over my shoulder to see if she's watching. And it's certainly hell to live by hiding and sneaking behind her back. But sometimes, it's wonderful to be able to express myself openly, with passion and love without recourse or worry. This understanding between us of "what I need" verses "what she needs" verses "what we need" is an on-going, life-long process of hard compromise, but I feel for me and my situation, for the wonderful life I've been able to create and live, it is worth it. And I will forever seek to find this OTHER WAY.

Maybe you feel I have been drinking the "koolaid" - that leads to nothing but heartache, dishonesty, dullness, and worthlessness. And why would I cut myself short? Maybe I am "the exception" in this community. Maybe I'm the odd ball of all MOHOs who believes there is another way. Maybe you dismiss me and this blog because I don't prescribe to the standard message of authenticity meaning only what you want it to mean, fitting your definition of what is right and real and honest for you. Maybe I am never going to know "true happiness" and what it really feels like to completely be one with another man as I have so passionately desired, having only tasted of that feeling.

But maybe that's okay. Maybe having my wife to snuggle with and be partners with and create a life with, to serve together, to struggle together, to achieve together, to travel together and experience the world together, and to grow together, and see her acceptance of me over time, maybe having my children around me, and eventually their children and seeing our family blossom as our kids move into adulthood and find their own way, maybe as I serve and find ways that are acceptable and respectful to us both as I find ways to be more 'expressive' and more "ME", maybe as we come through this loving each other even more...
then maybe it's worth seeking this OTHER WAY.

I was called out, and rightfully so, that MY WAY does not mean that I am suggesting others, particularly young MOHOs who are not married now, should have hope of following this same path.
I do not.

That said, I do want to be able to be accepted by the community and find validation and support and encouragement and love, even if I am the "exception".

I'm naive enough to believe that this "other way" is worth FIGHTING for! And that I'm blind enough to truly feel I can find JOY!

There is always room for exception. That's what makes us all so "exception"-al!

Right?

Friends, affection, and choices...

2010-12-16T08:41:00.005-07:00

I'm going to attempt to blog again... I'm still feeling a bit numb since my mom's death, and yet, life goes on, and hope survives.

I have come to a realization since the funeral. When I saw friends rally around me including and particularly

1) my kindergarten-high school locker partner best friend,
2) my college roommate and best man,
3) my dear "Thomas" in Italy,
4) "Will" and "Tim", my young men,
5) my special client of 20 years,
6) neighbor friends
7) ward friends.

I have been touched by the kindness and gentleness and tenderness that has been sincerely shown and extended to me. I have found myself a blubbering idiot at times, breaking down in their arms, not because of the loss of my mom, but because of being overwhelmed by their meaningful friendship toward me. It has been an amazing revelation to realize like George Bailey that with true friends, it is a "wonderful life"!

I have found myself breaking down barriers within me. I wrote a while back about putting up barriers, particularly toward Tim and Will, and my other young men friends, in order to somehow preserve feelings between me and my wife, and in the process feeling like I was dying on the vine, a last leaf holding on...

But since this last month of overpowering love and affection shown toward me, I am tossing that self-imposed barrier to the wind and allowing myself to respond to love and affection with my natural tendency of even more love and affection in return. I have found myself hugging and kissing my men-clients, my priesthood brethren, and my young men buddies with reckless abandon, not giving thought to what others might think or say.

The other Sunday, Will gave the benediction at Sacrament Meeting, and since I was on the stand, he immediately afterward turned around and swallowed me in the biggest body hug you could imagine right at the podium. I melted in his arms, with stake presidency and bishopric working around us in our embrace to greet others after the meeting.

Last Sunday, Tim was set apart in a new calling. After the setting apart, there was the normal shake and back-patting (the prescribed three times) with the men in the circle, but with me he grabbed me and wrestled me and picked me up off the floor
into a bear hug and we nestled our heads into each other's necks for some time. And I kissed him and he wouldn't let me go. He rescued me again! Finally, he and I both realized that the other brethren in the room were watching us, and one of them said something like:

"I think Tim and Beck really like each other!"

Upon which, the Bishop responded: "Really, you think so?"

Upon which, Tim blushed and shrugged his shoulders and neither of us said anything, but just smiled that omniscient smile.

***

At the same time, I've found a closeness and support from my wife and kids. I have found a unity and togetherness in my marriage as we've worked through this adjusting period. And my wife has been more open to my expressing the need to be "me" in this limited way.

It's made me reflect upon this path I'm on... Yes, I'm living a lie. Yes, I'm not honest in my feelings for others. Yes, if each of these friends really knew the "real" me, would they treat me the same way? Would I even be serving in the church position I'm in? Probably not. So, the facade continues...

I guess this sounds pretty pathetic. I have to have a devastating family loss to bring out my emotions and feelings for others and break down my personal barriers again. I have to sneak my "gay pon farr" satisfaction under the guise of priesthood leadership. It's pretty damn pathetic, indeed, to sneak the snuggles where I can get them.

Oh the web we weave, spinning and spinning and spinning... in order to keep some kind of order in our universe... a balance of needs, including family, marriage, church, testimony, friends, and "the gay".

Is there really any hope in juggling these needs and trying to make it all work? Or, as I've noted in other blog comments, it really does come down to just two ultimate choices:

choice A) keep "the gay" under wraps, and stay married and in the church but securely in the closet and drive yourself to the cliffs of insanity as you live a dishonest life, or

choice B) bite the bullet, down the stiff medicine, and face reality that d-i-v-o-r-c-e is inevitably in the future, and loss of family, church and community, but be real and authentic and lose the facade.

I feel like Eve: "Is there no other way?"

Writer's Block...

2010-12-11T15:00:00.004-07:00

I'm still having a hard time getting back into writing. Lots of things are going on, but I just don't feel inspired. I've fallen out of practice. I've had some of you say that I should just force myself to write anyway. That's easier said than done...

It seems that the more time I allow to slip by, the harder it is to start up again. Thus I'm forcing myself to write this awful post.

So how should I get going again?

Some have asked their readers what they would like to know about the particular blog author. I've always thought that my blog should be for me, sorting out who I am and analyze what I'm hiding from - it started out that way, and it's stayed that way through the years.

But I need some inspiration. Any suggestions?

It's harder than I thought...

2010-11-19T11:16:00.006-07:00

No "Beck Boy" pictures mesmerisingly staring back at you this time. I'm not in the mood.

I was going to blog on my thoughts on the new CHI, but I've put that on the back burner right now as my earthly life has forever changed this week. And though I somewhat expected this day to come, it still doesn't matter how much you prepare yourself or anticipate the day when you lose your parents, it still isn't enough to adequately prepare you for the ache I now feel.

I have worked through the obit and the funeral services yesterday and this morning and made all the arrangements (which has been a blessing in its own way) and have tried to be "patriarchal" (being the only son)helping my sisters through their pain and tears, but right now it is hitting me really hard, and I can't work, and I don't feel very good about things and I don't particularly feel very patriarchal.

I don't want to celebrate her life. I don't feel like celebrating much at all. Of course she was a great elect lady, a truly amazing source of love and devotion to me, and she led an amazingly wonderful life. So much of who I am and how I feel and why I feel the way I do comes directly from her impact on my life.

I know she was suffering and didn't want to be here anymore. I know she wanted to go, but I didn't want her to go. I selfishly wanted her to be better and return home to her life as it was before and that everything would just continue on.

On Sunday she was doing well... a bit lethargic, but still okay, so I took off on a business trip, coming to find out that soon thereafter she began slipping away. I managed to get to her bedside in the ICU by Wednesday afternoon in time to see her, to have her see me and recognize me and to acknowledge that she knew I was there, and then... within an hour or so, she was gone...

I know that in and of itself should be enough of a tender mercy for me to hold onto. She did care and wanted me to be there and did all in her power to make it so and was "granted" that wish that we both had... it still sucks!

I have seen others die before, but never my mom... watching her slowly, slowly stop breathing. It was the most heart-wrenching experience I have had to do. Of course she is "better" on the other side, and is free from the pain and suffering and so why should I linger over the idea that I still want her here? Let her go!

I have blogged that I firmly hold a belief of strong hope in "the Plan". I feel I grasp the concept of eternal life and families lasting forever. But watching her spirit leave her body, witnessing her last breath and finally feeling her last heart beat and then coldly nothing... it's hard! It's really, really hard. It is harder than I thought it would be.

I have regrets. I regret that I was worried more about my next job and next trip and next obligation than in spending time holding her hand or running my fingers through her hair. I regret that I wasn't the supporting son that was always there for her - sure, I was there, but she wasn't my top priority. She was always going to get better and so there was nothing to worry about, right?

Mom never "knew" about me. I never felt the need for her to "know". Yet, she knew. She knew I was different and she loved me for who I was and never questioned my feelings or motives. I guess I should have been strong enough to have told her, but for what purpose? I already knew she accepted me for being me.

Just a few more days to be the "strong one" and the patriarch of the family, and then I can have my true breakdown... right about time for Thanksgiving! Wow, what great timing!

I feel like an orphan. I don't care if I'm not a dependent child, but I still feel so alone and orphaned. Being parentless leaves me empty.

Family is so over-rated! :(

I don't know why I'm blogging... I probably shouldn't. You don't know me and you never knew her and so why am I sharing my emptiness? I just need to write some things down to myself about my thoughts and memories, but I can't bring myself to doing it...

All I want is some pathetic pity...

Does it get better from here? Where's the "it gets better" sound bite in this one?

Will it ever get better?

2010-11-09T20:01:00.003-07:00

Okay...

so, I've been out of town and slow to respond, but here's the deal...

I came to the conclusion that I am a sane person (relatively speaking) and that I can function maturely and in control of my passions and emotions (for the most part) and that surely I can meet a fellow MOHO in a public and open forum for good friendship and conversation.

And, so despite my personal commitment to promise to do otherwise, I took the steps and met a fellow community member that has gone from an on-line acquaintance to a friend, a brother, a dear man who understands me (which isn't always something even I can do), and who, for whatever strange reason I still can't comprehend, actually wanted to meet and know me face-to-face and appreciate who I am and to understand better my story.

We met in a very public space, in a very "sacred" space, out in the open, but private enough to have a conversation that I will remember with great fondness for many days to come. That's it... nothing more. A hug goodbye and we left, unsure if we will meet again, but sure (at least I am) for being better having spent that brief but wonderful time together.

So there you have it. Nothing earth-shattering (sorry to disappoint those who wanted more). And yet, personally impactful and moving nonetheless. Maybe I've disappointed others for having done so (again) without my wife's knowledge, I don't know, but it felt like the right and appropriate thing to do at the time, and so I did it.

I don't need to justify why I did what I did. Nor, do I need to explain my reasons for why the timing of this meeting doesn't fit well with a sit-down in-depth dialogue with my wife. Circumstances are such that stress and pressure keep such discussions currently at bay - at least to be had at another more calm and appropriate time when we are together. The HOW I'm going to tell her is something for another post on another day.

So, what does it mean? How have I changed? How am I doing now that I've broken my promise?

Well, to be honest, I feel really good and at peace. I feel the meeting has become a catalyst of sorts for a discussion that will be happening soon with my wife (that should have happened years ago) that can involve principles outlined in loving advice from MOHO Hawaii in the previous post comments. Maybe not as forcefully, but ending with a better direction of at least not hiding future meetings from her. Ultimately, that is my goal - to be able to make these connections of affirmation without repercussions or guilt and with her understanding the need, and not feeling pain or threatened by such meetings. I've lived my life "alone" for too long and such repression does no one any good.

I read in someone's blog a few days ago a quote that went something like this: "Even seven thousand years of joy cannot make up for seven years of repression" or something like that. Well... what about 30 years of repression?

My new MOHO friend asked me how I do it? How I manage to live the way I do? How I am able to keep up the facade and still function in some sort of sanity and normalcy?

It makes me wonder, too. If it gives him such pause as to how I am doing it month after month and year after year, and now decade after decade, how am I able to do it? And why do I do it?

And then I wonder if I would ever really change? Would I permit myself to truly be myself?

He asked me where I would like to see myself in 5 or 10 years. I said I hoped that I would see myself as being "free" - not free of marriage, or the bonds of the church and culture with which I am immersed and choose to be living my life willingly - but "free" from the guilt and repression, and "free" to be myself and hopefully find joy therein.

I've thought a lot about that answer since last Friday and I'm not sure if I'll ever get there. I wrote on Abelard's blog this evening that the "It Gets Better" campaign is wonderful for the younger set, those coming out in the teen and early twenties with their lives ahead of them, but as for those of us who are well into mid-life years, with years of repression accounted for and neatly packaged up and stacked in our tidy closets, I struggle to see that it really does get better from here...

All of this seems so self-centered and so self-serving. It's all about me, after all, no?

That's when I stop and count my blessing, realizing the "good life" that I do have, and that somehow, in the right time and place, all I want is the opportunity (and willingness and courage to take action) to LIVE and be real, and be me! Including meeting fellow MOHO brothers in public and "sacred" forums of face-to-face interaction and connection in plain daylight... no hiding.

Maybe then there will remain some hope that it's never ever too late for life to "get better".

All is not well in Narnia / Seeking wise counsel...

2010-11-04T08:51:00.007-06:00

Things have been going well, really well regarding my marriage. Our relationship has strengthened in the recent past, and getting away together has been a truly bonding experience. We've talked about it since returning, and we both have expressed how it feels like we've passed through that wardrobe into Narnia and back - that so many magical experiences and growth have occurred and we've changed so much, and yet, stepping back through that "proverbial closet", we see a world that is the same, no change, not even the passage of time, and our reality quickly returns with some disappointment or at least a bit of dissatisfaction. It's like we are different people in that other space and time. I am more open and free and expressive and "myself". She is more accepting and loving and comfortable with the real "me". And we can be ourselves and leave the worries of years of hurt and baggage and just be! And then we return home... and quickly, things revert back to where they were. The difference is that somehow, you don't lose your memory of the feelings of magical experiences and confidence in your relationship. You still take that with you, as you resolutely move on, carrying a hope that somehow, maybe naively thinking, things are different or slightly better.

Some wonder how a gay guy can continue to make a marriage work after all these years. Well, for me, it's a lot of work, but most things that are of any value at all require work and constant effort.

Some wonder how a gay guy can continue to pretend to be straight and live in a straight world, culture, marriage.

Yeah, I wonder, too...

I wonder why, if things are really going well in my marriage, why, for heaven's sake, would I now be feeling a desire, a need, a requirement, to have some good-ol male-bonding connections face-to-face and not just through this distant and detached media of blogging and chatting?

You see... I'm feeling the itch, the twinge, the prompting, or yes, even the temptation to rendezvous with some of you! Some old, some new! Some requests have come to me from old friends and a couple of new ones. For the record, I've been MOHO-visiting-face-to-face celibate now for nearly 14 months! In the MOHO lifespan of a few years, that's a good chunk of time - nearly eternity! :) I've done it deliberately as I've chosen restraint in my face-to-face encounters in order to "strengthen" and "focus" attention toward my marital face-to-face encounters.

And here I am looking seriously at jumping off the wagon of self-imposed gay-male friendship celibacy.

Should I take the plunge?
Should I be brave and do what "feels best" for me? Should I do so without her knowledge again and break a trust and hide behind my timidity? Or should I be confrontational and demand my independence from these self-attached shackles? I'm not seeking the standard answers of what works best for you in your situation that isn't mine. For those that have followed along and know some of me, I'm seeking what you think is best for me (and don't say that I'm the only one that knows the answer! If I knew, I wouldn't be asking, right?)

Should I be congratulated in my restraint and honored for my noble respect for her feelings? Or is it high time to stop acting so cowardly and disingenuous? What think ye oh wise mass readership?

Oh to be in Narnia again...

Mi sono ritornato!

2010-10-30T12:45:00.003-06:00

For what it's worth...

I'm back!!!

I've been out of the country for a couple of weeks and then out of town on business an additional week that has kept me super crazy busy.

But it's all good. I'd rather be traveling the globe and / or super busy at work than otherwise. Good things have been happening and I may decide to report on where I've been and what's going on from time to time... Beck is still around, maybe just not as intensively as before - that is, until the cycle repeats and the angst returns.

So, best wishes to any readers still out there. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Arrivederci

2010-10-09T23:56:00.004-06:00

Sometimes...

things get too crazy...

and you just have to go!

Seeking divine wisdom and balance...

2010-10-04T08:56:00.009-06:00

Conference, for the most part, was very good. I sincerely sought to find ways to really listen instead of just having it on in the background as I’m often known to do. It didn’t always work, as serious family concerns interfered. But, as I said, for the most part, it was good.

I love Pres. Uchtdorf! He is quickly becoming a favorite. His honest manner and sincere, personal approach really touch me. Though it gets tiresome hearing about his days as a commercial pilot, he can even joke about it and make fun of himself. His message on simplicity and slowing down, and “using a pencil” was very appropriate for me. His message on pride / being prideful and encouraging humility and charity, and serving wherever we are asked, not seeking praise or being so self-absorbed touched me as well and made me check myself and my motives for the service I render.

Of course, a rough spot in the conference experience was the stern message from Elder Packer. I really am okay with him delivering a message on the sanctity of the family, on marriage being between a man and a woman, and even on the concept of temptation:

“Paul promised, 'God will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it." You can, if you will, break the habits and conquer the addiction and come away from that which is not worthy of any member of the Church."

These are long held positions and teachings and I really don’t have a problem with them. We are here on earth to be tried and tested, and our test will be that which we can bear. I am convinced of that.

But when he says:

“Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and the unnatural. Not so. Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, he is our Father,”

I have to admit it gave me pause. I feel the utmost assurance that what I feel is an “inborn tendency” is neither “impure” or “unnatural”. I feel it is good, and I have personally felt that reassurance recently in profound and personal ways that give me confidence and hope for the future.

SO, why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? I wonder that, too. I don’t think Heavenly Father has “done” anything to me. I just am. Yes, the laws of choice (as Pres. Monson addressed in the priesthood session) still apply to me, and I do have the right to choose, the responsibility to choose and recognize the result of my choices) do apply to all of us… but I ask: Please brethren – ponder (as Pres. Eyring taught), and seriously think about that question: Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? I certainly hope that members of the church as a whole will ask that question! I feel that many will not even feel the need to ask such a question, accepting the standard answer as the “truth” and no further inspiration is needed. Oh if only they had a son or daughter, or could see or understand what “not” asking the tough question and being silent in our petitions is doing to our gay brothers and sisters…

My belief is that Elder Packer isn’t in the frame of mind to ponder that question, as he “knows” he already has the answer, but I ask myself if other brethren will put themselves in a different mentality and ask themselves the tough questions, and realize there may be a different answer than the pre-supposed response. I hope so. I feel that sincere pondering and questioning of that “why” question will bring further understanding and “revelation” with the passing of the torch to the next generation. I feel some of the brethren are “getting it”, but due to the hierarchical system firmly in place in the upper levels of general authorities, it is not their position to overshadow or override their superior priesthood leader. Elder Packer isn’t going to change his position. Though Pres. Monson could have corrected him, he chose not to. It came off as if Elder Packer is the bulldog that can’t be controlled and is left penned up in the backyard incessantly barking, straining his chain to be heard, so let him off his chain temporarily and do his dirty work while I speak on less controversial, though pertinent subjects…

I wasn’t angry, but more perturbed at what seemed to be cold and stern and stubborn “digging in the heels” approach. It was to be expected (even though out of context or sync with the rest of what is going on – read Elder Marlin Jensen’s reaction to the recent Oakland Stake Conference). I am even more perturbed this morning that the sound bite most used on the radio and in media summarizing the conference isn’t on gratitude, service, doing good, holding fast, receiving the Holy Ghost, or any other worthy and poignant message – no, the sound bite is of Elder Packer’s stance on the “gay issue”. That grieves me, especially as it implies this was the focus and the point of the whole conference, and the fallout of misinformation that will continue to be addressed from this talk in future quorum discussions…

All I can think is this: with one being a literal heart-beat from the office of prophet, I pray for a long and healthy life of the current prophet.

Meanwhile, I’m not going to worry about what I can’t do. I can't fret over what is not mine to fret. I can't control that which is not mine to control. Instead, I will try to do better, work harder, be more humble, serve more willingly in helping and lifting others, invite the Holy Ghost more into my life, and simplify my life in order to accomplish more the good that I can do!

Hopelessness triumphs...

2010-09-30T11:49:00.008-06:00

Reading the story of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, and the apparent suicide off the George Washington Bridge, because he was outed on the Internet, has really hit home. A young man of 18 tender years, with exceptional musical talents and on the verge of a new hope-filled college career before him, is snuffed out.

It gives me pause.

First, that others would violate one's sense of privacy and so carelessly destroy a life in the process.

Second, that one would feel that his life is not worth living because others now know something very private about himself.

Third, that for some, the culture, society, expectations, standards, or whatever are such that despite all the good efforts out there, there is still no apparent support structure for such individuals.

I grieve for the Tylers out there. I grieve for their families. I grieve that we still live in a society where it is some kind of recreation to play with other's lives and feel we have an entitlement or right to expose someone literally to the view of the world. And I grieve that we live where so many of us, me included, would feel desolate and destroyed in the process - to the point that death is a better option than living...

I find myself identifying with Tyler. Some of you know me personally. I have revealed many (maybe too many) personal details about myself - in an effort to keep my blog honest, true and real, even to a fault - to allow you to get to know the "real" me. I've allowed you to peep through the curtains and follow me around and even get inside me and know my inner-most thoughts and feelings - such that if you really wanted to find me, you most easily could. And finding me, where I live, where I work, what I do, where I go to church, you could follow, stalk, and out me.

And maybe you'd think it would be good for me if I were more honest, and more out there, and more public in who I really am. Maybe I may be deserving such exposure, as no one should be allowed to say and do things under the cloak of anonymity. It's all for the best in forcing authenticity on all, no?

In the campaign for helping gay teens in particular to know that "it gets better" is very appropriate and worthwhile. Though I'm not a teen, in many ways, I am a teen in the coming-out timetable. In some ways, the campaign is very helpful in seeing the hope over the despair, putting face to life being worth living in an "out" and "authentic" way. In another sense, it's like that image of hope can never be my reality, and thus, hopelessness triumphs, despair wins.

In Tyler's situation, I can reason that that bridge, (or my thoughts have contemplated the hotel balcony, or mountain cliff) sure looks like a compelling alternative.

No one has that right! And particularly not for a joke or a source of recreation. We each should allow everyone their privacy, and allow self-determination.

I ache for Tyler. I weep for Tyler. In a real sense, we are Tyler.

Professorial Enlightenment...

2010-09-25T10:41:00.010-06:00

Thanks to Justin's informative post and Kengo's link, I was able to download and listen to the entire presentation and subsequent Q&A session of Prof. William Bradshaw's lecture on "The Evidence for A Biological Origin of Homosexuality". Typically, I have not been that interested in why I am the way I am. I have already gone through that battle and have come to the conclusion earlier than later that I have always been this way. It is the acceptance of that that has become more real to me of late (thus my recent posts of confirming once and for all my feelings about the eternal nature of this).

That said, having a BYU microbiology scholar, past-mission president and member of a stake presidency speak at BYU out in the open and not in the shadows of some hidden or secret covert operation, on such a subject as to the origin of homosexuality, was indeed entertaining at least, and intriguing at best. So, I had some time this morning and I listened to the whole thing.

My first reactions were that I had heard of and read several of the evidences quoted, including the handedness research, the finger-length study, the older brother study, and the twin study. In the end, it was nice to understand but still didn't wow me or make me feel like standing up and screaming from the rooftops: "Hey, world, I was born this way so get over it!"

Indeed, the thoughts were kind of just the opposite. They were okay... so in some cases I fit this research data and in other cases I don't. So some apply and some do not... what does that mean? Trying to tie the causes to biological mechanisms is a scientific approach, and thus, leading me to conclude that it is a mortal condition. And if it is just "biological" or "mortal" then it won't necessarily be "immortal". But then, again, spirits are spiritual matter, and there is spiritual biology in that matter, and our intelligences were never created, etc... so...

My thoughts went beyond mortal to the immortal - both pre-existent and post-mortal. If it is just biological, then good, I am not needing to feel any guilt for having a self-assurance that I did not "CHOOSE" to be this way... I just am! This self-evidence does not negate my agency or the role agency has in the Plan.

I appreciated that he shot down the "nurture" argument, as to the fallacy that because I didn't play catch with my dad nearly enough in my early childhood, preferring to play house with the neighbor girl down the street, was reason enough to make me gay!

So, I was sort of ho-hum about the lecture until the end, and the following Q&A session with Prof. Bradshaw opened up and became more intimate, sharing his personal feelings and beliefs about the subject and how it all fits into the Plan. It was his compassion and deep and sincere love for me, as a gay brother, that I felt come through and hit me more powerfully than any scientific statistic or evidence. It was his desire to learn, to not be afraid to question, to recognize so much that we don't know and to seek more knowledge and understanding, both in a scientific sense, but more so in a brotherhood and Gospel sense. It was in the latter that I felt he made the most impact - that I am not a second-class citizen, a reject, a defective being, that I am not sick, and need to be made well or whole, that I am not broken or "damaged goods" (as I have definitely felt over these decades). I am fine and I should be loved for the person that I am, that we are, and that there is no guilt associated with "why" I am the way I am - it isn't anyone's fault, and therefore, there isn't or shouldn't be any blame... and that support each other and strengthening each other and understanding better each other is more important and the biggest lesson he's learned.

It was impressive that this scientist, taking a scientific approach, came away with a far different conclusion than many of his BYU peers and that he testified to his conclusions leading him directly to his witness of the "truth" of these things.

I liked it when he said that talking to gay brothers and sisters, the confirmation that they have almost exclusively felt that they have "always been this way" should be scientific evidence enough! AMEN.

I wasn't there. Eyewitnesses in this community can say more than I. But, like me, you can listen to it at mormonstories.org. If I knew how to link, I would, but it is story no. 191. Even if you aren't interested in the biological reasoning, I would ask you to skim to the end and listen to his concluding remarks and the questions and answers. Powerful stuff, considering the current political environment and the explosive nature of the issue at large being discussed at BYU of all places. I, too, find this significant. I hope it is the beginning of a new leaf turned for the church and BYU to come out of the shadow of gloom and despair, and to face the issue in a more straight-forward and honest manner. I know if they would, it would help others like me living in the shadows and hiding from the long arm of cultural and religious retribution, to speak out and be heard and give face and voice.

So now I'm left wondering... if this self-awareness is eternal in nature, what's the point? What is the eternal purpose for me being me? Where does the Atonement fit in or does it? Where does my marriage fit in? If I will always be me, even with the hope of a perfected "me", how will it all work? Those are questions I'm afraid biological evidence cannot answer.

Thus, it's back to faith...

A faith-building conundrum...

2010-09-21T21:12:00.002-06:00

So, I have a new personal twist on the same ol' conundrum...

If my “personal revelation” of my previous post really did come from God, and wasn’t just a justification of current convictions based on my own opinions mixed with scripture and theological teachings, then what does that mean?

If from my “personal revelation” I conclude that:

1. I have always been this way, that the essence of who I am, which includes my thoughts and attractions , are coequal with God, that my pre-existent state, my current mortal state, and my post-mortal state will still include the fundamental essence of who I am…

2. This is not just a mortal “trial” to endure…

3. Enjoying my attractions for what they are (and even taking in the view) is inherently good and not immoral or evil…

4. God truly understands all this…

5. God has a sense of humor and is willing to chuckle with me, not at me, about the ironic situation I’m in and the juxtaposition of such thoughts flowing in my mind of wanting to consume a good looking guy while meditating about the temple film about the “forbidden fruit” (which in and of itself is a bit humorous) in His house…

6. God loves me precisely for who I am…

7. All this brings pure peace and quiet comfort to my soul… and finally answers a decades-long earnest and sincere prayer of arriving at some kind of self-acceptance and self-awareness…

If all of this is true, because it came personally and profoundly to me from Him…

Then how do I justify these self-evident truths with those that are professed by the Brethren to be polar opposite as the real truth, that…

1. My attractions are not eternal or immortal, but are just for this life…

2. This is just an earthly trial for me to struggle with or at least deal with…

3. Taking joy in anything related to my attractions is evil and wrong and should be overcome…

4. God understands but can never accept imperfection as perfection…

5. Such thoughts could not have come from inspiration from God, especially not in His house…

6. God loves me, it is true, but desires me to rise above this temporary situation…

7. Peace comes only from accepting Christ’s atonement in order to overcome this burden…

So, I know I’m slow here, but either one is right or the other is wrong, for both can’t be right as they are opposing views. If truth is eternal and there is only one truth… then which is it?

Am I allowing my thoughts of self-justification, and self-acceptance to get the best of me to the point that I’m willing to feel the need to package it all up in my religious beliefs and imagine such “personal revelation” as truly God-given to justify my “enjoying the view” and embracing my attractions? Have I allowed myself to be convinced of this through others’ misguided philosophies and now find a trial of faith upon me? Or is it the truth and witness of the spirit that whispers to my soul, to the point of audibly hearing the thoughts in my mind and feeling the impressions as being truth, just as I know truth has come to me through many other witnesses of faith and testimony of other Gospel Principles? Or is the opposing point of view, ummm – how shall I say this - not completely accurate?

I have no doubt that I felt the spirit, and the calmness that has lasted with me, with a sense that all will be well, and that God is on my side and is cheering me on, and laughing with me. I do not feel a need to lash out or be bitter or angry or frustrated with the Church. There is no “trial of my faith” going on here. I do not doubt my faith. Ironically, if anything, I feel a reassurance and increased abundance of faith.

I saw, I felt, I knew...

2010-09-17T10:34:00.006-06:00

I’m uneasy about sharing this experience, but I want to record it for my sake in order to not forget, and maybe doing so here, may help others who may read this. But, what do I know… I think in reality it just makes me out to be a pretty messed up man that doesn’t know what he wants as he continues to play the game of acting – acting the straight-arrow, straight-active, straight-loving, normal card-carrying guy. Maybe I'm just full of it... Or, maybe I’m on the road of acceptance and understanding a bit by bit – line upon line...

The other evening I found myself in the temple. I was there to be with a dear friend who was participating in temple ordinances for the first time. My thoughts were centered on her and the goodness and joyfulness of the occasion. And then…
I walked into the endowment room and there sat in the row directly in front of me was the most beautiful, cute, innocent-looking, gorgeous guy I’ve seen in a long time. He made me quiver all over as I sat quietly and reverently. At first I scolded myself for even having this mini-attraction reaction. I closed my eyes as if I were in the motions of meditation and prayer (which I was) and started talking to myself inside my head…

“What do you think you’re doing?” I exclaimed with a bit of perturbed attitude.

“I just looked at him! Did you see him? Didn’t you notice how gorgeously cute he is?” I countered.

“Yeah, I saw him… and he’s a looker all right, but for heaven’s sake, get a grip on yourself! You’re in the temple! Concentrate on why you’re here!“

“I know, I know…” I muttered out loud as I kept my eyes shut and head hung.

“It’s not like you’re ever going to see him again, so get over it and focus…"

“Focus… right!”

I opened my eyes and looked forward toward the presentation. But as I did, I couldn’t help but notice him again – after all, he was sitting right in front of me.

“You’re focusing on the wrong thing!” I said to myself.

“I know… I’m sorry. But I can’t help it. His cuteness is sitting right in front of me.”

“You’re a basketcase! Totally hopeless…”

I closed my eyes again and breathed heavily and tried again to concentrate on why I was sitting in that room.

“No you’re not hopeless,” a calm voice came over me. This time it wasn’t me talking to myself. It was another voice, maybe it was more of an idea, or thought, but nonetheless, words were tangible and I “heard” the message.

All at once, I was overcome with the desire to look and behold. I started studying his hazel eyes, the line of his young sideburns and the way the hairline at the back of his neck was cut square and true; the spikiness of his blondish brown short cropped hair, the glow in his smooth face – he radiated with a cute innocence with a strong sense of wonderment, awe, and total confusion. I noticed that it was his first time – recognizing the colored tag pinned to his white shirt, and how his father was sitting next to him trying to reassure him and comfort him and give him encouraging whispers and tender touches of the occasional shoulder squeeze. He was a new pre-missionary for sure, preparing to go preach the good word for sure.

“It’s okay to look,” the voice said. “I understand.”

“You do?” I questioned. “You heard me thinking?”

“Of course I do.“

At that moment the lights went out and the film presentation began. I was confused. But a real strong sense of calm and peace came over me. As I thought of the pre-existence and the creation, of being a spirit child and even an intelligence before that, I kept pondering on the fact that we are co-equal in our existence with God. The essence of who I am – that fundamental essence of my thoughts and my being ME – has always existed. It wasn’t created. I am ME!

My mind raced to my recent study of Joseph’s sermon at King Follet’s funeral… that:

1. The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is coequal with God himself.

2. The intelligence of spirits had no beginning; neither will it have an end.

3. God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.

I was overcome with the feeling that the Father really does know me, and loves me for who I am, INCLUDING my attractions that are an integral part of who I am.
I started feeling a bit giddy. When the lights came up, I looked at the young missionary again and started feeling compassion for him, and empathy as I noticed his endearing confusion and questioning brow of what was going on. I, too, was there one day long ago. I, too, didn’t understand – and still don’t. But, as I looked this time – all of the feelings of guilt and shame were gone from inside me. I looked at him and felt his goodness and glory radiating. He was delicious. I had this overwhelming sensation and image of wanting to swallow him whole and consume every bit of him and feel of his spirit and innocence and excitement and sparkle.

“That is good,” the voice whispered.

I started laughing a bit. I was happy. I was sitting here in the Lord’s house, and I was having this amazing discussion of thoughts in my soul regarding my spirit and my desires and attractions, while studying this amazing young guy and wanting to consume him and taste of his goodness and beauty, all while feeling so at peace about it all.

I pondered how for the first time I felt that God personally knows and loves me for who I am even with or even because of these thoughts of attraction going on. I have always been this way. And it’s okay! All the pent up emotions of guilt and shame and disgust inside me flowed out of me. I was free of shame for being so oriented in my attractions. I was overcome with peace and tears swelled up in my eyes. Thank goodness the lights went out again and I was able to sit in the darkness again and gain my composure.

In the Celestial Room, I continued to observe him with his family now encircling him in love with hugs and squeezes of support. His eyes still were so cutely confused. I learned that indeed he was a newly called missionary and that he was going soon to Norway on his mission. I wanted to reach out and shake his hand and congratulate him or say something, but then my friends came into the room, and that opportunity passed.

As I focused on my friend, I hugged her and saw her confused but radiant expression, I brought her ear close to me and whispered: “Line upon line, precept upon precept”. She knew what I meant and smiled.

“But there were no angelic visitations,” she sarcastically replied.

“All in time…” I responded, and then added, “As I look at you, I see an angelic visitation.”

She beamed with delightfulness and holiness.

She wasn’t the only angelic visitation that I saw, felt and knew that evening. I saw an angelic young man that was delicious to devour. I felt a peace and comfort from a voice inside me, and I knew that God personally knows me, is co-equal with me, and loves me.

If He knows me, if I am co-equal with Him, and if He loves me AS I AM, then the same thing applies to you, too!

Now I need to go tell my wife...

One note short of a full chord...

2010-09-08T09:53:00.006-06:00

Listen to who I am (JonJon) wrote:

“I think members of your tribe also allow you to be your true authentic self in a way that allows your true authentic self to emerge. They don't hold on to expectations of what they want you to be or what you have been in the past. They treat each interaction with you as an opportunity to know who you are in that moment, instead of allowing past perceptions to distort how they treat you in that moment.

“Interactions with members of your tribe aren't limited to two roles interacting with each other, or two people trying to be what they think the other person expects/wants them to be. All of that is stripped away and it's soul to soul. Do you ever feel in life like you are merely an actor playing a part? Did you know that it doesn't necessarily need to be that way? Did you know you can show up as yourself and that when you do, it makes it easier to find members of your tribe?

“Of course, the scary part is that in order to find your tribe, you have to allow yourself to be known. As you are. No roles to cling to. Mother, father, son, daughter, academic, Mormon, disaffected Mormon, homosexual, leader, follower, clown, skeptic, insert job title. All those roles have to be stripped away to leave just you. Naked. Vulnerable. Ready to be known.

“When you do that though, when you strip away the roles and allow yourself to be known, you find members of your tribe and you experience a two way flow of love and energy that is beautiful and nourishing and healthy and sustainable. It's truly transformative.”

I really like this. I call it soul-to-soul, or spirit-to-spirit communication. I like the word “connect”. It is a real, and dare I say “authentic” connection between two people. I’ve experienced this numerous times. It is life-altering when those connections are made. I’ve never termed it “finding your tribe” before, but I like it. We are all different, and yet it doesn’t matter when we are “ready to be known”. Those differences or unique aspects of who we are shine forth and be just are! And tribal connections are made.

This tribal connection has happened with me when I am naked, vulnerable and willing to truly be myself. I truly love being naked! I love my vulnerability. I love my true self. I love who I am. So, why then, do I spend 90% of my life acting? Why am I entrenched in a role-play?

I am a huge role-player. I am currently playing the role of heterosexual husband, father, family member. I am playing the role of church priesthood leader, example, teacher. What’s funny is when I stop pretending to be who I am supposed to be and just be myself, I do better with others, I feel less anxiety, and I am able to connect with others. I feel more "tribal".

The other day I had an ad-hoc spontaneous discussion in the hallway at church with a few sisters. I love music and find music one of the ways to strip it all away and be naked and vulnerable and ready to be known. One of them had played a beautiful piano solo that had an interesting way of playing incomplete chords… like you’re expecting the full chord, but it came up one note short. I pointed out to these sisters how I loved that in the piece… how beautiful it was to not be a complete chord, but to be one note short of a complete expected chord. The beauty was in the incompleteness, the naturalness and intentness on not being a perfect chord.

One sister piped up: “It sounds like you, Brother B”.

I replied: “In what way?”

She answered without any hesitation: “Well, you’re unique. You’re atypical. You’re not like everyone else. You’re one note short of a full chord. And we love you that way!”

We embraced and I teared up for a moment. As I struggle to come to terms with my “differences” and “uniquenesses” it hit me that they love me BECAUSE of those things, not DESPITE those things. And I love them for the same reasons!

I know I’m a bit quirky, whacked, and yes, even touched. I’m different! I accept that. I told them that I had been accused of being “one taco short of a combination plate” but never “one note short of a full chord”. We all laughed.

And yet, I’ve gone back to that concept and appreciated that input. They love me FOR my uniqueness, FOR my being atypical, FOR not being “like” everyone else. Maybe I’m not as good of an actor as I thought I was. Maybe I am more vulnerable and naked and real. But at times, I feel like I have to play the full chord, that it would be wrong, or imperfect, or incorrect or inappropriate to leave that last note off. And yet the beauty comes with not playing that last note.

Wouldn’t it be sad if we were all perfect role-players, perfect actors, full chords? Isn’t the joy in our connections with each other coming from our uniquenesses, our differences, our challenges?

When I am natural and stripped of my roles (and boy are there plenty of roles to be played!), when I just am, I feel available to reach out, to express myself spirit-to-spirit, soul-to-soul, and risk it all – and therefore, be free to love. I want to extend myself, embrace others, touch, feel, vibrate, connect, love. And that is when I feel confident and assured, at peace, strengthened, enlarged, compassionate, passionate, sensitive. I feel happy with who I am when I am this way. I am not acting, or being, or living up to expectations.

I just am. I am ready to be part of a tribe. And I connect.

I actually connect quite easily – when I allow myself to do so. I thrive on it, seek it, and thirst for it.

But why, then, am I allowing myself to be so thirsty? Why do I deprive myself of my tribe? Why am I so willingly playing in this never-ending role-play of life? Why am I content to act instead of just be? Why do I feel compelled to finish the chord and play that last note?

Dear Wyatt:

2010-09-04T11:38:00.005-06:00

A letter to Wyatt (and anyone else who has "moved on"):

Dear WYATT:

Why are you still here? Why are you still caring about me? Why haven't you moved on? Why do you keep hanging around? Why can't you give it up and leave behind the angsty Beck?

We've been "together" following each other for 4-1/2 years now! Can you believe it? It's been that long - spring of 2006. It's incredible to look back at all that has happened in those years, especially for you... You've changed! You've moved on! You've chosen a different path. And you've blossomed and bloomed into a different creature.

I remember the "Elbow" of over four years ago who wrote of his love for the church, his love for the Gospel, his all-encompassing love for his wife. I remember how you expressed those loves with amazing passion and incredible intensity and unfailing firmness and absolute assurance.

You've been able to put the church, and your marriage, and the Gospel, and your past all behind you as you've branched out in a completely different direction. I know it wasn't easy, but I watched you do it with great envy and awe.

I commend you for facing your fear, and congratulate you for not avoiding your true self, for seeking your true "vibrations" (as you so fondly and uniquely use that word).

Why I'm focusing on this particular series of posts of mine on my blog right now is because it was a natural extension of the exploratory process of a form of yearly self-evaluation and part of that is how the church has affected my life, where it is the "evil church" that has gotten me into this situation of being in a MOM in the first place; it is the "evil church" that has kept me hidden from my true self, ashamed and fearful of who I am and who I am attracted to.

So, as a natural evolution of the previous posts, I decided to spell out for myself the role that the "evil church" has played in my life. That's where this recent discussion came from.

I'm not really placing blame here or not taking responsibility for my own actions. The "evil church" did not MAKE me have difficulties in my youth. Nor did it MAKE me get married. Nor did it MAKE me do any of the things I've done. But, my fundamental beliefs did. Yes, I have done them willingly, but maybe naively and ignorantly.

Whether you accept this or not, the church has and continues to influence my thoughts and feelings in profound ways (and that includes both the good and the bad - the results being "mixed") and thus, it has influenced my actions, or even lack of action...

And yes, avoiding the truth of myself, and facing myself. Maybe I'm really afraid of being me. I am afraid! Maybe it's just easier to AVOID it all.

You're right. I'm not Super Gay Mormon Boy! I'm still avoiding... I'd rather stay in my comfort zone of marriage, family, job, and yes, church, than discover the real me. I'd rather sit here and angst over the "what ifs" and linger in the past of the possibilities of what would have happened if I ran off with Thomas before either of us made the "awful mistake" of marrying women. I'd rather live in the drama, and enjoy the wonder of what it would be like to be "gay" then just being ME and letting what happens happen... I'd rather speculate what my needs are as a closeted gay man than face the reality of being one. You're right! I'm a no-good coward! I refuse to leave my closet. I'd rather live in the shadows. I'm more comfortable bemoaning the "poor me" syndrome of self-pity than self-embracing the honest truth.

But again, I have to ask you: why do you care about me anyway? Why are you still here checking up on delusional never-authentic, always-avoiding Beck? Why are you still here? If you've moved on, why are you still looking back and reaching out for me lagging behind you?

Don't get me wrong! I love you! And I love that you DO CARE enough to keep staying and reading and sharing and commenting and trying to influence me for the better, throwing me your wisdom and insights... but I can't help but wonder why?

When is it going to be obvious that I'm not worthy of your time, attention or concern? Because, I'm still here struggling to stay on the path I'm on... I can't run off to the other side of the planet and be a free spirit! At least not right here and now. I can't leave behind the commitments I've made! I'm not ready to leave my marriage, my family, my kids, my job, my religion... if that is avoiding the inevitable, then I guess I'm still avoiding the inevitable. I may be grasping at a false hope... but I still believe.

I still believe in my marriage. I still believe in my family and kids. I still believe in my life as it now is structured. I still believe in my religion. I still have hope. And yet, I now accept that I am gay. I have not embraced my gayness and that is still a source of frustration inside me that keeps me clueless, adolescent, and unrealistic. It keeps me from fully "vibrating" and holds me back from embracing the fulness of my life, but I don't angst over feeling the attractions and accepting them for what they are - amazing, wonderful feelings. Is that hope of somehow finding another way that makes this all work really all that hopeless?

And if so, why do you (any of you, not just Wyatt) care?

Love,

Beck

The Good and the Bad...

2010-09-02T18:53:00.007-06:00

WHAT THE "EVIL" CHURCH HAS DONE FOR ME AND HOW IT CONTINUES TO AFFECT ME FOR GOOD AND BAD…

(NOTE: I didn’t say the “Gospel of Jesus Christ”! I have a firm commitment to Christ and his teachings and I have faith in him, believe in his atonement and its real and everlasting influence on me. In this there is little doubt and abundant hope!)

FOR GOOD…

1. Because of the church, I have accepted callings and opportunities to serve that have made me a better person that I would have been otherwise. I have gained leadership skills and put in positions of leadership to reach out and help many that I would not have done without the church’s influence.

2. Because of the church, I have shed much of my shy exterior and become a pretty good public speaker, no longer fearing crowds or addressing the public in presentations. This has benefitted me in numerous ways in my business life and helped me to be a better man in my profession as well.

3. Because of the church, I have discovered my love for teaching and have been able to cultivate that seed planted years ago and have seen those skills of being able to teach grow and grow. I’m not saying I’m God’s gift to teaching, but I’ve been able to be put in many teaching situations, both privately and publicly and have been able to thrive in ways that would be highly unlikely to have happened otherwise.

4. Because of the church, I have become more compassionate and caring. I may have a compassionate spirit, but that fundamental characteristic has blossomed through the church's influence on me. I believe I am a caring person in general, but the church has taught me, trained me and helped me to focus that caring attitude in uniquely personal ways. I have learned to connect with people and love and have a passion for those connections that come by bonding through the church.

5. Because of the church, I served a mission that changed my life, taught me to speak a foreign language fluently, and welded in my soul a bond of unyielding love for a people, a culture, a country, a brotherhood, a home. That missionary service literally brought me out of my shell and helped me to discover who I was and what I could really do.

6. Because of the church,
that brotherhood made me connect to others and feel things and understand things about myself and where I knew I needed to be and who I really was deep down inside. I found my passion and I don’t ever want to lose it. I directly learned to touch and be affectionate and open and unafraid to express myself with the power of touch.

7. Because of the church, I was taught of the spirit and felt God’s influence in my life and recognized it as the miracle it really is.

8. Because of the church, I was taught to pray and communicate with God. I am still learning what that really means, and I know I need a lot more practice before I really understand it.

9. Because of the church, I married my wife because I was “in love” with her, but because the church instructed me that this was the right plan and path to take. I believed that and still do. I have no regrets and feel this was and is a good thing for me.

10. Because of the church, I have created a unique family. My children came into our lives directly because of the church. My family and my children (and all of the subsequent blessings that come with them) literally would not exist without the church in my life.

11. Because of the church, I rediscovered lessons learned in my past and relearned who I really was, and finally came to terms with my attractions as being just that – undeniable attractions for men.

12. Because of the church, I have a testimony of the Plan and the purpose for my life. I have been able to feel the optimism of the future, the hope in the Plan and the assurance of God’s love for each of us. I have a profound HOPE!

FOR BAD…

1. Because of the church, I learned early on that I was different, and that different wasn’t good and that I didn’t belong or fit with the rest of the guys.

2. Because of the church, I learned that “brotherhood” meant if you played basketball then you were welcome in the quorum, if you didn’t then you were expendable. Because I was no good at sports, because I was uncoordinated, had no body mass or muscles, I was of no use.
My self-esteem was shot. It took me a very long time before I learned another meaning of the word “brotherhood” (see above).

3. Because of the church, I learned the power of “expectation” and “obligation”. I became an eagle scout despite hating the program, and being physically abused and harassed in excess by boys in the troop. But you know… boys will be boys.

4. Because of the church, I hid myself and my desires and attractions, even to and especially with myself… to the point that it took me decades of denial and refusal of accepting myself. The church put me in a delayed development of self-awareness. I may have grown in other areas, but I regressed in others.

5. Because of the church, I was a good boy. As a good boy, I didn’t look at porn or think evil thoughts of women – I barely thought of them at all). As a good boy I never ever touched myself… yes, I never masturbated… and I never allowed anyone ever to touch me in that way. This may seem to be a good thing, but it is bad, because it delayed me sexually in exponential ways. No one was more naïve on his wedding night than I was. Confusion. Doubt. Pain. It was all there from the beginning and I put that at the feet of the church. It was not intentional, I’m sure, but wanting to be a “perfect boy” in so many ways became a huge negative once marriage was to be consummated. Oh how I wish that I weren’t so perfect.

6. Because of the church, I have been in a perpetual state of adolescent immaturity when it comes to sexuality. And as I became more aware of being “different”, I hid it away and refused to face reality and I regressed and became asexual in many ways that remain with me to this day.

7. Because of the church, I didn’t run off with my first real love… a man that truly loved me. I gave up that chance of potential happiness for something better, right?

8. Because of the church, I married a woman. Yes, I mentioned it as a positive and huge fountain of blessings above, but had I been able to face myself more honestly and not felt so “different” and not made to “fit in” and “do the right thing” and
“be perfect” I probably never should have married. The pain that has come from this reality years later, suffered through each decade by not just me but my wife as well, and all that goes with her self-esteem and self-worth being shot is a huge legacy of what some call “evil”.

9. Because of the church, I still live in the shadows. I cannot come out, not at this time. I’m too intertwined in all the tentacles of the church’s hold on me. I am in higher and higher leadership and deeper and deeper in the commitments. So, I can’t see a way out - not that I’m seeking a way out of the church – but a way out of the darkness and shadows of the closet, a way out of the dishonesty and double life living, a way out of the inauthenticity of self.

10. Because of the church, I still cannot face my wife straight out and with directness and honesty. Though she knows I’m gay, she really doesn’t KNOW me. And I don't let her KNOW the REAL ME. I want to take responsibility for this, but the fear put in my head from the church is always there in my mind. There is a real fear of doing so, being truly honest and authentic with my wife, and everyone else for that matter, and what it might do to our marriage and my association with the church (socially, culturally, emotionally, etc.) that has a hold on me that feels overpowering.

11. Because of the church’s stance on homosexuality, as I come more and more to terms with who I am, I am becoming more and more unsettled and confused by the Brethren. It is causing conflict and doubt that didn’t exist there before. I don’t want doubt. I want assurance.

So where does that put me?

And is the church a bounteous blessing or an evil curse?

Googling clueless Beck!

2010-08-27T14:31:00.009-06:00

It is rare that I do this, but the other day, I googled my “blog-self” wondering what others might find if they searched for “Beck”. Initially, most links take you back to the MOHO community. What was interesting, however, is I found a discussion about ME on a site called latterdaymainstreet.com that intrigued me. Typically I don’t find myself fascinating and so to find complete strangers discussing me and my blog among themselves, one using my mixed-oriented marriage to make her point, was creepy, and introspective, to say the least.

A person identified as “Holly” said this about me:
“While it’s by no means a hard and fast rule that “a man who lacks the ability to emotionally connect with his wife must therefore be gay,” I don’t think it’s an unreasonable inference in certain situations. As many people can (unfortunately) attest, being forced or expected to engage in sexual intimacy with a person for whom you feel little desire can cause resentment, anger and emotional isolation…. (It) reminds me somewhat of something described in this blog entry about a mixed orientation marriage”… (which she then quotes my blog from about a year ago where I spoke of my struggles in meeting my wife’s sexual needs).

She continues: “The biggest difference is that this guy (Beck) at least CARES that he can’t bond with his wife in the ways she needs… This to me is AN EVIL. Beck, the guy who wrote the entry, might not be an evil man. But the whole situation is WRONG, destructive, and the result of a society which is, in and of itself, contemptuous of women and misogynist.
“And there are obviously things he doesn’t understand about being in love, due to the fact that he’s never been in a relationship with someone he’s in love with. Some of the questions he poses amaze me, and I think, “If you’d ever really been in love yourself, YOU WOULD GET WHAT THIS FEELS LIKE.”

Then, another person comments to her comment:
“I don’t think marriage or love is always the same – or that all couples experience it the same way. What it sounds to me like you are saying is that in a specific situation where a man knows he is gay but still marries a woman (because of his religious beliefs) – that it is not being fair to either partner but especially the woman in that relationship? That it discounts the feelings of the woman in that relationship? That such a relationship is inherently misogynist?
“I would argue that it discounts both partners’ feelings, and may make them both miserable. I think relationships and marriages are complicated, and that people change.
“But I do think it’s disingenuous for a religion to tell a gay man that he has to marry a woman for exaltation, or a gay woman that she needs to marry a man.”

And then Holly response:
“My point was more along the lines of what you discuss in the second half of your comment–that MOM’s (mixed orientation marriages), particularly in Mormon culture, at least when the spouse with the non-complimentary orientation is a gay man, are rooted in misogyny and a sense of male entitlement.

“Keep in mind that in most of the gay-man/straight women MOMs, it is the gay man who courts and proposes to the straight woman, who often doesn’t find out until AFTER the ceremony that she didn’t get what she thought (or at least hoped) she was getting, namely, a husband with whom she could establish a rewarding sex life–in other words, I’m saying she’s been deceived, typically by a guy who thinks that it’s his right to deceive her, because what really matters is that he uphold his own priesthood, not that he treat a woman honorably or well. I include the post from Beck as proof that, because these gay men are typically very young, inexperienced virgins when they get married and thus have never been in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with someone they’re in love with, they have NO CLUE the extent of the cruelty they’re inflicting on their wives.”

So, from this I gather:

1. I am not necessarily EVIL, though I could be, but since they don't know me personally they wouldn't say so, but...

2. What I am doing (being in a mixed-oriented marriage and making my wife stuck with half-a-man husband) is EVIL!

3. I really don't know what romance or true love is...

4. I am using my priesthood position of authority and personal beliefs over my wife...

5. What I am doing is cruel...

6. I really don't have a clue...

So, as a clueless, evil and cruel priesthood authoritarian doing my duty and keeping my wife in a loveless marriage because I was told to do so by some evil belief system that put me in this lie of a situation in the first place, and now I can't get out, and neither can she, and I remain unable to love for I don't know how... I'm wondering to myself... what have I done? Have I done all this to my wife? Am I keeping her imprisoned in this loveless, clueless marriage?

I talk in my past couple of posts about "what I want" and about the "needs" I have that can't be fulfilled in my marriage with my wife, and yet getting what I want may not be possible within the current framework of our marriage. So, what does she want? What does she need?

I've asked her that. She wants me to want her. And she needs me to need her, all of her. I've tried to do that to the best of my ability. I say I love her and that I am doing this because of the love I have for her.

But maybe, just maybe, Holly is right... Maybe I have never, ever found or felt or experienced true love (for otherwise why would I be questioning if I had?) and so how could I ever put myself (half-a-man that I am) to satisfy her wants and her needs?

I really don't know love at all.
I talk about "love" when it comes to bromantic relationships. I talk about "love" when I describe my relationship with Thomas or Fabrizio, my Italian "friends". I talk about "love" with even some of you MOHOs out there. But what do I really know of love? Infatuation, maybe? Crushes, for sure! Adolescent flirting, most definitely. Devotion, I would hope. But real and true passionate love?

I must be a liar. Or I'm clueless. Or worse, I am both. And I really, truly don't understand love. Or if I had experienced it, I'd know what it was by now.

That's good to know. Because right now, that hits home!

And I wonder... who do you see of this "Beck"? Why are you here wallowing in my decrepit, lie-strewn life with a loveless relationship where I've created the hopelessness and cluelessness because of those lies?

And where can I find real love so that I'll stop longing and asking - instead, I'll just simply know!

I'm perpetually stuck!

2010-08-21T17:07:00.006-06:00

I am intrigued and I must admit that I’m a bit surprised and I don’t understand it.

I tried to put together a list of really positive things that are happening in my life with my “lessons learned” series trying to demonstrate how a mixed-oriented marriage could survive and even thrive, and I get three comments from the community.
I then proceed to articulate about one item that isn’t working as well as the others and I end up receiving (gratefully I might enthusiastically add!!) tons upon tons of comments offering advice and support (the second most amount of comments in my 4+ years of blogging with only my introducing “Thomas” , my Italian more-than-friend , receiving more input and postings). Why is this? Is it the rubber-necking philosophy of life where we much prefer witnessing a train wreck about to happen than a train zipping by in normal monotony?

That noted, I’ve tried to group the advice I’ve received about my desires to still need male connection and freedom to express myself naturally and “normally” with other men, while still abiding by some sense of decorum within my marriage, and not being able to do so. I am at a point of blockage… I can’t seem to go forward or backward. I sense a stagnation of immense proportion. I am stalemated. I am stymied. I am stuck!

The combined wisdom of this MOHO blogosphere has produced the following. I have grouped them into broader categories:

NOT YOUR FAULT / OUT OF YOUR CONTROL:

1. Your wife’s insecurity is the bigger issue that you can’t control, not her lack of trust in you.
2. Stop feeling guilty about the past. It is what it is. Move on and stop dwelling on who did what or didn’t do what in the past.
3. Stop blaming yourself for the way she feels.

CONTENTMENT WITH HERE AND NOW:

1. Be content with where you are.
2. Enjoy what you have.
3. You need to have her “put up with” you verses you “sucking it up” and enduring and being okay with where you are.

HONESTY / ILLUSIONS:

1. Tell her how you really feel.
2. You are hiding your true feelings. Be honest!
3. Stop lying to her – she doesn’t get what it means to be “gay” because you hold back and don’t let her know what’s going on.
4. Stop protecting her. It’s cheap and unforgiving.
5. You’re living an illusion. The status quo isn’t good enough – it’s dishonest.

THINGS SHE NEEDS TO DO:

1. Your wife needs to try more to understand what it means to be gay.
2. She needs to accept ALL of me.
3. She needs to deal with her low self-esteem and self-worth and insecurity.
4. She needs to meet other gay guys to become more comfortable and less afraid of the situation.
5. Your wife needs to understand, even though it’s hard, that there is a place and need for you to have male companionship.
6. She needs to be willing to talk to another wife who is going through this.
7. She is jealous. This jealousy has led to her wanting “all of me” and not being willing to share. She needs to be willing to share.

THINGS I NEED TO DO:

1. Live life! Get on with it!
2. Stop feeling guilty.
3. Negotiate a compromise of some freedom and privacy that can lead to good things.
4. Seek a healthy balance.
5. Stop being “all or nothing” in your approach.
6. Need to find social connections of bonding – bonding with other men is essential and nurturing to the soul.
7. Get to the point where you can have healthy guy time verses seeking dating.
8. You need connections that are positive for both of you.
9. Take her away for the weekend and share this series of posts with her helping her to know how you feel.
10. Blog about it! Write! What do you really want?
11. Learn to have more trust in yourself. Build trust in yourself.

SPIRIT OF COMPROMISE:

1. Be alive without hurting the ones we love the most.
2. If you love, be willing to let go and set free and let fly. If it is real love, it will come back.
3. Find something between satiation and deprivation.
4. Don’t be so all-or-nothing.
5. We both need to worth for a common solution, not just one side giving and the other not.
6. Seek a healthy balance.

So… where does that leave me? What do I want?

What I want has not really changed much, but it has softened in the last year. I am happy, believe it or not, with much that is good in my life. I just want ALL of me to be happy, including the part of me that I feel I am holding back, hesitating to give expression, or denying the possibility of connection with others.

I want:

1. To be able to have a discussion about how I feel about my “needs” without it destroying her self-esteem or threatening her sense of where our marriage is going, or if I even still want to be married to her. This, I recognize, will require me to be more honest and having to face the fear of causing her stress and pain.
2. To be able to have her comfortable enough to be in a position where she sees good in my having these male non-romantic relationships. And I recognize that it is my duty to put these friendships in a way that they stay non-romantic (which will require me trusting in my own sense of propriety and boundaries).
3. To be able to have male friendships outside the stable ward family, even young guy friends, and gay friends and fellow MOHOs, which are positive, uplifting and mutually edifying.
4. To be able to have the freedom to explore these friendships without fear.
5. To do so with sensitivity to her and with honesty (not behind her back), but without a sense of guilt or mistrust.
6. To be able to express my emotions, affection, and need-for-touchness with other men without repercussion or interrogation. To be able to do so in front of her (not behind her back, or me looking constantly over my shoulder), but with sensitivity to her.
7. To be able to meet with these “friends” and not have it be considered a “date”.
8. To do all these things in a reasonable and semi-regular manner, but still placing priority to family and marriage.
9. To keep doing all the good things that I mentioned in the previous post about what is strengthening and sincerely improving our marriage.
10. To be able to do all this and find in me a deeper love for her in the process.

Is this possible?

I don’t think so.

The other night we were at a garden poolside wedding reception of one of my young men. He was a bit older and so, it was obvious that we would run into several of my other young men who were now married and moving on with their lives. And we did. At first it was a bit uncomfortable as three or four of them that I hadn’t seen for quite a few years now, came up to me one by one, and manhandled me into fierce and strong bromancy hugs! And all while my wife anxiously looked on as an uncomfortable observer. One of my young men (a tall and very strong one) grabbed me from behind and lifted me up off the ground and held me over the pool teasing me that he was going to drop me, all while I squirmed to be free of his grasp). It got to the point that my wife had had enough of this and left me to their horseplay and continued in the line, signed in the registry and moved on to the wedding party without me.

Once I got free of the man-vice body grip, and finished with the hellos and head slaps and special brotherhood handshakes, I caught her out of the corner of my eye way ahead, and I knew I was in “trouble”. I abruptly excused myself and worked my way through the line to where she was standing. Nothing was said, but it was obvious that she wasn’t feeling good about what was going on.

When we got to the bride and groom, I gave the bride a gentle hug and then slapped the groom in the head and then we warmly embraced. Afterward, I reach for my wife’s hand. Surprisingly, it was still there. "What?" I asked. We clasped but she said nothing. I could sense tenseness in her grasp.

"What was she thinking? Was I wanting to run away with the groom, or one of my young men and leave her and the bride behind?"

As we rounded the pool, she and I both spotted “Tim” and “Will” up ahead on the other side of the patio area. Tim and Will are well… I’ve blogged about them incessantly in the past, as they are the ones that helped me to see inside me for the first time, and opened me up to myself five years ago and needless to say; they continue to be a source of difficulty for my wife.

As we passed them from across the patio, I nodded slightly and winked at them in recognizing their presence. My wife asked me poignantly: “So are you going to go over there and start hugging them, too?”

“No,” I curtly responded, and I kept walking holding her hand and faking a smile. It was the way she said it, implying that I needed to be hugging everyone in the party, like that was something horrible to do.

“Do you want to have any refreshments?” she asked as we passed the patio of tables and food.

“No,” I again relied, “Let’s just go!”

So we got in the car and left. Nothing was said for a long time on the ride home. There was silence. I was feeling so upset that I find myself in this predicament. I did not seek any of this attention, hugging, or man-vice wrestling over the pool, etc. But, I really, really wanted to go hug Tim and Will, and their wives, and be social and free to do so without repercussions. And instead, all I could safely get out by way of communication was a wink and a nod. And that felt wrong.

“It isn’t fair!” I kept telling myself. “What have I done to get into this predicament?” I wondered as I drove impatiently down the canyon. “How can I get beyond this and back to a world of natural expression of affection and connection with my fellow men without feeling guilty or ashamed or embarrassed or worried about what she might be feeling or thinking?” And yet, I do worry about what she is feeling and thinking and I don’t want to cause any grief or pain for my actions… such an innocent thing, and yet, so poignant to me that I’m dying inside, unable to be who I am, who I want to be, who I know I am happier being than how I am now.

Thus, I am unable to connect the dots. I know what I want, but I don’t know how to get there from here. I can go back the way I was doing it in the past and do it behind her back, but then I become dishonest and mistrusting and I’ve gone down that road and it is a road to nowhere very quickly. I can be honest with her, but then all the feelings of hurt and anger and pain and insecurity and frustration and worry and guilt bubble to the surface and it’s too much to deal with and it adds so much unnecessary drama to our lives that it’s easier to just back off and say “forget the whole thing”, and then I go into the all-or-nothing mode of living – and in this case it is the “nothing” of having any contact with anyone in an open male friendship that isn’t with balding, fat and nearly dead high priests that are of no threat to anyone.

Where does that leave me? I’m like the hummingbird that was trapped in the vaulted ceiling of our bedroom yesterday morning. As much as we tried to help it escape out the balcony door swung wide open to freedom and survival, it resisted our encouragement, and kept flying in vain around the ceiling ridge with no way out, trapped and panicking. It could see the open door below and feel the air movement through it, but common sense was telling it that no way could there be success in flying down and out – the only way to freedom was to fly up! Yet there was no “up” - only the ceiling that held no trap door.

I’m that trapped hummingbird. I see and feel the breeze of what I want, but I can’t stop flapping my wings and beating my head against the ceiling.

I’m stuck!

Lessons Learned - Part Two...

2010-08-10T08:14:00.008-06:00

I’ve had second thoughts about whether or not to post this entry. I’m trying to be positive and dwell on the good (maybe to convince myself that things are getting better), and really they are (there I go again with the positive convincing!), but there is one lingering aspect of my current relationship agreement that is not going well and it’s eating at my core...

At my recommendation, I agreed, and in respect for her feelings and in trying to re-establish a sense of trust, to not meet with any gay friends in secret encounters of hikes, lunches, MOHO parties, apartment discussions, etc. without her knowledge – meaning, she didn’t want me sneaking around and going behind her back having “dates” and relationships that she didn’t approve of. She viewed such encounters as “inappropriate” for a married couple, and very hurtful to her. The hurt comes in the underlying feelings of mistrust that she has in my ability to lock away my heart just for her, and to not find such encounters leading me to attachments beyond our covenanted marital relationship rules of engagement.

This mistrust comes from several sources of pain that I feel responsible for, including:

1. Years of neglect, both physically and emotionally not bonding with her, and seeking to have any kind of physical connection with her. I shot down her attempts to connect, and shunned her for decades and this has left emotional scars for the both of us.
2. Those years of neglect (and neither of us fully understanding why I was pulling away from her physically) led to years of her self-esteem and self-worth being destroyed in the process. Was she not pretty enough for me? Was she too fat? Too old? Too ugly? Too needy? In reality, she was none of these things - it was me being so unsure of what was going on inside of me as to why I was not interested in her.
3. Years of turning my attention to other things (mostly work and career development, and church service… good things, but not necessarily great things when considering what she was feeling)and not on her.
4. And those years tended to focus my attention on connecting with other men, and particularly of men from my missionary past, and even more so with certain young men of the ward. I was seeking physical and emotional attachment outside the marriage (again not truly understanding why I was doing this – it wasn’t a deliberate attempt to hurt her or inflict pain – but it was a need, a driving force within, an unquenchable appetite for belonging and connecting with other men).

To add the MOHO connection to this mix, and to see two of my young men return to the ward and try to connect with me as we did in the past, all have accumulated into a package that she cannot accept no matter how hard she tries to understand. The past decades of neglect and damage and mistrusting and disconnection have led her to feel this way.

Thus, in response to her feelings, and with love for her and demonstrating to her that she means more to me than anything else, and in an attempt to restore trust and heal our relationship of decades of neglect and pain, I have offered to keep away from such connections with other men, to limit my time away from her, and even to avoid extensive hugging and talking and “bromancing” with my male friends. She never has insisted that I do so, nor has she required it of our marriage to go forward. She has been trying to put it in perspective and see the “needs” I have, but can’t get her brain around any kind of relationship that she feels draws me away from her.

So, I’ve pulled back. I haven’t had any “dating” at all for a year now!!!. I have pulled back from my “bromantic” encounters with Tim and Will. I have pulled back even from lengthy hugging, snuggling or other emotional encounters. I’ve tried to be a good boy and be happy and positive in the process.

For some in this community, this has been puzzling to them. And I apologize for any confusion or pain I’ve caused you. For Tim and Will, it has been puzzling as well. Each of them has noticed me pulling back from them, resisting their one-on-one conversations and being alone with them, or in simply hugging them or touching them or caressing them at all. It’s hard to explain why I’m doing this when they don’t know and I can’t tell them the reasons why…

The point being…

Despite all the good of the past post, I am feeling like there is a certain part of me that is dying inside. I am not feeling as spontaneous and open and gregarious as I once was. I am feeling parts of my personality being stifled and snuffed out and I feel like I am wilting away to a former self. And I don’t want to go there.

Therefore, how do I find a better way? How do I keep the confidence and trust and assurance and goodness in our relationship sound and building as it has been in so many ways, while still expressing myself and having an outlet of connectivity, animation, and bromance? How do I show myself trustworthy of her devotion and mine for her, while still reaching out in friendship and free expression that can keep me alive inside? I know I’ve asked similar questions before, but simply telling her this is a real “need” of mine doesn’t work. And after a year of “bromantic celibacy”, I still don’t feel she feels I’m a changed man.

I’m blossoming in so many ways, but in this one particular way I’m a withered malnourished vine on a hot parched summer's day.

Any composting nurishing words of advice?

Lessons Learned (or in the process)...

2010-08-04T08:54:00.005-06:00

In the spirit of continuing my assessment of the last year, and as promised to myself that I would write a list of “lessons learned” from my “year of restraint”, I offer the following summary. NOTE: I would probably be more accurate in calling these “lessons in the process of learning” as it is definitely an on-going evolutionary process, and not a point of arrival.

1. THE POWER OF TOUCH: I am learning that the little, spontaneous moments of touch with my wife mean so much to her. Holding hands when we walk together, a quick dance around the kitchen floor, a squeeze from behind when she’s doing dishes, a surprise slap on the bottom as I follow her up the stairs. These bits of interplay during the day may seem insignificant, but I’m noticing that if I concentrate on doing them more and making them a focus of my day in paying some kind of spontaneous attention to her, then her day goes better and my day in turn goes better. Maybe in a normal heterosexual relationship, such interplays of casual touch are so natural that there is no need to “focus”. But in a mixed-oriented relationship, there is an added need to be “focused” and train oneself to be aware of such little things that mean so much to the spouse. I’ve tried to do this more and more and I’ve seen the fruits of just working at making her aware that I’m aware. Isn’t that silly that I have to even say this? But it isn’t. For a MOM most definitely has to focus and make what may seem natural to everyone else BE natural to us.

2. CUDDLING EVERY DAY: This one may seem similar, but it’s different. In the past, I would work late into the evening and come to bed after she was asleep. In the morning, I would either sleep after she got up, or get up quickly as well. There was no cuddle time. I didn’t crave it. I didn’t want it. I was afraid where it might lead and I would not be able to live up to her expectations. This relationship went on for nearly two decades. I don’t know how she ever tolerated me. Sure, I was nice and kind and sensitive, but certainly not cuddly – which is odd seeing that I’m a very “touchy-feely” kind of guy… Anyway, in the last year as we’ve set a goal to focus on each other, I have changed my schedule and have made a point of going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time with her, and allowing natural expressions of cuddles to be expressed each evening and morning. With our “expectations” more clearly understood from where I was coming from in being not so attracted to the opposite sex as she once thought, and in not having higher expectations but seizing the good in the moments along the way, cuddling time has become a positive experience, a daily sought-after ritual of connection between us. This simple act of “wanting” to be together and hold each other in the quiet of the day’s end and day’s beginning has become an amazing blessing and restored much peace to our relationship.

3. BEING A WILLING PARTICIPANT: How many times, years, decades, did I roll over and turn away and not take notice of her advances or her needs? How many times did her loneliness and pain and fear of rejection and destruction of self-worth come from my not desiring her or being willing to participate with her? I am learning (and yes, this one is a work-in-progress) that I must make myself available to her, respond to her advances, and be a willing participant in this partnership. Just attempting to do so, but honestly doing so, has made all the difference.

4. SEX IS WORK, BUT WORKABLE: Okay, I promise to not be graphic here, but just to say that we’ve worked out a workable solution to our physical sexual relationship. It has taken nearly three decades to get to this point of compatibility (I know you are laughing at me and I feel very vulnerable and at risk of ridicule here – but I’m writing this for me, trying to be honest here – so please don’t laugh – at least not out loud), but by relaxing and being more open about what works and doesn’t work, (dare I say actually talking about it???) and how to make it work better, has been a great breakthrough for us… and need I add: “Good grief! It’s about time!” Though it’s somewhat infrequent, it’s still regular and desirable as we come to find a place that isn’t perfect or ideal (as we accept that that won’t happen) but it “works”.

5. THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING AWAY: We’ve learned the great power of “getting away” just the two of us, away from kids, and home-stress, and work-stress, and cell phones and computers and church and yard work and projects and business, etc. and just get away together. We used to travel with the kids everywhere we went. But now that they are older, it is a natural development to be able to get away ALONE and be with each other and develop a “courtship” type attitude in our marriage again. Our courtship was quick and because I was so much more interested in the missionaries I was teaching than my fiancé, it was awkward at best as well – but that’s another story. Needless to say, this one is obvious – if life overwhelms the relationship just because life is what it is, then in a MOM relationship, it is nearly impossible to make it work because the dynamics of attraction aren’t there to glue the broken pieces together. We’ve planned and succeeded in escaping away in some simple places around the corner, and others on the other side of the globe. Both have served the same purpose… we’ve got to create these opportunities of focus for our relationship for they don’t naturally happen otherwise. Maybe that’s true for all relationships, but I think in a MOM it is absolutely essential to overcome the otherwise missing connection points.

6. BEING OPEN AND WILLING TO TALK: This is still a hard one. There are often subjects of the “pink elephant in the room” that we avoid simply because at times it is too painful to talk about. But, we are getting better, slooooowly. It is not so much that we have a scheduled “gay-topic” night, as we are willing to have the occasional discussion as the situation arises. I think, by sharing that I blog, that there are MOHOs out there, that we are not alone, that there are others who are trying to make it work, that the joys and pains of our relationship are not unique, and that I’m trying and she’s trying to be more understanding of the other (even though this is still a sore subject on many points and the “understanding” part is painfully slow in coming), the key learning point here is in being “willing” to discuss calmly and more rationally than in the past.

7. HONORING PARTNER’S FEELINGS / WISHES: This is another hard one. This is where I’ve done things that have been dishonest and secretive and they have hurt our relationship because she has felt that she cannot trust me, that I am not trustworthy. Hiding my relationships with other MOHOs was probably the most hurtful thing I’ve done, besides expressing to her of my feelings for certain young married men in the ward. Seeing how hurtful it makes her feel (even though such relationships have been platonic for the most part, bromantic at the worst) and mostly innocent to me, has been an eye-opener to me. And because I love her and respect her feelings and wishes, I do not desire to “hurt” her with my bromantic relationships, and so I’ve tried (and succeeded for the most part) to curtail these bromantic encounters. It has done wonders in restoring “trust” back into our relationship… but I can’t help but wonder if I’m better off for doing so in curtailing my bromances. This one is still out for the jury to decide, and one that needs more study and understanding on both our parts (more on this in the next post).

8. THE POWER OF RESTRAINT: In association with curtailing bromantic encounters, I am trying to be more restrained in my other focuses (such as not viewing “eye-candy” as noted in the previous post). I’ve kind of addressed this before, but I’m doing this not because I think that it is inherently bad or evil, but because it is hurtful to our relationship as husband and wife. If a normal heterosexual relationship can deal with such innocence, I don’t think a MOM can deal with it so easily. Everything is a sensitive subject when it comes to attractions and where they are focused. It’s all about respect and focus. And though I’m learning that the moderation-in-all-things principle may most definitely be the best policy here, I am also learning that there is power in restraint regarding a MOM relationship.

9. AUTHENTICITY IS BEING HONEST WITH ONESELF, NOT WITH ANYONE ELSE’S CONCEPT OF WHAT ONE SHOULD BE: This is still another lesson-in-progress. I am attempting to live my life more honestly with her and allowing myself to express my “gayness” in ways that are appropriate and authentic as I feel them. In the manner of my personal expressions, mode of dress, inter-relationships with others, appropriate touchy-feely-ness, I am finding myself being more comfortable with myself as she is more comfortable, tolerant, and accepting of me as being me. This includes subtle changes in dress (tighter shirts and low-rise jeans for example), wearing skimpy swimsuits in foreign and not-so-foreign countries, shaving in places down-under, etc. These may be a continued adolescent phase of discovering who I am, or what feels “good” and “natural” to me, but a little shocking to a heterosexual man, but the lesson learned here is that I’m not hiding it from her and she is accepting of these “non-threatening” aspects of my behavior and personal expression of who I am.

10. AUTHENTICITY IS KNOWINGLY CHOOSING TO STAY: In the end, it comes down to commitment and knowingly choosing to stay with the person that I have covenanted to be with forever. My honesty of myself and acceptance of being a gay man attracted most definitely and exclusively to other men, does not preclude me from being authentic in choosing to be with my wife in the end…

As for the negative lessons learned, well, more to come…

Any comments or feedback? What do you think? Is there progress here or just slow stagnation and the avoidance of the inevitable? Is it possible to make a MOM work or delusional to think it possible?

A year of restraint...

2010-07-30T07:31:00.005-06:00

This blog has become a measuring stick of sorts, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad... whether any progress is being made... noting the passage of time... re-evaluating this situation called "my life".

This is one of those measuring stick moments. A year ago this month, several things happened regarding my relationship with my wife:

1) I opened up to my wife about this MOHO community, what a "MOHO" was, that I had friends within this community, and that I had met many of them, and some on a frequent basis, all behind her back, and that a closeness was developing with some - this became a huge threat to her, not so much that she didn't trust my behavior or morals, or even faithfulness to her, but that I was lying and deceitful and dishonest about it all, and as such, she lost trust in me.

2) I opened up about blogging, tired of lying about it.

3) I opened up about my feelings and needing to seek counseling to help me sort through these feelings of confusion I found myself in.

4) I opened up about my feelings for other men, and the conflicting emotions of how to have good, positive and supporting non-threatening relationships with men and still want and desire a sound and firm and complete marital relationship with my wife.

5) I started therapy with a local psychologist with the hope of sorting out "what I want" type questions in my wandering path of being gay and married, and wanting to understand what both of those mean.

6) I closed down my public blog and went private for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I wasn't ready for my wife to read the inner thoughts I was expressing about this certain aspect of who I was. NOTE: This seems contradictory to all the other "openings" I was going through at the time, but I guess I wasn't ready to be that open yet. I wanted her to know that it was out there, and I used it as a form of self-therapy and that somehow it was okay to share vulnerable personal things to the universe, but not to those I love the most... at least not yet. All things in good time... (the funny thing was - she never showed the desire to find my blog or read it. She said that she respected my privacy and felt it would be an intrusion into that privacy and thus, didn't feel compelled to spy or pry into my blogging world or community).

7) I closed myself off to others and self-imposed a moratorium of sorts and went into a restraint mode of operation.

Now a year has passed and I look back and wonder where I've been, where I thought I was going, and what lessons I'm learning (or have learned) on the course I'm on, and whether the choices I've made have been good ones... choices of honoring my wife's feelings and wishes regarding relationships outside our marriage and putting her feelings above mine; choices of no longer hiding such friendships of fellow MOHOs from her even though the knowledge of such friendships was painful to her; choices of not meeting someone behind her back and without her knowledge and being secretive and dishonest in that hiding process; choices of removing myself emotionally from my "boys" in the ward, particularly as both have come back to live in the neighborhood again and all the feelings of the past being rekindled for good and bad with those now adult men; choices of attempting to regain her trust that was lost or at least severely damaged by hiding and being dishonest and outright lying; choices of putting my marriage first above all else, including my personal needs, for the benefit of "us".

I would like to say that I have confidence that my choices have been good for me and for her and for our relationship and our family. I would like to say that I have learned that there is no better path than the one I'm on. I would like to say that I have all the answers for any married card-carrying Mormon man who also is gay. I would like to be able to bear my testimony about these things. Yet, I can't say any of those things confidently. I'm still trying to figure it out.

After a year of trying to do what I felt was the "right thing to do" for me, why do I still feel so conflicted? Is there no assurance? Can there ever be peace? When does this battle cease?

****

NOTE to me: The next post will try to spell out the lessons I've learned, the good that has come, the reason for continuing on this path or not. I hope to then analyze the bad that has come as well, and maybe try to come to terms with where I'm going from here, maybe with some adjustments and re-evaluate "what I want". Warning to myself: this may get ugly!

Reap a habit...

2010-07-19T17:32:00.006-06:00

"Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

So, when does one's action (or inaction) become a habit that can affect one's character and maybe one's destiny? Is it a month? two months? three months? A year? I remember hearing something about being committed to something for three months and getting through that period will establish the "habit".

Well, it's been three months now since I went cold turkey on my journey into the world of Internet eye-candy (note: if you're not up to speed - I'm talking the PG-13 hot guys on non-adult sites). Three months without a hiccup. Three months without those guys staring back at me. Three months of temptation, but not succumbing to those temptations. This is a goal that I have set and I still feel good about this goal. I set it in April thinking that I'd try the cyber-celibacy for three months.

And I made it!

So now what?

So is it a habit? Am I there? Did I make it? If I made it this long, can I keep it going?

And how has this changed me? Some changes I've noticed:

1. I feel more confident in myself, more in control.

2. I don't need the "hot guy fix" (hgf) to make it through the day. I can do it without the morning and afternoon HGF.

3. I have much more time to be more productive in my day. I'm actually getting more work done in a quicker amount of time. I haven't worked late into the evening for some time now.

4. I'm feeling less guilt, adjusting my "habits" to better match my goals for my life as a whole. Thus, I'm more at peace (as peaceful as an angsty guy can be).

5. I'm becoming more comfortable in liking the beauty of real guys instead of the super-beautiful cyber-images. I will always like the view!

6. I'm spending more time with the family instead of lurking in the basement (not sure if it's quality time, but at least it's "more" time).

All that said, I know the HGF is still out there to be had. It's ready within a click to come back into my life. And I still want it. The desire is still there to "enjoy the view" and "partake" more freely. I really want it! After all, I'm still a frustrated gay active-and-believing Mormon guy in a MOM with all the associated complications. I would be lying if I said the desire wasn't still there. Yes, it's there, and most likely always will be.

But just as a long time ago I committed to be faithful to my wife and not have a sexual relationship with another man, I've now chosen to be HGF-clean. And if I've made it three months, why not another three, and yet another three?

The other "habit" I've made now 10 months is no longer having meetings with fellow MOHOs behind my wife's back (more on that in the next post).

Is this crazy? Or should I just cave to the cravings and justify it by saying that it's no big deal, that I'm a gay guy with needs, and this is a pretty innocent, adolescent, non-damaging way to deal with those needs?

It's probably crazy... but hey, I'm okay with that. I'm doing good. I'm happy. I'm not shaking with sweaty hands and suffering from headaches and anxiety attacks. And I'm not going to beat myself up if I fall off the HGF wagon.

It's all cool.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -- Aristotle

So then, why do I feel so delusional?

A rare concert!

2010-07-16T17:48:00.002-06:00

I went to a simply amazing concert last night. I rarely ever go to concerts, but when two of my favorite folk/pop artists came to town in a reunion tour, I just had to go!

And I was not disappointed. It was an unforgettable experience. To have Carole King and James Taylor together on the same stage with the same original band playing a mix of their oldies and goodies with a new twist with the magical blend of their silky voices was a joy. Super fantastic!

And to go and be there enjoying each mesmerizing note with my sweetheart just made it all that more special.

Yes, we are lost in the 70s and can't get out of that decade. Give me some slack. This was my coming-of-age decade... and in many ways, I haven't moved past it. But to see the energy and genuineness of two 60-somethings performing like 20-somethings was quite an inspiration to longevity and genius. They did not embarrass themselves for staying past their prime! They were in their prime!

Enough exclamation points... just wanted to share how happy this event has made me feel on an otherwise difficult week, and how grateful I am to share it with my wife at my side... more on that later.

The "Gods Must Be Crazy" Phenomenon...

2010-07-08T07:42:00.006-06:00

If you knew me, really knew me, you would probably define me as being quite shy and introverted. My whole life I have been content to work alone and do my own thing. Social settings, particularly new ones, are very awkward for me (as they probably are for most) and I don't thrive on being the center of attention.

At the same time, I am able to rise above this natural tendency and be extroverted on an "as needed basis". For example, when my profession demands me to step up and do an oral presentation or interview and sell myself and my business, I am able to do so with confidence and passion and for the most part have been able to do so quite successfully. Or, when my church calling requires the same for me to be friendly and outgoing and loving of strangers and the lonely, I am able to put myself out there and overcome my shyness and lose myself in the "work".

Some see only the professional me at an interview confidently presenting my ideas, while others see only the church-calling me teaching gospel principles with ease and reaching out to the "one" effortlessly, and they think that this must be the "real me". In reality, it is hard for me to do it. But I can, and I enjoy when just for a moment I can be better than the natural shy me by extending myself beyond my comfort zones.

Why is it, then, that I can't do this to great looking, strong and beautiful men? Case in point: My sprinkler guy (the one who has triggered my current "gay pon farr"). My sprinkler guy (MSG) is one of the extremely beautiful, confident, strong men that we all love to just look at and adore. I met him a year ago last spring when he was recommended to work on some irrigation problems on our hillside.
To use a tired phrase that suits him completely - he is "drop dead gorgeous". It was all I could do last year to keep from staring at him and admiring him... his smile, his perfect rock-solid build, his sparkling eyes, his humility. I think the most beautiful thing about him is that he doesn't seem to know that he is so beautiful. His confidence and manner of carrying himself is strong, yet very polite, while his attitude is kind and sensitive. There is no arrogance or "better than you so don't even try to get to know the likes of me" aura about him. And maybe that's what I find so endearing.

Needless to say, last spring was a joy to behold his beauty... but he made me feel so introverted. He made me tongue-tied as I stumbled and stuttered when I spoke to him. I became nervous and uncomfortable and embarrassingly shy as I stood near him. He made me feel so awe-struck that it was difficult to function. I couldn't switch on my extroverted personality that I usually can "as needed". I was a total bumbling fool...

It's like the scene from "The Gods Must Be Crazy" where the field research zoologist becomes a bumbling idiot when he is in the presence of the new school teacher, and his whole world turns to disaster just seeing her. That's what it felt like.

Fast forward to last week... I had been digging in the garden and dug too deeply and broke a sprinkler pipe. So, I hesitated, but at my wife's insistence, I called MSG and to my surprise, he came that same day. When he knocked on my door, I answered and immediately began to babble and bumble my way through the description of the broken pipe, pointing awkwardly with my shaking and sweaty index finger to the garden on the hillside. MSG was ever more beautiful than before. His white smile, his sparkling eyes, his strong, golden-tanned toned body in a perfectly tight white tee-shirt... and he sported a little bit of a new, cute, small, golden-blond soul patch on his chin. It was de ja vue all over again. I became a complete idiot. He was so polite and kind and helpful, and maybe he felt something this time about me being so shy as he attempted to finish my incomplete sentences.

As I think about it, I get this way on a construction site, too. All my confidence and authority goes out the window when a great-looking guy walks into the construction trailer and I lose it.

So, is it just me, or is it common for you to become a complete idiot and introvert when you are talking with a really drop-dead gorgeous guy? Why do I do this? How come I can't turn on my extrovert-button and extend myself with more confidence when I'm around such guys? Why do I feel so stupid and bumbling? What's wrong with me? Is this still adolescent stuff that I can't get past? When in the world am I going to grow up and move on into adulthood and control my own destiny of my emotions?

A weekly ritual of renewal...

2010-07-05T15:23:00.004-06:00

I was going to blog about the trigger that went off in my head for my current gay pon farr, but have decided to delay that post a few days...

Instead, I want to point out, at least to myself, how grateful I am for the Sabbath, how healing and soothing and refreshing the Sabbath is to the soul. The nine hours of service, and offering encouragement, genuine kindness, warm smiles, affectionate hugs, fellowship, blessings, settings-apart, brotherhood hitting and sisterhood embracing, confidence-building, widow-assisting, etc., the opportunity to fast with a purpose and to end the fast with a kneeling prayer and confirmation of the Lord watching over my family and kids. It's such an amazing and simple thing.

So, how do I post one day about running around in a speedo, or even less, and feeling so conflicted, and then the next day I post something like this? Well, it's complicated, and it remains so!

In a real sense, I'm just as much the one boy as I am the other. I get caught up in my attractions and become wigged out over so many things, and then I have a day each week where it all comes back into perspective. This weekly ritual of leaving the worries behind, coming to the altar and renewing the spirit, and reconnecting with what is important - the basics of service, kindness, selflessness - they all come together in a merciful and grace-filled way.

Happy 4th!!!

2010-07-03T16:13:00.007-06:00

HAPPY

INDEPENDENCE

DAY!

p.s. No offense intended for posting these photos. It's just the mood I'm in. I think a gay pon farr is coming on! :) I thought I was beyond this... but I'm not... I want to sport a patriotic speedo and run through the streets screaming - or better yet, maybe sporting nothing at all! AARRRGGHHH!!! Now that would make for some unforgettable fireworks in the neighborhood...

heavy sigh...

You still wonder...

2010-07-01T16:17:00.008-06:00

So it's your anniversary? What's a guy supposed to do?

You linger in bed a little longer. She wakes you with a kiss and anniversary wish. And one thing leads to another... ending with a huge smile, a happy, heavy sigh, a bit of exhaustion, and a great follow-up cuddle. All is well with the universe and the gods smile down upon you. (This wasn't always the case - far from it. Most suggestions were met with frustration, non-interest, even out-right rejection. But, fortunately, it's different now).

You get off work early and pick up the special flowers at your favorite shop around the corner. You surprise her with your thoughtfulness and she greets you with a warm embrace and affectionate kiss and you dance a little in the kitchen, her arms draped around you.

You decide to "recommit your wedding vows", and you both dress up and find yourselves kneeling at the altar of the temple repeating the words "yes" at the appropriate time, again and again, yes in proxy for others, but more importantly recommitting for each other, staring into her eyes seeing her stare into yours - both seeing eternity.

You end the evening at a quiet restaurant, a romantic corner for two, with favorite foods and fond memories of the decades spent together cascading through the evening's conversation.

On the ride home, you hold hands in the car. You are quiet. All is well... She then says softly:

"I feel things are becoming right between us. Don't you?"

"Yes, I do," you respond, not sure of all of the meanings behind her words.

There is another silent pause of contemplation.

Then she adds: "I think you are coming back to me again. Am I right?"

"I am here!" you reply a bit emphatically.

"It's like we are learning all over again, and reconnecting. I'm not so afraid of the "boys" anymore. And that's a good thing."

"The boys?" you ask hesitantly.

"Yes, you know, your boyfriends from your past. I'm feeling okay. You're okay with it?"

"I haven't done anything more with them."

"I understand that. I'm just saying that I'm feeling okay with things as they are between us."

"I'm glad."

Nothing more is said. You wonder if you should have said something about still desiring "boyfriends" in your life, but you decide that now is not the time to discuss such a topic - not on this day, not at the end of a nice romantic evening (and morning) together.

You keep thinking about her intended unspoken message. Was it one of restoring trust and telling you that she's okay with you being who you are, and that she loves you all the more? Or was it saying that she felt you were moving beyond the need for "boyfriends" and that is why she's okay with them now?

You don't know. You wonder.

Yet, you are grateful for a wonderful day, and a celebration of a wonderful thing - 29 years of marriage. Not many MOMs can say that. You're an anomaly for sure, a rare breed, the exception to the rule, the "miracle". You don't feel that way, but statistics reveal the truth. And you shake your head and wonder - is there hope for the future, even eternity? Can you make it? Is it worth it? Will it last?

Funny thing is, you can't keep a vision of the same events celebrating the same day with the pronoun of "she" changing to "he" playing out the same play in your head.

You sigh... Despite it all, you still can't help but wonder. Some may tell you that you continue to fool yourself. Others try to convince you that you can't be truly happy - no gay man can truly be happy stuck in a mixed-oriented marriage. It just isn't possible! That said, you end the day grateful for the "she" in your life and the miracle that is your beating-the-odds of 29 years together.

A window to the past / "the envy of guys"...

2010-06-25T09:27:00.007-06:00

Digging through a box in the back storage room of my office, I stumbled across three notebook journals that I wrote my senior year of high school and my first year of college. I had forgotten that I had kept these journals and remembering those trying times, I was scared to read them, but I had to.

Have you ever had that experience? These writings are over thirty years old! I haven't reread them ever. It's like a time capsule that has been discovered, and of course you have to read and discover what was going on - particularly this being a recording of my inner thoughts and feelings. What was I thinking? What was I feeling?

As fascinating as it was to reread my own words, I am sad for the boy that I'm rediscovering. I realize that instead of imagining a journal full of hopes and dreams of the future, of dating girls and partying with friends and having a fun and carefree last year of high school, I find a troubled boy, a boy that is too self-reflective, one that feels different and alone and worried and confused. I find a boy that is hung up on his "envy of boys". This was a different and more naive time and place - at least in my isolated and very sheltered world - a place where thoughts of being "gay" or really knowing what that even meant were not even contemplated. That is how I saw myself for years to come... I was not gay, I was just "envious of boys". And I beat myself up for having these feelings. And I was ashamed... Is this just normal adolescent "not fitting in" angst? Or is this something more?

At the risk of personal embarrassment, I have pulled just a sampling portion of a few entries and summarized them here for you to look into the past and see the boy that I once was. This is the first of maybe a couple of posts - covering the senior year. If you get through this post and care to respond, I am interested in you sharing your thoughts of what you observe from these words penned from this scared and oh-too-serious 17 year old's hand... and what they say about me today, now 33 years later.

Sep 2nd

Kevin is my best friend. He is my faithful and enduring friend. He’s my locker partner for many years. We’ve gone on dates, sat at games, walked and talked and shared things together. But after a certain point we stop. I don’t want to stop! Oh how I want to get closer and be close. How I wish I could confide and tell him everything inside me – open and out – and then have him understand the real me, turn around and then do the same thing. I really don’t think this will ever happen.

Sep 3rd

...I find myself being so jealous and envious of the guys at school. So many guys are so good looking, with muscled chests and full beards. I’m so skinny and am so ashamed of my body, and all I can grow is peach fuzz. And I ask myself: Why not me? I have thoughts of becoming more manly, more masculine and more like them. I don’t know what to do with my thoughts.

Nov 29th

...Life is made of countless decisions and choices, like grains of sand along the foggy beach, and each choice must be made surrounding the complicated age of 18. Wouldn’t it be great if life could end then without facing myself and my future… when and where to work, when and where to go to college, who to date, when to apply for a mission, who to marry, what occupation, and I wonder why my feelings are so different from other boys… I am totally bewildered on where to turn for help. Help me, please?

Dec 24th

O how I wish that love would swell and bloom, grow and overcome my home, not merely love and peace, but true caring, feeling and understanding so that I could open up to my family and let them know me better…

O how I wish that I were six-and-a-half feet tall, towering over other guys, with broad shoulders and big biceps, and not feeling so inferior and different.

O how I wish that I were worthy, honest enough, chaste, charitable with the true love of Christ, to be able to share and live with Him, to feel his spirit, his perfect body, his love.

O how I wish that Christmas would always last with the real meaning of giving and understanding.

O how I wish that I could relate with other people better, particularly guys, and speak easier with no pain or shaking nerves.

O how I wish that I were better…

Jan 27th

...I am ashamed of who I am. I regret how skinny and underdeveloped and pussified I really am (I’m such a puss!) which calls indeed for immediate changes in my values systems of my goals...

Feb 20th

...I still have a problem of envying other guys, those who are stronger and taller and so beautiful. Indeed, my values are low in this area and I need, again, to strengthen my mind, to control “it”, to keep these feelings within grasp, when fleeing down the road of an incorrect or lustful, or envious “thought”.

Feb 26th

...Why do I do this? It’s an envious sin that I got into the habit with and I don’t know how to satisfy myself and being content with who I am. I know I am weird, but maybe I need psychiatric care to cure my problem. I have brought it to the Lord countless times , but I don’t seem to have the required self-control of my mind to keep these thoughts and others of ill-quality from creeping around in my mind – this thing in my head that is supposed to realize right from wrong – and all I feel is that the answer, at least for now, is not now.

Do you offer any advice? I only talk about these things in here, not a soul as I know to this point knows about my feelings about this subject. That’s why some of these entries are on this subject. I am so ashamed…

Feb 27th

...As I said, I am so different from the other boys of this ward. I mean different looks, different acts, different wants. Thus, I don’t hit it off that well, but I am trying to relate, but I don’t . I’m just different. My hair is different. My way of dress is different. My attitude is different. I try to be proud of the way that I am and realize that I am this way because that is the way my spirit is, that is the way I am made. I am me!

March 3rd

...I notice how my moods have varied, how at times, I’m in tune with the spirit and then at other times I’m in tune with an evil influence, straight from Lucifer in person. What I need is more self-control, self-mastery of my body and mind, to always be the guiding pilot of my affairs of my life. If I but stay worthy, if I but keep the commandments, if I but keep myself and my feelings and desires under control, I’ll be able to live out my calling, to be a missionary, a father, a leader (as mentioned in my patriarchal blessing), and will live a full life.

March 20th

...I still have recurring dreams and thoughts about being more masculine. I imagine myself stronger and manly and the envy of other guys. I can’t get rid of these thoughts. I dream of Kevin. I want to be closer to him. He is such a special guy. I don’t know what to do. I must admit that I get a lot of enjoyment out of these thoughts. These wicked thoughts live in my mind and the enjoyment comes from the devil.

March 23rd

...Help me to be worthy to receive thy help with the right attitude. Help me to think of others, to lose myself in the service of others that I might become a happy person. Indeed, help me to be happy and choose thy way, to have clean thoughts and not these wicked thoughts, and to have clean actions and to repent seriously of my weakness of envy that I might someday be able to dwell with thee in the Celestial Kingdom and find eternal bliss.

April 7th

...An interesting thought struck me today which helps me a lot with my hang-up of envying guys. The thought was that when you ask for something from the Lord and you don’t get an answer (I have never got an answer about why I have these feelings that I shouldn’t have), maybe it is because you are having him do all of the work. You must give and meet him half-way. I thought about this and realized that all of this time I had been ordering God to take this away from me, leaving none of the work for me to do… Interesting! So, what do I do now?

He's trying to do something good...

2010-06-21T07:45:00.003-06:00

There seems to be a lot of emotional reaction stirred up over the upcoming fireside presentation scheduled for Idaho Falls this next weekend. I understand where the emotion and reaction come from, recognizing the misinformation, hurtful guidance and misleading or confusing council in the past when homosexuality and Church come together in the same place.

I know the word "professionals" sends a nasty chill up my spine and makes me leery of what might be said, labeling those like me as "diseased" or "broken", needing to be "fixed". But, I would like to give the benefit of the doubt that this event has the potential to be something different... at least I hope so. I've known Bravone (Steve) personally for almost three decades now, and have found him to be nothing but honest and caring and genuine. As I understand his motives, he isn't doing this for his own purposes of being in the spotlight or gaining notoriety or fame or acclamation. What's in it for him? I mean, wouldn't it be better if he just let it die and not continue to poke at it? Wouldn't it be easier to just disappear and say nothing or do nothing (as many of us in his situation do)?

Instead, he is doing it to help others, to offer his hand of support - and why? Because he cares! This guy truly cares! He is trying to do something, trying to get more information out there, trying to improve dialog and dismiss the misinformation that circles around the church. As one who has gone through hell and back, as one who has left the church and now come back, he knows both sides, and simply wants to help. And he's doing it at his own personal risk, putting himself out there not as the "poster child", but as a voice - a sensitive and genuine voice - of one who knows.

I think he should be commended for his efforts. I think we should withhold judgment and let the event speak for itself. Hopefully the feelings and discussions and workshops will bring more understanding and different perspectives as members and priesthood leaders see real faces, real lives, real people - faces that represent the silent ones like me.

I commend Steve for trying, for being an ice-breaker, and hopefully for making it easier down the road for others to follow and continue to bring "face" to this discussion.

Steve, you're a better man than I, and I am in awe of what you are trying to do (and I still say you are absolutely CRAZY for even attempting to pull this off - it's a "damned if you do / damned if you don't" scenario, where potentially both sides will scoff and reject you - so who wins?), and I thank you for that - for "trying" instead of just sitting back and watching it take fold from a comfortable, safe and anonymous distance.

So why should I long for anything more?

2010-06-19T19:00:00.009-06:00

Over the course of the last week I've seen three movies with my wife (two in theaters and one on DVD). Typically for me, I may see a film once a month at the most, so this is really stretching it...

The first was a little Italian art-film "Mid-August Lunch" about a middle-aged Roman man being stuck on a holiday at home taking care of his elderly mother, and everyone else's mother for that matter.
Not something you'd think would be worthy of attention, but it really is quite good, if only for the Italian scenery, Italian food, and Italian language. The expressions, the gestures, the tastes and smells, the relationships and family ties - they keep swimming through my thoughts as I relive memories and emotions and feelings that will never die.

The second was "The Red Violin", a story of a 17th century violin and the mystical journey it takes through the centuries, and the lives it touches along the way, from its creation to its final destination on the auction block. It was filmed in Cremona, Italy, a small, peaceful place in this world that will always be dear to my heart. I recognized they alleys and piazze and streetscapes as if they were my home, as they once were.
Memories of riding my bike over those cobblestone paths and courtyards. As I watched it, I kept wondering what my life would be like if I were still living there. Would it be different? Would I be different? Or would it be very much the same as it is here.

The third was "Letters to Juliet", a sappy and very predictable chick-flick romantic comedy, with the lovely and elegant Vanessa Redgrave (who by the way has aged gracefully, and her eyes and smile are pure magic). Filmed mainly in eternally romantic Verona and architecturally perfect Siena, two cities I know intimately, the story of "true love" never dying and the possibility of returning to find it again decades later. It isn't great cinema, in fact it's quite silly, but the beauty and romance I have with Italy genuinely comes through with loving charm and grace. And Christopher Egan is some dang good-looking eye-candy to go with the rest of the sweet visual package.

As I discussed this trio of films with my wife, we were drawn to all three movies because of our never-ending love affair with Italy and all things Italian. After such visual majesty and heart-tugging affection, we can't help but romantically linger on the idea of returning to Italy, of living there full-time, not just visiting on occasion, and wild thoughts pop into my head... thoughts of finding "true love" again, thoughts of the "what if" type scenarios recycle, renewing my longing for something there that I can't find here. Is it because I feel more real and natural and authentic there? Is it because I lose my inhibitions and become the "real me" there? Is it because I found my first "true love" there? Is HE still there waiting and longing for me after all these years? And can it be rekindled - even the "forbidden" love I secretly long for?

And then I slap myself and snap out of the romantic visual tonic I've been drinking, and come back to reality and realize I already have my "true love". She's right here beside me. I found her through our common entrancing love of Italy, and she is still here loving Italy with me, and still loving me through the years and trials and blessings of nearly three decades. We remain best friends and our passion and intoxicating love for Italy continues to imprison our minds and bind our spirits together.

So why should I long for anything more, no?

Heavy sigh...

There is always room for hope!

2010-06-03T07:39:00.004-06:00

Update...

I am doing well. Really, I am! My wife and I have been going through the process of preparing our son for his mission service, and then helping him through that process (shopping, packing, temple, VISAs, farewell, shipping off to the MTC, etc.)to where he is now gone and on his way! The emotions of stress, joy, obligation, excitement, fear, adventure have all been jumbled together in abundance.

It's quite something to go through as a young missionary. It is quite something else to go through it as a parent. How much helicoptering should one do? When to step in and assist? When to step back and watch? It's certainly been a particular time that will not soon be forgotten. I can't help but want him to be happy and well and excited for this new journey. Watching him be scared, stressed, fearful, unsure, makes me ache inside. We are all different, and I'm trying to let him be who he is and make this his experience and not mine. I was a bit fearful, but really loved the experience from beginning to end. But, he's not me... and it's been hard to step back and let it be what it needs to be for him to learn and grow in the ways that he needs to and not in the ways I needed to.

... heavy sigh...

I am doing well. Really I am! My wife and I are still connecting and working together and making our marriage work in ways of love and support - and we're really making it work. I'm sure some will say that I am delusional to even say those words. How can any gay guy say those words and not be delusional? Well, this particular gay boy is saying those words. I feel hope. I sense a confidence and assurance in the path I'm on. It may not be the path that others think I should take or be on, but I don't care. It feels hopeful and right for me, and I'm fine in being labeled as "delusional" and be dismissed as fooling myself into some sense of denial... So be it.

I am doing well. Really I am! I am going through a personal experiment of what total isolation from fellow MOHOs and total abstinence from electronic eye-candy will do to affect my sense of well-being. Will it bring back the incredible building of angst and uneasiness, or will it bring strength and confidence. Don't get me wrong... I am doing this knowing that I am a gay man and always have been and at least for now, will always be a man that is attracted to other men. I am not in any way, shape or form trying to deny this fact or be delusional enough to believe that I can wish it away, or even think that such a thing is possible. I've been there and done that and know that doesn't work. Giving in to what some may say is natural and honest and inevitable (go with the flow of nature - it never makes sense to fight it) and have that desired relationship with another man - is something I am not able to do, and I choose not to. What I am trying to do is accept my true nature as fact, but choose to live my life otherwise. It is my choice and it feels right for me. Whether I can do so and make it work and do so now with less angst, remains to be seen.

Does denying oneself of natural stimuli and physical connection lead to nothing but grief, angst and frustration and ultimate eruption of seismic proportions? Or does this path lead to anything positive, strengthening, reassuring, hopeful?

I know this post sounds like I'm trying to convince myself, and maybe I am... (after all, I'm delusional)... but...

Is there any room in this world for someone like me who admits he's gay, but denies himself of a gay relationship and instead chooses to grow old and happy and content with the wife he loves?

Is there any room in this MOHO blogging community anymore for a voice like mine or has the evolution of the last four plus years made that impossible?

Is there any room for hope? Hope to make this marriage relationship work? Hope to make this family eternal? Hope to remain sane in the process?

Whether you dismiss me here and now, I am still here and though I keep thinking that I should simply go away, I'm still here... giving validity and voice to those like me who say emphatically: There is always room for hope!

Am I delusional?

2010-05-13T09:51:00.006-06:00

A couple of things have changed in my life in the last few weeks - good things. These changes have brought me to a self-evaluation or self-inventory again. The difference this time is that I don't feel a level of guilt associated with things. Instead, I am at peace with myself and what decisions I am making, and where I am going.

I may post more about the peace I've found and the lessons I'm learning in the future. For now, let me say that I'm comfortable with myself. I have come to accept me for who I am with no fear and trembling or guilt. I feel grateful for this acceptance and with this acceptance comes peace.

During this recent self-evaluation, I've decided (again)
to swear off the electronic eye-candy. Niente! Nada! (Now, how hypocritical is it of me to post about swearing off electronic eye-candy and then I can't resist throwing some in for good measure - go figure!) It's been 3-1/2 weeks and just a twinge of withdrawal. I know I've done this before (when I was caught by my son looking at PG images of guys kissing), but then it was out of an immense motivation of guilt. Now, I am doing it because it feels like the right thing for me to do right now. Anyone who has followed this blog for any extended period of time, particularly in the early years, knows of my attraction to eye-candy. But now, I'm okay in trying to move on. That doesn't mean that I won't or don't take in the view of the nice eye-candy walking by in the flesh, or sitting in the congregation - I think it's fine to notice and appreciate and enjoy such beauty. I even think it is a healthy change that I don't feel uptight or wigged out by it. It just is and I enjoy that this is how my attractions are - and I'm finally okay with it.

Could it be that after over five years of coming out to myself, that I am finally moving beyond my adolescent years? Am I maturing? Or am I in denial? Is this new cold-turkeyness going to backfire and I'll end up errupting into another gay pon farr? Or, am I finally settling into a new phase?

And with things going better with my wife and marital relationship, do you think that has something to do with it?

It's strange. It's not that I'm less gay, or think I'm decreasing in my attractions whatsoever, but it's like I'm not as hung up about it, and I'm going to enjoy the ride.

What do you think? Am I delusional in thinking things are getting better?

Conviction...

2010-05-05T13:10:00.004-06:00

Over the weekend I had the occasion to get together with one of my dearest friends and his family. It was fun to break bread together and get caught up - what a treasure to have friendships that seem to last through the ups and downs of decades.
James was my roommate at BYU right after my mission. We hit it off immediately and became very, very close. After our year together in school, we both ended the spring term and got married (not to each other but to great women). We were "best man" to each other and got married within 5 days of each other.

As it turns out, James has a gay son, whose name this blog honors and shares. In our conversations this weekend, I was able to get James alone (out of the earshot of the spouses) to discuss how his son was doing. For the first time, James really opened up and discussed his fears and dashed hopes about his son. I could tell that he loved him very much and has remained close to him as he has "come out" and now lives proudly as a gay man. It became immediately obvious that my friend is very proud of his son and the wonderful person he has become.

But, that said, there was a tone of confusion and hurt and doubt and pain associated with the discussion of "his eternal future". That was when I kicked it into high gear and threw caution to the wind and let it come out...

I told him that as much as I believe in the Plan and the eternal view that Joseph Smith saw and taught, I testified that I was convinced that we really only see such a limited view of what really is "eternal life". I told him that the Church doesn't have all the answers and that to think they do is wrong. I told him that we don't know so many things about how these eternal family relationships will work out and that I wasn't about to believe that his son was "lost" or "wasted" or "better off that he never be born" etc, but that instead, he is his son, and to love that relationship fully here and now! I went on to bear witness that I knew that his son was a wonderful, amazing young man, and that he should get over worrying about "his eternal future" and start celebrating the wonder that is his son! Celebrate his life! Celebrate his creative spirit! Celebrate his love for people! Celebrate him!

At this point, James fell into my arms and wept. I just held him. I held him and we shared a great moment of compassion together. I was tempted to come out to him myself right then, but instead whispered in his ear: "I know from whence I speak!" James looked at me with a cocked head of surprise, but with tears and said "Thank you for these words. I needed to hear them. I needed to have them spoken. I can't tell you what this means to me to know that you feel this way."

It was a pretty amazing moment. It was brief but significant and then we were back with the rest of the family.

As I ponder this, I can't help but realize that maybe I am stronger and a bit more wise and at peace with this. I don't believe that a few years ago when I was in denial of my true attractions I could have been so strong and powerful and encouraging in sharing my "witness" to him as I did. But now, it just flowed out and it felt really good to be there and say those words with conviction.

I consider this just the beginning. I know he wants to believe as I believe. I know he wants to have hope - hope that has been taken from him from obvious talks and discussions with other members of the Church. I feel a need, as time creates the occasion, to continue this discussion in the future. If ever there were a person who really knows me as James does, who isn't a fellow MOHO or doesn't live in Italy, if ever there were a person to whom I would "out" myself, it would be him.

Too goofy...

2010-04-24T09:09:00.008-06:00

"out of the mouth of babes..."

My college son came home for the weekend and he was in a good mood so we started having a casual chat. The subject of our ward getting a new Bishopric this weekend came up. He mentioned that he and his buddy down the street were speculating about possible candidates for Bishop and that his friend suggested my name...

"And so what did you say?" I asked curiously.

"You don't want to know," he replied with a bit of embarrassment in his voice.

"Why not?" I insisted.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously?"

"Well... I told him that it couldn't be you because you're too... well... too goofy".

"Too goofy!" I smirked, not sure whether to laugh or cry at my son's choice of words. "What does that mean?"

"You know... it means a couple of things." He hesitated a bit, but could tell that I wasn't going to let this accusation of "goofiness" slip by without an explanation.

"Go on. I'm waiting." I said impatiently.

"Well - first of all, now don't take offense, you always take offense..."

"I promise I won't get offended, even though I'm now offended that you think I always get offended."

"Okay, I'll just say it - you're too touchy."

"Too touchy?"

"Yeah, I mean you're either constantly hitting every man in the head or wrestling with the young men.
You know, normal bishop-types don't do that."

"Oh, they don't?" I questioned.

"And if it's not hitting or wrestling the men, then you're hugging or kissing all the old widows. What's up with that?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm a bit more affectionate than most. Is that a bad characteristic?"

"No, Dad. I didn't say it was bad. It's just a bit goofy." There he goes again with that word.

"Is there more?" I asked, dreading what was next to come.

"Well, yeah. You're also not straight-arrow enough. You don't toe the line. You're too rebellious, you know... too independent."

"Not straight-arrow enough? I don't toe the line? Too rebellious? Too independent?" I repeated incredulously. I thought I was a straight-arrow (as straight as a gay father can be)!

"Yeah, you know... you're not normal enough to be a bishop. You like to do your own thing, like the way you grow your hair out longer and you fight against certain things and you like to teach independent of the manuals and not always follow the rules."

"So, in your opinion, those are bad qualities for a good priesthood holder?" I probed a bit deeper for his real meaning.

"I didn't say that! I mean, I know you have a testimony and you believe in the church and all, but Dad, you're not normal, you know? I like that you're independent and willing to challenge people on things, and I like that you bend the rules and do it your own way... you're just too goofy to be a bishop."

"uh... so you're cool with me being too touchy, and too independent?"

"Yeah, Dad. Don't get me wrong. I think you're great! You're just not normal enough or boring enough to be Bishop."

"Thanks (I guess). I'll take all of this as a compliment," I added cautiously.

"You should!" he insisted.

"Glad we had this little chat, son."

"No problem. Any time, Dad."

***

So, in my normal gay way of over-analyzing things, I took from this that my son (who may suspect that I have attraction issues, but we've never discussed it), has observed in me 1) a sense of showing affection beyond the norm, and 2) a sense of rebellion or independence beyond the norm - to the point that I would be disqualified in his eyes to be "peter priesthood" enough to be called as a Bishop... both traits that may be magnified by other homosexual core characteristics.

Lessons learned:

1) You never realize how much your children watch you and what lasting impression you are leaving on them!

2) Your teenage son may be wiser than he seems.

3) Truth comes out in odd ways.

4) Be careful who you are. Your almost adult children may learn to like you after all.

5) I'm not normal and I'm too goofy... hmmm, maybe that's a good thing. The last thing I'd want to be is Bishop! :)

4 years and still here...

2010-04-14T08:07:00.003-06:00

“As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it” -- credited to Gandhi

Another year has rolled by… it’s been four years since I started this blog. Four years! And yet, here I am… still wondering what the heck I’m doing with my life. A lot of the original gang are long gone, or have moved on to greener pastures. A few are still around, but most blogs in the current community have come on the scene in the last year or so.

Like with all anniversaries, this has become a time of reflection and annual self-interrogation:

Why are you still here? Why haven’t you moved on as well? What keeps you coming back?
Why are you still trying to cross the same street? What is the hold that this blogging gig has on you? Haven’t you already said everything you need to say? Haven’t you already proven time and time again that 1) you aren’t going to fully come out of the closet, 2) you aren’t going to leave your wife and kids, 3) you aren’t going to leave the Church? I mean what’s the point – we’ve all heard it before – so stop playing with fire, stop longing for relationships that never will happen, stop seeking connections with fellow MOHOs and get on with your life! You’ve made your choice, and you’re committed to it – so get on with it why don’t you!?!

Yet, I’m still here… hanging on. I love reading and learning from and gaining insights and being connected with this community of bloggers. It makes me pause, provides needed therapy, and satisfies some kind of unrealized connection to those like me that I don’t find in my real-world existence.

I am still here because I do feel I occasionally have something to offer, a possible different perspective, and maybe a story to tell that is of worth to those following behind me on this trail of life. And maybe there is a slight chance that I have learned or am in the process of learning lessons that may be of value to those in similar circumstances and commitments (or may be of value for those who are not, and who want to stay clear of the path I’ve taken and choose another trail all together).

Anyway, time will tell how long this gig will play out, or whether this will be the last anniversary noted. I guess if I really knew where it’s all leading too, I could predict not “needing” to blog anymore… but until that day, I guess the few readers here are stuck with me… and some of you have become “family” and… well… as true family members, we are stuck together whether we’d like to or not, right?

I have been tempted to write a series of posts regarding the “lessons learned” over the last four years of blogging, and particularly over the last year as I’ve come to a direction of what I have chosen to do and how to help my relationship with my wife. Yet, it is hard to write about “lessons learned” when one doesn’t feel like one has yet learned… so maybe it should be called “lessons trying to be learned” or “lessons yet to be learned”?

Which brings me to a question: After four years of postings, is there anything you still wonder or wish to ask me?

The rules of arousal...

2010-04-10T13:24:00.006-06:00

Over at NED’s blog I commented:

…what are the "rules" about touching in non-sexual appropriate ways? What if those non-sexual "touchings" become arousing between two married MOHOs? Then what are the rules?

And what kind of "rules" should govern "male/male friendships" between married MOHOs? When do such friendships become inappropriate?

SCOTT responded:

What if those non-sexual "touchings" become arousing between two married MOHOs?

... So what if they do?

Arousal isn't a sin. Nor does arousal (necessarily) indicate that whatever you're doing is a sin. Arousal is just a physiological reaction to any of a number of things, many of them completely harmless.

I've gotten aroused when comforting a friend who was having a hard time. I was certainly not doing anything wrong, or even thinking anything wrong--and I appropriately chose to ignore whatever it was my body was trying to say and focus on giving him the comfort and support he needed.

We are taught (by society, to an extent, but especially by the church) that arousal is an indication that we're doing something wrong (unless it's with a spouse). That's one of the "rules" that should be discarded, IMO.

A better rule might be "arousal is a physiological response that is not wrong in and of itself and that doesn't need to be acted on".

I responded:

I never said or even suggested that "arousal was a sin"! I perfectly understand from many experiences that "arousal is just a physiological reaction to any of a number of things, many of them completely harmless..." What I was suggesting was that maybe arousal between two MOHO guys that are married in MOMs may consider the mutual arousal as a possible crossing-the-line rule, not a crossing-the-line sin!

Two older MOHOs in MOMs feeling such arousal between them may also signal that both are still "alive and well", which is a good thing for some of us! :)

So, I've been thinking... I think sexual arousal is a wonderful thing! I do not think it sinful. I think it is amazing… and anyone my age who still has it going on should also realize how amazing it really is!

I have been sexually aroused multiple times cuddling with my “special friends” from my mission! I was confused...

I have been sexually aroused several times simply hugging and holding my “special friends” in my ward! I was embarrassed...

I have been sexually aroused numerous times by myself! I was um... :)

I have been sexually aroused even more times with the help of my wife. It wasn’t always so easy and still is at times a lot of “work”, but we’ve finally got it figured out... I was grateful...(thank you!)

And yes, I have been sexually aroused a couple of times by a non-sexual, but bromantic encounter with a certain fellow MOHO in the community! And I was no longer confused or embarrassed or felt any guilt. I was just so happy for that magical and totally and completely natural and beautiful reaction...

And I think they are all beautifully wonderful! They are not a sin!

You know, a few years ago, when I started this blog, I would have been comsumed with angst and guilt over such a post (particularly following my previous post on conference... hey, I'm not a flat persona), but now I don't. Is that considered growth and self-acceptance, or am I way off the holding to the iron rod (no pun intended)?

And, in the spirit of the discussion on “rules”, what should be the rule for non-sexual but definite non-sinning arousal between fellow MOHOs? Particularly if you are in a MOM, or other committed relationship, what should be the rule on arousal? Should it be viewed as that proverbial line not to be crossed? Should there be any bromantic arousals permitted for MOM MOHOs outside those with their spouse? What if there are no arousals with their spouse - then what?

Insights...

2010-04-05T09:14:00.005-06:00

I did enjoy conference - I always do!

I enjoy insights and feelings that come to me as I listen to the brethren. I jotted down a few...

* As I exercise faith, it is the will of the Lord that must be obeyed. I have faith in Jesus Christ, not in the outcome that I desire.

* Sometimes I need to put the immediacy of my desires on hold for now. Without patience, I cannot know God!

* Sometimes it is in waiting, not receiving, that I grow the most.

* I need to be more spontaneous, particularly with spiritual matters in teaching my children.

* Love is a great thing. Lust, though maybe more understood as to why in my particular case, is keenly hurtful to my wife. I need to keep a better balance.

* There is no doubt: the resurrection is not just a nice hoped-for dream. Instead it is really real!

* Prayer works when it is in harmony with the spirit and the spirit prompts what I should ask.

* I need to apply every aspect of knowledge I have to the solution of my problems and then ask God to bless that application of my knowledge.

I was very much touched again by the Priesthood men choir. I was especially moved to tears by the rendition of "Hold to the Rod" done in a slower, more deliberate tempo. I was humbled as I was filled with the impression that though things aren't perfect, that I am often consumed with doubts and overcome by fears, that the Iron Rod is still within grasp.

I was blessed to attend Priesthood with my son. This may be the last in a long time for me to attend with him. I enjoyed watching him become enlivened with attentiveness and personal insights - much more so than in the past. It is so rewarding to see him grow, mature, and become an independent man.

I enjoyed observing and reveled in the male bonding "touch" between the First Presidency.

I was taught by the spirit that I need to be more humble, more patient, more loving, more spontaneous, more faithful.

Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing amazingly new or profound. Not surprising, but, I still find myself longing for something more from the Prophet, and yet, as I say that, I ask myself why I seek more when I don't do more with what I've already received.

Is it just me?

2010-04-02T09:40:00.004-06:00

Is it just me? I mean, where has the prophet gone? Over the last several months, even year, it seems to me like the prophet has been incognito. Yes, there is General Conference and the temple dedications in Draper and S. Jordan, and the comforting of Marie at the Osmond funeral, but otherwise, where has he been? Am I missing something?

Even the Church News and the Ensign give messages from the prophet that date back years, even decades, reaching back for quotes from the past - nothing current. What about recently?

Maybe we're better off with "keep the status quo" and that no news is good news. But don't we live in troubling times? Aren't there stress and strain out there that may need some prophetic direction? Yes, we've heard from other members of the twelve who have made recent statements and given direction on current topics, politics and events - but not from the prophet as I can recall.

Again, am I missing something? Or should I not worry about such mundane things. Maybe I'm just longing for Pres. Hinckley's day of media charm. Obviously, I don't pretend to know what needs to be done nor would I be presumptuous to advise the Lord on how to run His Church, but I'm hungering for some kind of assurance that the prophet isn't just satisfied to let the others do the dirty work while he quietly sits in the background.

I remember fondly my high school years when then Elder Monson, the youngest apostle, came to speak at our seminary each year at the early morning firesides before school. His children went to school there and so there was a natural tie. I remember that we anticipated the day when he would become the prophet and looked forward to his leadership.

Well, that day is here. And I'm seeking to find that same anticipation inside me today. I hope I can find what I'm looking for in this upcoming conference.

Final...

2010-03-31T07:47:00.005-06:00

Another year goes by…

And then another year, and no word from Fabrizio. It pained the RM to endure this silence. He had thought a lot about their last phone conversation and still could not believe that he was like Fabrizio. He couldn’t be. He was now serving in a bishopric. He was honored and respected as a leader of the church.

He followed Fabrizio indirectly through mutual friends in Italy. He heard things like, Fabrizio:
• has left the church completely.
• has taken up drugs.
• has dropped out of / got kicked out of medical school.
• has a boyfriend.
• has multiple boyfriends.
• has AIDS.

The RM tried writing and calling Fabrizio, but there was no response. He started corresponding with Fabrizio’s sister, Silvana and she became his primary source of information. Silvana told him that Fabrizio purposely tried to get AIDS because he wanted to die. He no longer had any will to live. He stopped eating, too. He just lost all will to care about anything.

Silvana knew how close Fabrizio and the RM were. She knew of their relationship to the point that she probably knew it was much more than the RM led to believe. She wasn’t blaming the RM for this change in her brother, but she was placing blame at the church in Italy and their lack of efforts to provide any kind of support, fellowship, brotherly love toward him – and it was killing him – literally.

The RM decided to return to Italy with his wife. He met up with Thomas and SIlvana but by the time he got there, Fabrizio wouldn’t see him, didn’t want to see him ever again…

And he didn’t… A few months later, the RM received a phone call from Silvana telling him that Fabrizio had died. The last couple of months were gut-wrenching and painful to watch her brother suffer so.

And then she shared these words:

“Do you know what his dying wish was?” she asked.

“No, tell me…” the RM replied earnestly.

“He said, softly touching my hand… um… do you think the Church would allow me to have a Mormon funeral? And I responded: I don’t know, maybe… why do you ask? And then he said: Because that is what I really want. I want you to know that I have always been a believer of the Church. I know it’s true! And you know what else… the only good thing I ever did in my life was getting baptized and then bringing the missionaries to you! The only good thing I’ve done is then baptizing my sister into the true church!”

And she wept. The RM wept.

And then she continued: “And he got his wish…”

“The Mormon funeral?”

“Yes, the Mormon funeral. He had so many people there. All those people that were so afraid to reach out to him, to love him unconditionally, to be there for him… but weren’t. They were there, honoring my brother as one of them. Where were they when he really needed them?”

The RM sobbed uncontrollably… “I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry, Silvana.”

“It’s not your fault,” she tried to comfort him. “I’m not blaming you. You live on the other side of the world – what were you supposed to do?”

“I could have loved him unconditionally as he wanted me to,” he muttered.

“You did love him unconditionally,” she demanded.

“No, … really I didn’t. I didn’t support him when he was reaching out for support. I didn’t see the pain he was feeling because of my own short-sightedness and self-loathing. No, I’m just like the rest of them… I helped to kill Fabrizio, too!”

“Stop talking that way… I know how you felt about my brother!” she inserted boldly.

“I loved your brother.”

“I know you did!”

“I’m so, so sorry I didn’t do more…”

EPILOGUE:

To think back on this now, I find it so ironic that I am posting this very personal story on this MOHO gay-Mormon blog. As tears still stain my cheeks, I am so, so sorry. I feel the pain of those words I last spoke to him. Many years since his death, these wounds are still very deep and painful to share. I have kept them hidden inside me for all of this time. It’s funny… some things can heal with time. The hurt can dissipate. The pain can subside… But not this! It still aches inside my gut. I feel responsible for watching the demise of my dear, dear friend, and not being more proactive to take steps to stop his self-destructing behavior – and why? Because I was afraid! I was too afraid of myself. I was scared of who I really was. I wouldn’t allow myself to be truthful and honest about my feelings, my attractions, my desires to be with him, to really be with him. I refused to permit myself to think that I could be gay. It was not possible! It was not true!

And yet, he knew. He always knew. He knew the first day we met. He knew that night in his bedroom – the night of our “first meaningful kiss”. He knew that night in my guest bedroom – the night before entering the MTC. He knew all along. And he was right… And I still feel such pain, such guilt, such hurt for allowing this wonderful, beautiful, kind and gentle brother to disappear and suffer such a horrific death… alone…

Would I do anything different now? Would I have the strength and courage to not be afraid? Am I doing anything for others in this situation now? Aren't I still hiding? Where is the progress? Aren't I just as pathetic now as I was then? What have I done to show that I really am sorry for not doing more and helping others to not end up in such a tragedy?

I'm not sure I like the answers...

I think of meeting him again someday and telling him how sorry I am… that he was right… that there is such a thing as a “gay Mormon” and that I am one, too. I dream of embracing him again and hoping that he’ll forgive me and he’ll allow me to kiss him… to kiss him one more time.

Chapter 3...

2010-03-30T07:41:00.004-06:00

Another year slipped by…

The scene is set: Fabrizio didn’t make it through the first year of his mission. He was sent home for behavior “unbecoming” a missionary. The RM started receiving calls. At first they were infrequent and then slowly became more frequent until they were almost daily. Fabrizio tried to put a good spin on his “being sent home”. Initially he explained that his dad was really sick and because he’s a non-member, the church decided to send him home to be with his family and take care of his parents. Though that didn’t sound completely true, the RM went with it and didn’t push for the real story.

But then, over the course of the following months, more and more came out. Fabrizio endured a nasty and wrenching disciplinary action where he was excommunicated from the church for homosexuality. He was devastated, and cried into the phone. Hours of phone calls and some letters passed between the two (note: this predates the Internet and emails). It was an agonizing period for both. And it was agonizing as well for the RM’s spouse. Every time Fabrizio would call, the cloud of doubt hung over the marriage like a brooding winter’s storm. The RM ached for his friend, his heart passionately longing to help, but what was he to do? What could he do being so far away.

He tried to offer hope and encouraged Fabrizio where he could and tried to keep things positive. Fabrizio continued to attend church and even attended missionary conferences and young adult events across the country (leaving his home stake where word was getting out about his excommunication and the reasons behind it, and being sent home early from his mission and the entire stigma that goes with it). But, eventually, it was too much. The signs of being ostracized
were overwhelming any attempt at reconciling the differences he was feeling between the church he loved with all his heart and the person that he was inside.

The calls became less frequent and more distant. Fabrizio started being more cryptic in his language.

One day he called and simply left a phone number and told the RM to call it. He didn’t understand but then hung up and called the number… it was the help line from AFFIRMATION, a support group for “gay Mormons”.

The RM was confused and called Fabrizio back:

“A support line for gay Mormons?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, gay Mormons”, Fabrizio quietly but firmly restated those words! This was the first time that the two were using “gay” and “Mormon” together in a sentence.

“But, there is no such thing as a gay Mormon”, the RM insisted… “either you are “gay” or you are “Mormon”. You can’t be both. They don’t exist!”

There was silence on the other end. The RM could tell that Fabrizio was crying. He could tell that something was terribly going wrong between them.

Finally Fabrizio replied… “I thought you would understand… I really thought of all the people that I know and love, you would understand!”

“I can’t go there,”
the RM responded with a bit of shaky uncertainty in his voice. “I just can’t get my head around it. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “gay Mormon”. Are you suggesting that I am gay…. like you?”

“Only time will tell. Only you can know for yourself… but… I think you know what I’m saying, my friend. One day you will come to realize that you and I are the same kind of people. We love the same kind of people… the same kind of young men. “

“I… can’t…”

Fabrizio kept talking… “I’ve seen your interaction with the missionaries first hand. I know how you look at them, love them, care for them more than your marriage.”

“But…”

“And I’ve seen the way you act around me, get excited. Remember our kiss? You are gay, my brother. You are a gay Mormon!”

“I can’t accept this! I won’t accept this. This is not right. This is not true. Sure, I have attachments to guys. Sure, I love you, but as a brother, not as a lover… I love my wife!”

“I’m sure you do… and that is what’s going to be very tough for you. Mark my words… the day will come when you will face the music as I have. Someday, you’ll be reaching out for help. I hope someone will be there for you when that day comes.”

“I’m here for you… I’ll always be here for you.”

“I wish I could believe that. But, just as all the others, as it comes down to “gay” or “Mormon” you’ll leave me behind, too, unless you face the fact that you are just like me.”

“I’m not like you!” The RM yelled passionately into the phone. “I’m not you, Fabrizio! I do not believe these things. I can’t support what you are saying. I don’t want to have this conversation anymore!”

He hung up the phone violently. Months passed by with just a letter or note. No more phone calls. Fabrizio was becoming more and more distant. And the RM didn’t reach out to him anymore...

(to be continued)

Chapter 2...

2010-03-29T09:14:00.008-06:00

Fast forward a couple of years…

Fabrizio and the RM continued to write and call each other frequently. The feelings from that “first kiss” are ever present in their conversations. Nevertheless, a lot has happened and yet everything is still the same. At this point in the story, the RM is now happily married, having fallen in love with the most incredibly wonderful woman who makes his heart beat faster every time he's around her. Their mutual best friend is also happily married now and has a young daughter. Fabrizio sees life passing by and changing quickly in others and wonders what change is in store for him. He decides to suspend his medical school studies and submit his papers to accept a mission call. Though he is a bit older (23), and with no support from his parents, he feels it is the right time to do this.

The RM can’t help but wonder if Fabrizio is doing this because he has an urgent desire to preach the gospel, or whether he feels life is passing him by, and knowing that he has no prospects for ever marrying, decides this would be a good filler of time as he figures out what to do next. The two friends talk about these things, and the RM encourages him to serve a mission as he feels prompted to do so by the spirit. Yet, deep down, he is worried for Fabrizio. Something feels wrong – like a deep sadness inside him.

A few months later, he receives his call and is coming to the MTC in Provo! At this time the RM is still teaching in the MTC and so naturally they are excited to see each other again. Since he has no family in Utah and is flying in from out of the country, the RM naturally becomes his “family”. Their embrace is electrical as they fall into each other’s arms again.

Over the course of a few days before reporting to the MTC, they go see movies together, go shopping, attend the temple and discuss the joys of the eternal plan - and just hang out, but mainly just talk. In some ways it is so magical to be together again and to share these anxious moments and renew feelings for each other with physical touch. In other ways, everything is different. Being married now changes everything. And being in America changes even more everything! The touchy-feely-ness seems less appropriate and even wrong here, while at Fabrizio’s home it felt completely right. Why was that? And with the RM’s wife watching the two of them interact, questions arise as to why Fabrizio was always sitting in the RM’s lap or nestled on his side in a snuggle on the couch? This made the RM self-aware of the inappropriateness of their behavior together and an uneasiness settled over their marital bliss.

On the last night before entering the MTC, Fabrizio was doing his last packing and organizing. The RM came into the guest bedroom and the two talked late into the night.

“You need to be good!” the RM warmed his affectionate friend.

“You mean, I need to be more American?” Fabrizio asked jokingly.

“You know what I mean! This isn’t Italy anymore!” the RM emphasized. “You need to be careful about being too affectionate. Some of your companions may not understand you.”

“Do you understand me?” he stared into his eyes, now full of tears. There was a knowingness about those words that hit with force like a blow square in the gut from a jr. high bully.

“You know I do.”

“Then, why are you pulling back from me? Why isn’t it the same as we were together in Italy?”

“You know why… I’m married now. Things are different. And you’re going to be a missionary tomorrow, and that makes things different as well. Rules and obedience and all that stuff.”

“Yeah, I understand, I guess… But is it really different between us?” he pondered out loud - uttering almost silently with a heavy melancholy tone.

The RM hesitated for a long time. He reached for Fabrizio’s hands as they fell together on the bed in an embrace.

“No, not really… deep down, nothing has changed,” the RM sighed as he held his confused friend, feeling just as confused and conflicted.

They kissed each other’s cheek and forehead, but this time the RM felt that Fabrizio wanted more, but he wasn’t prepared to give him more.

He pulled apart… “You’re a missionary now! Remember who you are and who you represent!”

Though he wanted to more than anything, he just couldn’t kiss him again the way they did in Italy. His sleeping wife in the next room would not understand. He didn’t understand! So many thoughts and feelings raced through his mind and heart. What was happening? Why this torture? This was so confusing. He couldn’t do it.
The RM broke the embrace and stood up. Fabrizio stood up before him. They stared at each other holding hands.

“I love you!” Fabrizio sobbed.

“I love you, too!” the RM struggled to get out through tears. “Now go to bed… you’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”

The tension in the room was enormous. Both young men were so conflicted by the contrasts of duty verses passion, right verses wrong, the spirit of the law verses the letter of the law. Was this wrong to love such a boy as he did? Why were these feelings still haunting him? He was “happily” married now, no? So, what was going on?

NOTE: The worst is yet to come… there wasn’t going to be a Chapter 3, let alone a Chapter 2, but there is more of the story yet to be told.

First meaningful kiss...

2010-03-24T08:04:00.007-06:00

The most significant and meaningful kiss of my life was the first kiss I gave the woman that became my wife! She was and is the only woman that I have kissed in a romantic, meaningful way. That kiss was a miracle that changed my life forever. This post, however, is not an account of that miracle kiss. I have debated long and hard about actually posting this entry. It is something very personal to me, but something that occurred nearly three decades ago (after my mission but before meeting my wife), and something that also changed me forever.

In the end, I have felt this was a good exercise (thanks Abe) to get down on paper and maybe it will help you to peek into my world and glimpse a bit more of who I am...

My first meaningful kiss...

Once there was a recently returned missionary who, within the first year of coming home, returned back to his mission field to attend the wedding of a dear friend he had become very close to during his mission. In route to attending this wedding, this particular RM detoured through a city he had served in to meet up with another very dear friend. This friend and the RM were about the same age and really close, maybe closer than what would be considered “appropriate” between two young men for the typical homophobic member of the church coming from a Utah perspective. These two were very “touchy” and affectionate with each other, and it was obvious to everyone that they liked each other a lot – in a brotherly way. However, because this was not the U.S, such things were not particularly unheard of and no one really said much about their relationship thinking the RM had simply adopted the cultural norms of the friend.

As it worked out, the RM and this friend, Fabrizio, spent a few days together prior to the wedding of their mutual friend. Much of this time was spent alone, on a train, in his car, walking around, eating out, and hanging out. They had a great time together and were really enjoying the “freedom” of their relationship as two friendly brothers instead of as a friend and a missionary with a name tag, companion, and mission rules to obey, holding hands, hugging and being in “touch” with each other almost constantly. They shared deep thoughts in lengthy discussions, both spiritual and otherwise, and there was a real sense of bonding between them. The RM felt something for Fabrizio and Fabrizio sensed it and knew maybe more than the RM on what was going on inside his American friend, but didn’t really say anything about that particular subject.

On their last night together, they returned to his parents’ home. His mother and father and a brother and sister were there and they had a fabulous dinner together with warm conversation and great spiritual connections. The RM felt like he was not a visitor or stranger in this home. In fact, he felt just the opposite – he had come home!

That night, the two went to his bedroom to make sleeping arrangements. There was only one twin bed in the room. Fabrizio’s mother set up a spare mattress on the floor next to the bed, and supplied her son with some extra bedding and kissed us both good. The two shut the door and smiled with a sigh. They giggled a bit at the whole scenario and argued between them over who was going to sleep in the bed and who was going to sleep on the floor. The RM insisted on taking the floor and Fabrizio wouldn’t hear of it and they broke into a bit of a wrestling match and collapsed together on the mattress on the floor. They talked for what seemed like late into the night while holding each other and then finally settled down to reconciling themselves to needing some sleep.

The physical attraction and tension between the two was beyond anything that the RM had felt before in his 21 years living in America. Fabrizio turned off the lights and they proceeded to cautiously strip down to their underwear, Fabrizio with his tighty-whities and the RM with his garments. There was enough indirect light coming through the windows that they could still see each other clearly. The two smiled and then came to the twin bed and cuddled together, holding each other. The RM breathed in the moment as he held his special “brother”. He had never felt so amazingly whole and happy and real.

Finally, Fabrizio slithered down to the mattress on the floor as they whispered “good night” to each other. For a moment, they both were still. No one spoke. The summer air though silent, thick and heavy remained suspended around them increasing the sense of tension. The RM listened to the breathing of Fabrizio. He was feeling so excited and wanted something more – “a simple “good night” was not good enough for such an occasion, no?” he thought…

He slipped down on top of his friend and with a bit of abandonment, the two started kissing. At first it was just a peck on the cheek, and then the other, and then a bit on the forehead and the neck, but then they kissed a single, meaningful kiss on the lips. It was magical and full of those proverbial fireworks!! Both were obviously excited and each knew and felt just how much. To the RM’s surprise, Fabrizio pulled back and, looking directly at the "excitement" under his garments the RM was wearing, said something like: “um… as much as I’d like to, maybe we’d better not continue this, if you know what I mean? I mean, maybe you should remember who you are and we’d be better off if you were up in that bed and me remaining down here.”

This was strange hearing such caution from the fearless and usually instigating Fabrizio. He was always the encouraging one, the affectionate one, then initiator of touch. He was the teacher and the RM was the pupil. The RM was a bit embarrassed, and acknowledged instantly that though he really didn’t want to, he recognized it was probably the appropriate thing to do – the only thing that he should do and there really was no room for arguing. A bit of shame had entered that dark bedroom on that summer’s night. So, he slipped up to the twin bed, carefully rolled over, and earnestly tried to gain control of his racing heart and emotions, not understanding what was happening to him. What was happening? Wasn’t this what this cultural brotherhood between them, this “special bond” was all about? Why could he not go any further? Did he just cross a line he covenanted not to cross? He hungered for more, but that was it – there was nothing more.

The next morning, not a lot was said between the two of them as they grabbed a quick breakfast. Nothing was mentioned about “the kiss” and the associated “mutual excitement”. The RM soon had to catch a train, and with a quick “all-knowing and all-saying” hug between the two of them and a meaningful tear streaking his cheek, he slipped out the door, down the stairs and out of the country.

As for the “rest of the story”… well, yes, there is another chapter, but that is to be shared on another day. Needless to say, this event, this “first meaningful kiss” between them, was never, ever forgotten. Something changed inside both of them. They both knew it, but neither discussed it, or the ramifications of it, for a very, long time.

The good and bad of living passionately...

2010-03-22T08:11:00.006-06:00

Yesterday, I did a stupid, immature, and inappropriate thing. Something happened that I don't think I've ever done before. Maybe I'm just a pathetic "drama-queen", but I couldn't take it anymore. I stormed out of Priesthood Meeting, and not quietly, slamming the door behind me on the way out! I'm not sure how I can go back (at least not immediately) and I'm in the quorum leadership!

It really came down to the instructor (my neighbor that loves to push my buttons about homosexuality) belittling my comment that I made pointing out a different position than he was espousing, and then telling me that I should "listen better" and maybe then I would correctly understand.

Passion is a great way to live! I feel passionate about many things, including my beliefs in gospel principles. But, like any great passionate person, the good passions (love, affection, connecting and caring, risking etc.) are countered with bad passions (anger, combativeness, ease to take offense, etc.). I feel and am grateful to have feelings! Much rather be a feeling person than a non-feeling lump.

But why now? Why did I explode, and do so so dramatically? I can't help but feel my insecurities of who I am are at the foundation of this personal battle I have with this particular instructor.

I couldn't sleep last night... so I wrote the following to the group leader:

Dear Brother ________:

I've had a rotten Sunday! I've allowed what happened at Priesthood Meeting today to fester within me and I'm still feeling upset about it, and I can't get to sleep without unloading, so I'm going to unload on you.

First of all, regarding "passion", I guess it can be a good thing and a bad thing. I've learned from experience that as passionate as I am about some things in a good sense, I've also got a bad temper and I allow my passion to overwhelm me in a bad sense, too. I recognize this and am trying to curb my taking offense so easily - obviously I've got a lot to still work on.

But I am currently feeling like I am more of a liability to you than an asset. My dramatic exit from the quorum meeting was immature and inappropriate. I know that. Yet, it was how I felt at the moment. You see, I've had run-ins with Brother______ several times in the past, and every time I come away with feeling like I was made to be stupid or feel inferior, and he coming off as omniscient and superior. His arrogance and superiority push my buttons and I erupt. I am sorry for that. What I am not sorry for is being told that what I feel passionately about, having felt the Spirit personally teach me in my personal scripture study, is not of value, and that I should "listen better" to his instructions. This is insufferable. Many times with lessons in the past I have felt to say something but bit my tongue. I guess I should have bit harder this time.

That said, I know I am in the wrong. I am the one that lacks humility. I am the one who takes things too seriously. I am the one who doesn't see the humor in such exchanges. As such, I don't know that I feel like I can stand in front of the brethren with any kind of authority as part of the group leadership, and I feel unworthy or unable to do so. Maybe it is time for me to move on and slip into the back row or disappear from quorum discussions all together. I don't know... maybe after conference if I conduct in April, all will be forgotten and we just move on. Fortunately, I'll be out of town next time that Brother______ teaches so that gives me two months to heal my bruised pride and ego.

Bottom line... I'm sorry for my outburst, but I'm not sorry for feeling passionate about things.

Thanks for listening,

I can't help but feel that something has changed within me. I'm a fighter, but good grief, I've got to pick better battles...

Dead dreams...

2010-03-17T07:46:00.004-06:00

"After opening on Broadway last year, The Light in the Piazza picked up a reputation as a musical to admire but not necessarily adore. (That dichotomy was evident at the 2005 Tonys, where it picked up six awards, more than any show, including Best Score? but not Best Musical). Its major virtues and less-than-wholly satisfying elements have all been transferred more or less intact to a worthy road production. To really love this show — and, befitting a show that celebrates flowering, impetuous romance, it does have its lovers — you probably have to fall into a unique cross-section of the theatergoing population. On the one hand, its elegant, unpatronizing, and tricky score has a serious appeal for musical sophisticates who like pondering the fine points of melody and counterpoint as they (try to) hum. On the other hand, to buy into the show's romanticism, you kind of have to just go with it and stop thinking about the ethical dilemmas that the plot sets up and then almost abandons. If you can manage that balancing act, you might be among the significant minority who find this Light heavenly." -- Entertainment Weekly.

Over the weekend, I attended a wonderful interpretation of "Light in the Piazza" at Weber State. It was all that a romantic musical should be. And maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic at heart to fit in that "significant minority" who find it heavenly. Is it a bad thing to be a hopeless romantic? Is it wrong to not let things go?

I can't get out of my mind a certain quote that has paraphrased into my mind as:

"Be careful with your dead dreams. In Italy, they tend to come alive..."

Isn't it pathetic to live a life full of misgivings? I'm feeling quite nostalgic lately, longing for something I can't have, a time and place that has passed, and along with it, opportunities and authenticity muddled, love lost.

More on that to come...

Making lemonade...

2010-03-15T08:03:00.005-06:00

An interesting quote from yesterday's Gospel Doctrine:

"The ability to turn everything into something good appears to be a godly characteristic. Our Heavenly Father always seems able to do this. Everything, no matter how dire, becomes a victory to the Lord. Joseph, although a slave and wholly undeserving of this fate, nevertheless remained faithful to the Lord and continued to live the commandments and made something very good of his degrading circumstances. People like this cannot be defeated."

-- Hartman Rector, Jr. Oct 1972.

The context was a discussion of Joseph being sold into Egypt, then eventually thrown into prison. Bad things happen to good people, but good things happen in bad circumstances, as good people continue doing the best they can and not lose the faith or the will to keep keepin' on.

Though I don't equate my homosexuality with being a "dire" or "degrading" circumstance, I still see it as a challenge for a person in my situation. That said, I remain confident in the Plan and that someone has a hand in my life with a perspective and understanding and view much more vast that I have. That said, I remain confident also that good things can happen BECAUSE of this circumstance and situation, not despite it as I work to do the best I can.

"What ifs" : a recent chat...

2010-03-10T07:10:00.009-07:00

As a weird coincidence, especially following the thoughts behind my most recent post where I was contemplating the "what ifs" of whether choices or decisions were made differently some 30 years ago... I had this interesting exchange with Thomas last night. I think it reflects growth on my part... for a change, I'm the calm one, the less angsty one, and I see that as a good thing. (Thomas, for those who haven't followed, is a very dear friend that I met and fell in love with on my mission - I've posted several times about him, but not recently).

I had a hard time sleeping last night. I kept thinking about our chat. I've decided to share it here in hopes of receiving some feedback. Here's a translated version of our chat:

ME: So, what’s up?

THOMAS: Life here is about the same – nothing new to reveal to you. It’s nice to hear you say that you’re doing better. It’s about time that you found a bit of tranquility.

ME: But you, too, no?

THOMAS: Life is strange! At times I don’t understand why certain things happen that stain or mark us for the rest of our lives – forever!

ME: Like what?

THOMAS: I often think about things and wish I knew more assuredly the answers. Instead, I don’t succeed in knowing why certain things happen. So, I often become melancholy as I can’t accept the reality dealt to me.

ME: I know what you mean… so what would you change if you could?

THOMAS: If I could return back and do it all over, I would change lots of things.

ME: There are times when I have felt more at peace, more tranquil in my life. I still am confused with doubts that return and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hold my “reality” together. It scares me, but at the same time I'm at peace. I have thought of how things would have been different if I had chosen a different path back then. But, we can’t turn back the clock, no?

THOMAS: Unfortunately, no. The errors committed you can’t repair anymore. It’s like this: When you’re up against a dilemma and you don’t know what to do, it becomes difficult to choose if you go here or there, especially if you don’t have the right knowledge of the thing you’re choosing.

ME: Okay? And so…

THOMAS: Well, this is what I’d do if I went back in time: I would be less naive and less good, and instead, more rational and less emotional. Being naive, good, emotional… these characteristics haven’t served me well – they haven’t helped me at all! And I wouldn’t have the traditions of religion on my shoulders telling me to live so rigidly.

ME: However, you can’t be less naïve without experience and knowledge. And those require you to make tough choices. To be less naïve, you have to face your dilemma!

THOMAS: In fact…

ME: So, the important thing for me right now is to not worry so much about what could have happened, the “what if” scenario of the past – I just need to go forward from here from where I am…. And I want to add: I am grateful to have known the “Thomas” that was good, and kind, and naïve, and emotional! That boy touched me very profoundly probably more so than a rational or less emotional boy ever could!
:)

THOMAS: You’re sweet! But how has it served you knowing this “Thomas” if you have NOT been with him all these years? What was the point of knowing and feeling and loving each other as we did, as we do? Good grief, we’ve lived our whole lives separated from each other!

ME: I know, I know, but I’m still grateful for the decisions we’ve made. We both have families and beautiful children. You have two beautiful daughters. What would have been is just a dream.

THOMAS: A dream… Do you know what I dream?

ME: No, what?

THOMAS: I dream often of what it would have been like if we chose our hearts 30 years ago!

ME: And that would be to do what?

THOMAS: You know…

ME: No, I want to hear you say it…

THOMAS: I dream that we would have lived passionately together as partners for the past 30 years! Living together, loving each other.

ME: Nice dream. I thought that was my dream, not yours! I’ve had that very dream as well. But do you think we’d have been happy?

THOMAS: I don’t know… but then at least all of this emotion and love for you would have served a purpose. What’s the point?

ME: I don’t know either. Maybe it’s best to leave it in the realm of dreams. Sometimes reality isn’t as beautiful and neat and perfect. I’d rather fantasize with you about the “what if”, but be grateful for the choices we've made, and for the here and now – that I knew you once – that I had a dear, dear friend and that I will always love you for touching my life.

THOMAS: Why do you have to live so far away? I need you here. I need you to hold me.

ME: I’m always here. I’m still holding you.

****

Any ideas? What do you think? What's going on? Why are our rolls reversed: why is he now longing for our relationship to rekindle and I'm at peace where I am?

So, where would you be?...

2010-03-08T08:57:00.002-07:00

In Church yesterday, the question was asked: "So, where would you be if you didn't have the Gospel in your life?"

My immediate thought was: "Duh!...I'd be living with a gay partner somewhere in Europe without a doubt!!!"

The responses were typical from the class members, with one even trying to be funny: "I'd get a 10% raise and Sundays free!"

The teacher went on to discuss the blessings of the Gospel in our lives and that we are a happier and "better" people because of it and therefore we should share it with others - so why wouldn't we?

And I sat on the back row pondering: "Am I really better and happier? Is someone who is living in Europe with a gay partner any less happy or better?"

And then I thought that indeed, I would most likely be in Europe as my ancestors would not have joined the Church and immigrated to the United States. And if I am who I am, I most likely would be in a gay relationship and I would imagine it to be a committed one. I would like to think that it would be one full of love, but who knows - maybe I really would be miserable and a thug of some kind.

So, am I better? Am I happier?

I do know that this isn't a fair question. We can't play the "what if" games. I've done my share of that, and it goes nowhere very quickly. I can't second guess the choices made, or the choices of my parents and their parents who help to make me who I am. I can only go forward from where I am. And where I am is being a gay man who is a husband and father who believes in the gospel... and is happy and better for it.

And yet, I still wonder - where would I be without these blessings / struggles / conflicts / choices in my life?

So where would you be?