Fashion Report

Haven’t you heard, nostalgia is very in this season. Everyone’s been seen doing it. There have been things from 2006 that I’ve wanted to share for some time now, but I didn’t know how.
Let me paint a picture: I’d just turned 20, I was going to be the only child living at home, and I was grappling with feelings that I didn’t know how to communicate, so I wrote them down in a private diary that I kept password protected. I think the password was “mum” – no, it’s not very subtle, is it!

22nd December 2006

So it’s twenty-past two in the morning, and I just realised something that made me cry. I’ve been crying a lot lately. I like to. It makes me feel better, crying. I realised that one day, in the not so distant future, I am going to have to come out to my mum.

I am just sitting here in utter shock that over the past few years everything has built up to this one moment. There was time earlier this year that I still believed I could meet a girl, and we’d hit it off, and I’d be charming, and we’d end up together. But now I know the truth is that will not happen – and most of it will be down to me not looking for a girlfriend because I’d rather be with her brother! I’m twenty now, I have to start being more truthful with myself. I have to realise that there is no in between for me – there may not even be anything. I am fully aware that it is one-hundred percent likely I will leave this earth without being able to share my love with another person. Sometimes I think it’s because of this that I have these feelings and that it’s just me taking whatever’s on offer.

No, I have to be truthful, it’s more than that. I remember that first moment I fell for a boy. It’s confusing and a little ironic, because I believed I had incidentally caused this boy to be hurt, and it wrecked me with guilt, but he pulled me aside by the tree – it was Christmas of 2003, and he looked into my eyes and told me not to blame myself. And it was then I realised that I didn’t cause anything. I had just made myself believe that him being attacked was my fault so that I could punish myself for having these feelings. Feelings that I fear are once again beginning to stir – for a different boy.

I don’t know, maybe everything will turn out alright, and all these gut wrenching fears will eventually be looked back on as “WTF was I thinking” moments. I want to tell this new boy because he hugged me, and it’s all I can think about now – I want to tell him so much. Then he’ll know; he’ll understand, and he’ll stay my friend, and then maybe this stupid infatuation will go away. It’s keeping me awake at night, and when I do sleep, it’s haunting me in my dreams. And even through the day, when I pause to pour the boiling hot water into my mug, it plagues my thoughts.

I’m gay.

I’ll never tell him. He’ll never know; he won’t ever know what I think about. He can’t ever know what I think about, and I won’t tell him. This Christmas is going to be so hard, I’m the only one here. He can’t know. It will change things, and we’re in such a great place right now. Did I tell you he hugged me? He hugged me, and it’s all I can think about.

So, thus ends the big gay realisation post.

Oh yeah, I am gay alright!

I think that was the first time I’d acknowledged it in such a concrete way. Over the next few years, whenever I felt overwhelmed, I tried to make sense of things by writing them down. I had never intended to share it all, but then again, I never intended to live past 30! I was certain I’d be dead before I was 26. But, as you’ll read, life kept going, and here I am. I no longer want to feel like I’m in that same headspace, chronicling things down in private. I want to move forward… by looking back.

Breakfast

I made the mistake of mixing half a cappuccino into my hot chocolate, so I’ve been awake all night and am currently not feeling the dreamy siren call of slumber any time soon. It was brought to my attention that some people may be searching my name, and I sort of felt if they were to find my website it should look as if it’s been updated with something. So, this is that something. I’m planning to post a succession of blog entries in the coming months, as my novel writing has ground to a halt and, as I always find, if I promote productivity in one area of my life, creativity usually follows and flows into others. Don’t really know what I’m trying to say, but yeah, cheerio!

Never Surrender

Call me Final Destination 3, because I’ve officially gone off the rails. I only reacted the way I did because I had such an amazing week where, for the first time in a long while, I felt normal.

I struggle to feel normal, because I am not normal. I am very abnormal. But it takes very little to give me a sense of stability and control over my otherwise uncontrollable life. A life that is controlled by my body, and by the weather. I know I come across as stubborn and overly-dramatic, but you can’t imagine what it’s like to go through life so alone. Where the mere mention of sunshine as “beautiful” makes me recoil in horror. You enjoy that big ball of cancer-inducing gas, do you? That giant star that will one day consume Earth and leave us as nothing but a charred rock? Does it feel good? Of course it does, and I’m sure I’d feel the same too. As a big fat homo, I’d actually have a predisposition to enjoy the sun more, to worship at its alter whenever it graced us with its presence.

It’s probably the reason I feel more alone than I did growing up, because any chance I have of connecting with likeminded people is hampered. I have to associate with the dark, and with the dark comes a life that is naturally shadowed and secretive. It’s not that I have shame, it’s just that I know few can relate to the paths from which I draw solace and enjoyment from as an adult.

And then there’s the barrier that is not controlled by my body, or weather, but by my mind. My inability to surrender control and go with the flow. I cannot merely walk into any bar and associate with others – others who I probably would get along with. I have anxieties that I have to take into consideration, anxieties that I can’t rationally communicate with others, anxieties that I have to overcome alone.

When the universe tricks me into believing I might no longer have to go through these hurdles alone, I still manage to let down my guard and allow myself to jump, even though thirty years of experience tells me there will be no-one there to catch me. I have to look out for myself. I have to maintain control through whatever means I can.

RAIN-bow!

I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the uncertainty of the future. I no longer feel safe in this world. I no longer feel free to share my thoughts. I feel silenced. I feel less than a human being. All because of other human beings who are abusing their power. Using what should be tools of good, for tools of hatred and alienation.

I refuse to be silenced. I refuse to be kept from living out the last of my days as a shell of my former self. I will grow. I will learn. I will be who I want to be, love who I want to love, and say what I want to say.

Now that’s out of the way, I can tell you I’ve survived the first month of my thirties! We’re one week into what is questionably the worst time of year for me – July. Summer. Sun worshippers unite. Those who live in the shadows feel the victimisation hardest (hey, gurl, hey). Yet, touch wood, I’ve yet to reach my limits, and I’m maintaining good health, and high spirits. When September comes, I can look forward to MY New Year. Another 12 months of pushing boundaries and expanding my horizons. Hope to see you on my journey.