Lightening Up

Courtesy of Spider, a meme.

1. Thank the person that tagged you.
2. List 5 random/strange/weird things about you.
3. Tag 5 other people.

Thank you, Spider, for tagging me. And while I'm at it, thank you too for gently urging me out of my comfort zone as it relates to the homeless. How wonderful to inspire us to be better people and reach out to others.

Now, five r/s/w things about me:

1. When I went away to college I was horrified to learn I had been mispronouncing the word "mischievous" (yes, I said miss-chee-vee-us...ugh!) and the name "Genevieve" (you got it, gin-uh-veev...another ugh, although my father worked with someone who spelled and pronounced her name that way). It's really embarrassing to divulge this; pretty amazing considering other things I have so blithely admitted to you.
2. I love sandwiches made with (large amounts of) Underwood's Deviled Ham on white bread with lots of mayonnaise. This is real comfort food for me.
3. I'm horrified when I see the "innards" of elevators - like when they are being serviced with the door open but the elevator half below floor level. I also hate to see a dismantled escalator. I imagine being crushed and mashed in the steel machinery, and it reminds me of a dream I had right after surgery. But I digress...
4. When I am on a highrise balcony or rooftop, in a highrise with windows that open or on a cliff, I have an overwhelming urge to jump. It's not like feeling suicidal, just a very strong desire to leap. My grandmother told me that one of her sisters also described this same urge..
5. One of the strangest things I have witnessed is ball lightning. I was at work during a thunderstorm. An intensely bright glowing fiery basketball-sized object appeared floating near the ceiling inside a corridor lined with floor to ceiling windows. Two other people also witnessed it. We stared in astonishment as it moved in our direction for a few seconds then flashed with an electrical-sounding pop and disappeared.

Rather than tag I am going to invite any lurkers who might feel so inclined to leave a comment and participate in this meme. "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. Getting to like you, getting to hope you like me." Oops, now I'm channelling Woe.

Have a great day everyone.

Flip

Today, Relieved of the Bondage of Self

Dedicated to Tom J.

When I first started this post I had no idea it would take this form. As I wrote, it dawned on me that the format must have been inspired by Tom's latest post, "Rowing Upstream," which I read last night just before retiring. I don't know how you do it day in and day out, Tom.

The other day my kids pointed out that were I running a radio station, this month its tagline would be “all Sarah McLachlan, all the time.”

I have posted before about obsessing on music and subsequently relating it to my life. This phenomenon helps me connect my current life with my unconscious. I never know which artist and / or song may pop to the surface at any time, but sooner or later I realize how it relates to what is going on in my life.

This morning Sarah arrived via “Angel.” I’ve loved the song for a long time but more for the emotion evoked by the music than the words. Today driving to work, as if for the first time, I heard the words, “The storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies, that you make up for all that you lack…”

I started the song over. My mind grabbed it and ran.

Sarah: “Spend all your time waiting for that second chance,
For the break that will make it ok.”

Flip: (Three years ago, at home. A weeknight at 2:00 AM, sitting in his dark study lit by the glow of the computer monitor, drunk, exhausted, empty. Clicking, clicking. Surfing porn, searching the chat rooms, Craig’s List, Gay.com, Bareback.com. Where is Mr. Right?)

Sarah: “There’s always some reason to feel not good enough,
And it's hard at the end of the day.
I need some distraction, oh beautiful release,”

Alcohol, addressing Flip: “I’m yours. Trust me, you’re mine.”

Sarah: “Memories seep from my veins.
They may be empty and weightless and maybe,
I’ll find some peace tonight.”

Flip: (A different night three years ago, at home. Bedtime for the family. Flip is passed out on the sofa again, his wife and kids don’t even try to rouse him this time. They, including the dog, just leave the room to go to bed, leaving the lights and TV on. Maybe he’ll wake up when the test pattern comes on. Probably not.)

Sarah: “In the arms of an Angel, fly away from here,
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear.
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie,
You're in the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here.

So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn
There’s vultures and thieves at your back.”

World, addressing Flip: “Faggot. Fairy. Homo. Sinner. Cocksucker. Wimp. Pussy.”

Sarah: “The storm keeps on twisting,”

Flip: (Reading from Alcoholics Anonymous aka The Big Book page 82): “The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others.”

Sarah: “…you keep on building the lies
Tthat you make up for all that you lack”

Flip: (Continues to read from The Big Book): “Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil.”

Sarah: "It don't make no difference, escaping one last time,
It's easier to believe,
In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees."

Flip: (Late last year. 3:00 AM. A dark, dirty, forbidding city street. Figures lurking in alleys, peering from doorways. He walks and walks after another sad, empty encounter. Exhilarated. Suicidal. Headed back to the hotel to shower, shave and re-enter the world. He addresses the demons.) “Please help me. Help the people I love. Kick me. Kill me. Throw me away. I need it. I deserve it. I’m afraid to do it myself. Please do it for me.”

Sarah: “In the arms of an Angel, fly away from here,
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear.
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie,
In the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here.”

Flip: (This morning. saying the Third Step prayer from the Big Book) “God, I offer myself to thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do thy will always!”

Sarah: "You're in the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here.

Take care,

Flip

(Out of the) Closet Man - A Brief Unauthorized Reflection

(Second post in a row with a disclaimer. Wonder what that means.)
The opinions reflected below are my own and are based solely on Internet communications over the past few weeks. Although it is extremely rude, I’m posting this without (Oot) Closet Man's approval but will un-post at his request. Oh, and I watch too much Discovery Channel when I’m on the road.

I love (Oot) Closet Man, aka Drew. He is one no-nonsense guy though definitely not in an unfeeling way. In fact he’s very in touch with his feelings, but he doesn’t wallow in them. They wash over him, he feels and acknowledges them, and then he moves on. He doesn’t rush them but neither does he cling to them.

Drew reminds me of a Coast Guard cutter in action. Moving always forward through the storm, sometimes quickly sometimes slowly. Constantly learning; adjusting course and speed according to whatever the elements serve up. At times disappearing, seemingly capsized. But just when you think all is lost, bobbing up, righting itself and surging forward.

The Coast Guard cutter takes care of others, but in order to do so it takes care of itself. It stays afloat and on course. No nonsense. Lots of feeling.

I’ve learned a lot from Drew in the short time I’ve known him. Thanks Drew.

Have a great day everybody.

Flip

PS I also love (Oot)Closet Man’s blog and his audience. He attracts some very interesting comments that sometimes get me riled up. I’ve got a few unauthorized reflections about a recent one but time is short today so that will have to wait.

PPS I'm not playing favorites. I love all you guys. I was originally going to post about the aforementioned comment, but decided to spend today's time writing about Drew instead. Will get to the comment later.

Clarifications and Obfuscations

Reader beware! I’m entering the dangerous territory of telling you things I think might clarify my past and future posts. Please consider items that enlighten or inform. Please ignore items that obfuscate or distract.

The fine print: I’m always open to challenges and / or questions at any time about anything. The items below are based solely on my experience and beliefs. They are not intended as pronouncements of what is proper or right for anyone else. These are current as of today only and are subject to change at any time without prior notice. Cash value $.008.

That being said, here we go:

• I want to stay married to my wife.
• I question that decision every day.
• I’m slowly learning to be confident in my own beliefs without feeling the need to make anyone agree with me. The blog world is helping me with that.
• I believe being bisexual is possible and sometimes that’s how I define myself.
• I believe sexual preferences can be fluid throughout a day, week, month, year or lifetime.
• My preferred term for myself is “queer” and I don’t mean it in a pejorative way.
• I’m wrong more often than I’m right and am lucky to realize that now.
• I’m an attention whore and I blog to both fulfill and fight that need.
• I love to make people laugh.
• I believe in a power greater than myself that I sometimes call God or my Higher Power (HP).
• My concept of my HP is fluid.
• Courtesy of Hypoxic I currently imagine my HP looks and acts like Willie Nelson.
• When God speaks to me directly I don’t listen because the voice sounds too much like my own.
• I do try to listen for God speaking to me through other people and events in the world around me.
• Seeing a shrink and studying Carl Jung’s theories on my own are helping me understand myself better.
• I’m currently most interested in Jung's theory of synchronicity and how this relates to my concept of God.
• I pray every day and believe in the power of prayer.
• Two years ago I would have dismissed anyone who prays as a crackpot.
• I’m not aligned with any religion, but if and when it happens I will begin with Liberal Quakerism.
• St. Francis of Assisi is my hero.
• My mental and emotional stability are dependent (among other things) upon: following the suggestions of Alcoholics Anonymous, my AA inspired spiritual beliefs including my HP, psychotherapy, psychotropic drugs, my family, my friends (including you), blogging, my dog and my job. Sometimes I’m resentful and/or ashamed that I need so much help, but usually I’m grateful that I have it.
• I am and always have been an aviation geek.
• When I start to question the existence of magic in the world I look at a picture of a 747 lifting off the ground.
• This quote from page 552 in Alcoholics Anonymous akaThe Big Book summarizes my current goal in life: “The only real freedom a human being can ever know is doing what you ought to do because you want to do it.”

That’s more than enough for now.

Thanks for sticking with me. Feedback is welcome.

Have a great day!

Flip

Negative Space

I know a bit about art. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of negative space. Occasionally I draw. One of my favorite exercises is drawing the negative space. Creating an impression of what is there by focusing on and drawing what isn’t there.

My wife and I met jointly with a counselor for a couple of months after I had announced my so-far-unfulfilled intention to move out. Even with the horrible rift between us, in these sessions we always sat close together on the couch holding hands as though clinging to each other for dear life. We were facing a common enemy; the genie I had invited out of the bottle.

Let me be blunt. Initially I arranged for this joint counseling because I thought it would "help" my wife deal with my official coming out and subsequent departure from her life. My coming out counselor (a different person from our joint counselor) had told me that it was critical to orchestrate my coming out to cause the least possible emotional and financial damage to my wife and children. This was good advice that I focused on too much in order to assuage my guilt about what I was planning. (Surprise, surprise, as the drama played out my wife was not entirely appreciative of the way I was showing my compassion and love.) As the joint counseling sessions - and my aborted “coming out moving out” – progressed, out of fear I would not admit to my wife the original purpose in arranging our counseling.

I set off numerous hand grenades during these joint sessions. Among my revelations: for the first time in my life having sex with someone (someones!) other than my wife, not always practicing the safest of sex in those encounters, often begging off sex with my wife in order to avoid exposing her to some of the critters I might have caught in the encounters (how noble), and the fact that another man and I were deeply in love with each other.

I made these into confession-sessions out of fear. I wanted protection; a referee. No surprise that I was often terrified for the session to be over. Another week alone facing my wife's anger, pain, sadness and grief as she tried to process each revelation of betrayal and what it meant for her.

In one of these sessions the counselor asked me to describe my ideal life. This was a fair question for which I had no answer. I couldn't even fake an answer. What did I want my life to be? I was completely baffled. I only knew what I didn't want my life to be. I didn’t want more lies, more stifled feelings, more hiding, more nights in front of the computer drinking and cruising for Mr. Right, more secret liaisons. If the hole in me got any bigger I could not survive, but I had no idea how or with what it could be filled.

For 30+ years I had concentrated on the negative space. That’s all I could see. That’s all I could feel.

Today, Gratitude

AA makes it crystal clear that rigorous honesty is critical to my continued sobriety. Sobriety gives me a chance to live.

My shrink, the esteemed Dr. M, has been reminding me since I started seeing him two years ago that it takes a lot of energy to live a double life.

When he first said it I agreed wholeheartedly. I was almost totally closeted, married with children and had a secret boyfriend on the side whom I was partially supporting financially. I was run ragged and at the end of my rope. My only relief was drinking and that was working less and less.

As I came out to family and close friends, sobered up and shed the boyfriend I wondered why Dr. M periodically kept mentioning the double life / energy thing. I assumed he was not paying sufficient attention to the progress I was making. After all, I had gotten to a point where my only complication was occasional anonymous (as safe as possible) sex with men. I was almost not living a double life. I was almost honest.

Rigorous honesty. I hate rigorous honesty. It means I don’t get to have my way. For example, I can’t be the husband and father I want to be and still have the excitement of sex with men. It’s been over a month since I’ve felt that excitement. The desire is not gone, but the obsession has been lifted for now, for today.

Rigorous honesty. I love rigorous honesty. Two days ago my wife and I had a long conversation with one of our children about the importance of honesty. For the first time in about four years I got to fully participate in one of those "honesty" conversations as the father and husband I want to be. I could focus on the conversation without the distraction of my hypocrisy. I could focus on my child. On my family.

Rigorous honesty. Growing up. What a wonderful gift I have been given. Today.

Have a great today.

Flip

Possession

I believe that like dreams, music is a window into my unconscious. Often I become obsessed with a specific artist and/or song, listening repeatedly sometimes for days at a time. Even when I am not actually listening, the music is with me day and night. Initially I have no clue why I am obsessed with a particular song. Eventually it may come to me.

My most recent musical obsession is “Possession” by Sarah McLachlan. I have been in the throes of a Sarah obsession for weeks, moving slowly from song to song. Yesterday “Possession” took center stage. She wrote it from the perspective of her real life stalker. As usual I had no insight into what, if anything, this might mean for me. I've certainly never been stalked.

It dawned on me a few minutes ago.

In recovery it helps me to imagine what I call my disease (alcoholism and the underlying emotional and mental sickness) as a living person or thing. I often visualize a shark or superhuman person / being that never sleeps. It is infinitely patient and constantly working to stay in peak physical condition. My disease is the ultimate sniper waiting to ambush me. It will strike when I least expect it. I used to think this would be when I was upset or agitated. From AA I have learned it is more likely to be when all is rosy and I have been lulled into a sense of complacency.

My disease is my stalker. It is a part of me. It is me. I want to live. It wants to kill me. I can't kill it. It will not die until I die. I must work every day to protect myself from my stalker.

Life has been exceptionally good for the past few weeks.

I’m going to an AA meeting today.

Possession

Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide,

Voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time,

The night is my companion and solitude my guide,

Would I spend forever here and not be satisfied?

And I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard,

I'll take your breath away and after I'd wipe away the tears,

Just close your eyes dear.

Through this world I've stumbled so many times betrayed,

Trying to find an honest word, to find the truth enslaved,

Oh you speak to me in riddles and you speak to me in rhyme,

My body aches to breathe your breath, your words keep me alive.

And I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard,

I'll take your breath away and after I'd wipe away the tears,

Just close your eyes dear.

Into this night I wander, it's morning that I dread,

Another day of knowing of the path I fear to tread,

Oh into the sea of waking dreams I follow without pride,

Nothing stands between us here and I won't be denied.

And I would be the one to hold you down, kiss you so hard,

I'll take your breath away and after I'd wipe away the tears,

Just close your eyes dear.

Good News and a Meme From Woe

Thanks to all who sent good wishes and prayers for my friend / coworker who has been undergoing medical tests for the past few weeks. She finally received word today that it is not cancer. Obviously we are all very grateful and relieved.

and...

A meme from woe:

1. When you look at someone what is the first thing that you notice?
Their eyes. Then, depending on what I saw in their eyes, sometimes my eyes move down to the second thing I like to try to notice.

2. What is your favorite if any: Dark, milk or white chocolate?
Dark and very bittersweet

3. River, lake or ocean?
Ocean, especially at sunset.

4. Have you ever been streaking?
No. But lots of skinny dipping at home and (in my younger days before gravity took over) at parties.

5. What music do you like to hear when on a romantic date:
Sade

6. Do you ride horses?
No, they have really big teeth. They scare me.

7. If you could own three vehicles of your choice what would they be:
A340-600

B747-400

Beechcraft Duke (aluminum formed into pure sex, don't you think?)





8. Do you hate your job?
No. I don’t particularly like the business I am in but I love the people I work with.

9. Do you like the nine to five grind?
No. My ADD prevents that.

10. What would be your dream job?
Prison substance abuse / prison after-care counselor (and no, you sex fiends, not because I think prisoners are “hot”!!!!!!!)

Woe, thanks for giving me the opportunity to focus on me.

Thanks to all for being there. Have a great weekend!

Flip

Peeking Out Of My Gloomy Place

15%

According to Oprah that is the chance that my marriage will work out.

Well, I’ve already won the lottery on two things over which I had no control.

1) Being queer: 10% chance
2) Developing an egg-sized benign brain tumor: .001% chance

So 15% with some control too?

I like those odds.

Have a great day.

Flip

Another Duh-piphany

This morning I had a slight stirring. It was that old familiar (dangerous?) feeling of wishing my life had gone differently up to this point. What if ______? What if _____? What if _____?

Sometimes when that feeling breaks over me like a wave and I don’t want to be swept away into a dangerous place, I hold on to something I once heard a priest say on a PBS show. When he was asked if he ever regretted his decision to enter the priesthood vs. living a life that included marriage, sex, having kids, etc. my memory of what he said is, “Every time you say ‘yes’ to something, you are saying ‘no’ to something else.”

Another duh-piphany for me.

At my age, finally growing up is not a pretty sight. But I’m very grateful to have the chance.

Hope you're having a great day.

Flip