Hello, good day, and how are you?
I'm doing well, I pray you are, too!
Hee hee! I feel so strange today, it's almost as if I'm about to take leave. Not happening for a while, though, so I'm just riding the happpy feeling for the hell of it.
So, generally I try and stay a very happy, positive person, but circumstance and people have helped for my nature into that of someone who always sees the ick in things. I've been changing, but very often, I feel as if it's taking too long.
So, a bit of a rant.
I don't know if I've told anyone about the earlier years of accepting who I was in terms of sexuality. If not, here it is.
I knew I was gay when I turned 11. I can't tell you how exactly, or when, I just knew. But, growing up with my father and in small towns I thought, ag, k@k man, there's no such thing, and it's wrong, and what will other people think. Being 11, one feels all alone in such things.
The year 12 was the first time I told anyone, that person being my best friend at the time, Ryno. Beautiful straight boy, and always has been, but now that he does Muy Thai, OMG!! the hormone levels around that boy have skyrocketed. Anyway, he was 13, I was 12, and I told him I don't like girls, only boys. And he said, OK, so am I still sleeping over tonight? Just like that. He didn't ask, and still hasn't, how did I know, maybe I just had never liked a girl, blah blah blah. He just asked if he's still staying by me that night. I was too young to be truly happy about that - I was just happy he still wanted to be my friend.
Next was my friend Sonia, Lady Hero. I told her completely by accident, literally. We were sitting on the school grounds one Friday afternoon and she mentioned how she hates being straight. I let slip I hated being gay. Up until that point I'd been telling her I'm bisexual, but letting the cat out of the bag was rather liberating.
The long and short of this is that I told a number of people that I felt I could trust, and somewhere along the lines more and more people found out (small town, gossip, yadda yadda). The only real problem I had was when I wrote in for pen-pals under a different name, abut again the small town thing kicked in when people saw the ad and recognised my postal address. My dad did a mini-flip-out and took my phone away from me twice, deleting the numers of some of the people I considered friends. Some I've managed to reconnect with, others are lost to time permanently, but either way, the experience was worth it.
My dad and I never once spoke to each other about me; instead we used to look for other excuses to get into cat-fights, and some of them got quite nasty. It was only after my mother left that he told me he loves me and accepts me for who I am.
Reliously speaking, I've known for years that being Christian was something that didn't fit well with me. I was raised in the faith, and some habits (like ritualised prayer and a physical temple building) still stick with me, But following a god who speaks of war and genocide, and a religion where you can only get into Heaven if you follow the teachings of a dead man - THAT got to me a little bit. So, I left Christianity behind. I didn't abandon the faith, as the faith didn't abandon me. It was simply a mutual understanding that I didn't fit in with anything I'd been taught or discovered for myself about it. So I slowly turned to the Feminine Divine, to speaking to Nature and Animals and the elements and opened my arms to Life and left Christianity to the Christians. It was only once I'd been in Cape Town for a while that I learned I was a Pagan - all thanks to a faerie novel.
Now, I can understand if you're scratching your head about all this. Don't worry, I would be, too. I mean, that's in the past, what does it have to do with now, or why I'm typing this?
Simple: Dan Pearce.
He's a blogger from Utah, North America, with a five-year-old son. Dan's blog started (as I understand it) as a way for him to help deal with divorce. Then it became about the life of a single dad and started filling with all sorts of tit-bits. Recently Dan's blogs have been dealing with gay coming outs and suicides. I read a link someone posted to his blog roughly two months ago and found the writing rather touching.
Then, last month, Dan wrote his own coming out story. He finally accepted that he's bisexual. I say finally because he struggled with half of his soul for 21 years, the part that falls in love with men as easily as it does with women. I've slowly been reading all his coming out blogs and they are truly inspiring. For instance, in one he tells how he came out to his son, and how Noah simply accepted him. His brother, whom he told over a Skype call, told him, If you need me, I'm there. And then his friends are still making the really nasty jokes.
Now, living in Utah, he says that there is still so much homophobia and hate, being all heavy Christian and such, that he simply couldn't fathom coming out. I know for a fact that there are so many people who live in similar circumstances who are petrified of it. What will their families think, or their friends, or their society?
I get so upset when I hear some of the drivel the Pope spews. I miss John Paul, I really do. He taught love and compassion - this Ratzinger fart is only spewing his Nazi hatred and intolerence. Way to choose a leader, assholes!
I want to burst into tears every time I hear about some teenager who's taken his or her life because he or she was gay or bisexual. It breaks my heart anew each time because we're losing the generation that can change the world for the better - if only the generation they're born FROM would open their hearts. This Life has blessed me with friends and family who understand me in different ways - that alone makes this Life worth living!
Guys, those of us who are out can help those who aren't. And our fag-hag friends and family? You guys can lend a hand, too, by giving support and offering an open ear and open arms.
Yes, it's a bit off-topic, but I'm tired of seeing the hatred and fear. One begets the other, did you know?
Often we're the butt (pardon the pun) of some really nasty jokes, and I know Lord Zed has written a piece or two about it. We also get taken for chops and yes, there is still that stereotype of femininity. You know what? I'm feminine, but I can still do some things the modern MAN has trouble with. It's frightening how many straight men don't know how to change a tyre, or do simple home maintenance. And spiders - gods above, don't get me started! I'm a moffie, and I fecking LOVE spiders!
Leather and bodyhair and tattoos - I love them! On other guys. I'm not about to go out and get inked just because I like leather. And so many Bears are such softies! You look at them funny and they want to cry. As far as I'm concerned, that's breaking a stereotype.
And how's that one about going to Hell, huh? Go stick it! So many gay people are still Christian! Not only because they were raised Christian, but because they choose to be. There's a reason the Rainbow Church exists, you know?
Anyway, deep breath.
I've added Dan's link into his name. Just in case, it's www.danoah.com. If for no other reason than curiosity, please have a look at what he has to say about life.
