A Retrospective

Frequently I think of doing a post, but then I wonder if it is significant, as if that is a requirement for writing and of course there is time – why write when one can “do”. So I muddle along, the good, the bad, and of course the ugly.

Carrie, the one person most hurt over the almost three years since the blog started, recently took me to task for not writing anymore, for having shared the journey and left it with an implied “sailing into the sunset” ending. While there are times where life has felt like that, there are many others where it has not. Do I believe that somehow magically things could have been changed – some Kum Baya moments, maybe a death bed conversion to being straight again? Not really, though hope does spring eternal.

So I will take the challenge and if anyone is still listening, try to share the road, twists and all. While I would love to pour it all out – the mother of all posts – even I realize the ridiculousness of such an effort. No, I think there only way to attack is to set the stage and then meander as it suits me.

I write in my apartment – I have just signed the lease renewal for year two, it is now for better or worse, my home. The apartment was not too inconvenient to my house and I saw much of Carrie and the kids. But last May it was time for them to move on, to take this opportunity to also start afresh. The house was sold (who would have thought that a simple house sale would seem so big in hindsight) and Carrie and the girls moved to the country, a house with some land and a much, much better school district. It is an easy hour and a half drive and I have been a frequent visitor.

But an easy hour and a half is still exactly that – an hour and a half. Fine for the weekend visits, but not really conducive for that mid week dinner. Somehow I envisioned those quick trips in and out, but I am not getting younger and after a days work three hours seems extreme. But there are the weekends.

While there is much to be said about the weekends, let’s get back to life down here. A new friend, Phil, was there for me last year when I moved into the apartment and our friendship continued to grow. I once described him in a post as a boyfriend “of sorts”, phrasing that greatly amused him. He is my boyfriend but there is still an element “of sorts”. We see each other frequently during the week, though weekends are a loose affair based on my family life.

For those who missed it along the way, I did come out at work last April, to no surprise among my friends, and at this point it is hard to say in many cases if people know or do not. I have an office with a picture of my wife and another of my “friend” but no rainbow flags: I have never been one for public displays of that sort.

It has been a rough few weeks – some nagging virus that is now finally starting to clear, but I have not had my trips to the children, not seen the boyfriend quite as much, and not worked solid weeks at work. Lying in bed is a wonderful time to think – not feverish hallucinogenic thoughts, but quiet rational ones. It has caused me to realize that I need to take stock and consider my own personal directions and both the impact on me and on those around me.

And so I will…