Getting It

I started writing yesterday- Cymber had tagged me – ten Q words of who I am. As I was typing – Queer, Quirky, Quip… I realized that as much fun as it was (and it was), it was a bit of avoidance: why deal with real life when games are to be played.

I am on vacation, typing on a laptop overlooking a pristine lake. I was in my kayak a few minutes ago and will be in the canoe with my wife a tad bit later. My wife – we have spent much time talking on this vacation. She has accepted the blog to the degree that she wants a real name even – no more KA for her. Heretofore she will be Carrie, her new alter-ego I suppose.

We talked much before this vacation acknowledging the difficulties of our life and the fact that the vacation would not be an escape. I never appreciated how true the latter statement would become. If there is a theme to the vacation – to my current life – it is that I have the most amazing wife one could ask for and as her reward I am killing her slowly. Not a dramatic death anymore – how does one top the initial statement over dinner “I am bi-sexual.” But now it is a slow death, a death of spirit, a death of depression. I do not mean to do this and she does not intend for this to happen. But we are both intelligent enough to understand that in many ways there are no choices.

This brings me to some members of our community – married gay men; out to their wives and who have either never had sex with a man or last did it decades ago. Why would a marriage end if one is not physically involved? The problem is that I am in the same room as them but having entered from a different door, I have fooled myself into seeing a different place.

The definitions I have built on have been the physical and if one accepts that, then the Kitty’s and Kinky’s are right: stop the physical and honor the marriage. The problem of course is that being gay is not just about bj’s and the like. My post Fifteen Hours got to the heart of it – the sex and the spooning. A few weeks ago I realized that I had stopped e-mailing Jerry (a man previously referred to as my gay lover in Chicago). Why: because to it was impossible to deal with Jerry while denying the current dominance of my gay side. It was impossible to want to visit him and claim there was no emotional connection. We have since e-mailed and acknowledged that while the stars may be aligned against us there was and are mutual feelings.

This of course (as most have figured out way ahead of moi) is why there are no choices. I could give up men – just suck it up, repress away, try to forget. Leaving out the question of whether I would be successful or end up either an angry repressed man or an out and out liar like Dr. Steven T of NY Times fame, it cannot work. I know, Carrie knows. Do we just make believe that my gay side is not currently on steroids? Ignore that mere mention of gay sex in our bedroom puts me over the top. The reality of who I am trumps the reality of what I do.

Carrie and I are struggling to create our new life. At this point it will be together. Weddings to make, young ones to raise, older ones in College: social and economic realities that neither of us can ignore. She has given me some time – a year or two to figure out who I am and what I want. But for the first time we are faced with just how little we know of the end of this story. Neither of us can imagine a life not together, but neither of us can ignore the reality of my gayness. These are not happy times.