Tales of a Bi "MWM"

The Final Days

2011-02-21T20:25:00.000-05:00

Lately I have been noticing a book at the end of one of Phil’s book shelves – The Final Days, the story of the end of the Nixon Presidency and I have considered that the participants probably did not realize that they were in the final days until after the fact. So it is with hindsight I can gaze back over the past three months and see what should have been obvious.

Thanksgiving was in Connecticut this year (yes readers, another road trip), an extended weekend in the family home. But of course the phrasing “family home” should be the first hint of trouble. The home has become crowded with the addition of an adult daughter and her child. What was comfortable for three and on occasional fourth is a petrie dish seething with humanity. There is also internal geography – a house with a basement bed / bath where at some point one could say “good night” and wander (or slink as the case may be) down to a spot which is while in the house is not in your face. Now my personal geography is a single bed in the home office with my head as the crow flies being maybe twelve feet from Carrie’s, our doors maybe a yard apart. It is impossible not to be aware of the total lack of personal space boundaries.

Yet with all of the new limitations Carrie and I persevere, dinner, a glass of wine, chatting while the kids float about. The limitations on personal space, the additional children, take a toll but also almost create a sense of fellow travelers in a revolution gone wildly awry. A strange existence where the underlying reality gets lost.

We were preparing for Thanksgiving a few paragraphs ago, a Wednesday night, dinner and a pitcher of Perfect Manhattans – a specialty of the house. Soon dinner is forgotten in an alcohol induced haze and the inevitable happens. First pure sex, the virtual ripping off of clothes, skip the foreplay and become one followed a little later by making love, hugging, feeling, being. It was and it was good. Of course there is always a morning after, one marked more by guilt and recrimination on her part than mine – I do have an awesome tin ear – and further complicated by a child in the next room who admitted to hearing us talking but in reality did connect the dots.

We now move to the land of Rashoman (a movie I actually missed) where the same moment becomes very different in the minds of different participants. I went home and thought of somehow having it all back – not being straight per se but if not a man in my body, a toy wielded by the right person, by her. Somehow a return to a life that has continued in many ways – weekends, dinners, telephone calls, but is also long gone.

I speak to Phil, tell him what occurred, and share my emotions, my misguided dream. Not tomorrow - five years do not disappear into the ether in a blink of the eye. No, she would need time to think about it, time to consider. I have it – I will not have sex with Phil while she has time to think secure in the knowledge that I am only living with him during the week, maybe still sharing a bed, but I’ll skip the bj’s: what more could one ask.

The whole story is too long for one post so I suppose this is as good a time as any to leave off with one thought – can you spell delusional.

Survivor's Guilt?

2010-10-27T18:46:00.000-04:00

Every year Jews across the world have Passover Seders commemorating the Exodus from Egypt many generations ago and at those Seders there is a moment when we remember the ten plagues that God wrought on our enemies and as we recite each of the plagues we dip our pinky in the wine glass and allow a wine droplet to fall on the plate – a reminder that in our time of happiness we remember other’s losses.

Over the last three or four year’s thoughts of relative happiness have been a constant in my brain. How can my happiness – if that is really even the right word – not be tempered by Carrie’s travails? So she remains a constant – a constant with daily phone calls, a constant with almost weekly visits and if not a constant, a comfort when she recently allowed us a full embrace, a throwback to what once was.

And the refrain from the outside has been that we are each responsible for our own lives, that her success or lack thereof in the social world lies on her own shoulders. I do understand this – I am her friend but not her keeper. I also understand that she has taken a series of “hits” that one would not wish on their enemies, no less a best friend. So I have been oft accused of survivor’s guilt.

It’s just that it does not feel that way to me. When I call each day to check in – the mundane things that make a life – I do not feel a sense of obligation, getting something out of the way. I rather enjoy the little updates and banter. And when I arrive for a weekend visit and the kids announce they are off to something else, sitting at the kitchen table with Carrie is not a burden, but on the whole relaxing. Lord knows there is not much pretense left (though I still try to make believe that if my cell rings, it is really not Phil).

As we sat at the kitchen table recently I asked about the future. In less than four years the youngest will be off to college. There will be no need to call daily, the updates will be slim. There will be no need to drive up on a Friday night – the kids will not be there. Does all that end; is there a weaning process like a four year old giving up the teat?

The thing is that while there may be elements of survivor’s guilt, I enjoy my life, limitations accepted, with Carrie and cannot really imagine the day when the spigot gets turned off.

Weekend Update

2010-09-23T17:16:00.000-04:00

While not much of a Saturday Night Live person – past my bedtime – I always liked the Weekend Update, essentially real news yet when an errant picture or caption, or even a stutter in the delivery is thrown in, the absurdity becomes evident. That is the way I feel about this story – absurd bordering on self parody.

I have written of Phil’s friend Stan, his last boyfriend and current beach buddy. I have written how the three of us would find the beach or maybe I would just join them for dinner after my day of work. And I have written of Stan turning against me – not that I blame him - and my wondering what this summer would bring. I wondered on these pages would there be resentment on my part, not so much of their days at the beach – I do work – but of the evenings after, dinners presumably absent me.

Of course having fixated on all of the possibilities, I missed the ones that actually came to pass. You see we are not just talking beaches, Phil and Stan are not making sand castles with hoards of children: they are at the gay beaches, a small universe. If one wants to travel – drive a bit, take a ferry, walk a bit, there is Fire Island, more of a weekend than day visit. If one wants to go to the local beach there is Jones and there is Robert Moses. They are quite convenient to each other – one drives to Jones and if the parking lot near the gay section is full, another twenty minutes on a beautiful road and Robert Moses awaits.

The summer comes and things roll along – Phil is busy running to the country, a wedding to make, I have my weekends with the children and we have a surprising number of weekends together. It is quite nice; we work on his house, paint cabinets, blissfully mundane. Phil has some beach days – weekday affairs. I have my work. We meet up on those days, a surreptitious mid-evening rendezvous swooping him from a railroad station, a train not taken. I won’t deny the strangeness but like everything else in life, after a while it starts to feel normal.

The summer is drawing to a close and a weekend day, clear sky, humidity dripping, Phil and I together. Let’s go to the beach! Jones or Robert Moses? What’s that – Jersey shore he suggests, something new. And it all comes together. We cannot go to Jones or Robert Moses. Stan is going to the beach and he may be at Jones or maybe the parking lot will be full and off to Robert Moses. We end up on the beach with the kids. Now as a practical matter, I am actually not upset, these are the beaches I grew up on, where I take my kids, not too crowded, my comfort zone. But that does not change the “why”, the fact that my choices are limited, impacted by choices of another who has no place in my life.

Now I am sure there are comments to be made, conclusions to be reached but ultimately the joy of weekend update is giving the story. The audience gets to make of it what they may. While today looks like summer, it is truly autumn and there is much time before the next visit to the beach.

Trenches

2010-09-19T20:31:00.002-04:00

There have been many posts lately, just in my head and not on paper, and they are beginning to pile up like one of those chain reaction collisions in the fog. And when there is so much to say the tendency is to say nothing. The summer has drawn to a close – to me yesterday was the official ending – a summer that would normally be considered quite nice – beach and country, family and Phil (though not together). But there were the sub-themes. Of course the overriding one being my daughter Anna celebrating the first anniversary of the pedophile’s (her soon to be ex-husband’s) arrest. The carnage is unimaginable and are a few of the posts littering my brain.

The summer was also marked by yet another choice, another stab at competing values. Saturday was a strange confluence – Phi’s only daughter being married and Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. The wedding alone would have provided enough of a theme for the summer. Having watched my coming out damage my weddings I realized that the whole topic of Phil’s coming out would need a vacation. A subject dear to my existence – while ultimately his decision and problem I am more than a passing player in this drama – taken off the table until the lucky couple are wed.

When I realized the conflict – the celebration and the holy day – I made an immediate knee jerk decision. If Phil was out to his family I would come – how could I as a member of sorts skip it – and if not, well then should my religion not win out? Of course it is not really about religion, I am not overly wound on such things. No, it is about family, about having celebrated this day with my family – Carrie and kids – for two decades now, and specifically about having had the traditional end of holiday break fast with them each year.

After months of thought, annoying good friends, the angst which once was and still can be my comfort zone, I consult Carrie. She sees it pretty clearly – Phil is my boyfriend, a wedding is hopefully once in a lifetime – I should go. Once again instead of making a decision, I have asked her to make one for me, and once again she has acquiesced. I will have dinner the night the holiday starts with my family, Temple in the morning and then – can you spell awkward – off to the late afternoon wedding.

All in all it is going well, but I did mention the soon to be ex-husband – the pedophile. The divorce is dragging, his parents claiming compassion but squeezing out every clause, every last nickel. A quick early afternoon phone call to go over the “last points” and it all boils over – screaming matches on the phone, particularly Carrie after a year of holding her tongue letting loose. It actually was a good thing, a necessary thing, but now the phone call is over and rather then sitting around for a few hours for the usual combination post-mortem / strategy session, I am off to a wedding. I was steeled for awkward, but this was a different level, a moment where I really did have to go – weddings come with a start time, and really had to stay – the level of distress was great.

I realize I started typing with thoughts of the wedding, but they may have to wait another day. The thing is that Bill, the soon to be ex, is in jail – coming out soon, but in jail. His career lies in tatters and his earning power damaged at best, ruined at worst. Anna is now a single mom – working but with limits based on many factors. Child care is not cheap and Huggies have pretty packages with bar codes that ring up real dollars. So when every nickel is being wrung out, it does matter. And it not only matters to Anna, but to Carrie who is on the front lines every day, World War I style front lines – trenches with hand to hand combat, or so it feels. And it impacts on me, the wage earner in all of this. Clearly the child will have those Huggies, a roof over her head, food to eat. But it all takes a toll.

I check in with Carrie as I drive home from the weekend, the wedding in the rear view, literally and figuratively. She cannot talk to me, the trenches are claustrophobic and the other side is lobbing the canisters of mustard gas. She knows I will foot the bills – as best as I can which is far from perfect at this point – but the trenches she bears alone. And I want to help, want to man the barricades, but at this point I don’t even know where to start.

Sad News

2010-06-16T15:56:00.002-04:00

Many years ago, when I was an active blogger not only did I write, but I occasionally read and found myself in a community of fellow bi/gay married types all on different portions of their journeys and not all having the same destination. As quickly as it all appeared it faded, as seems strangely appropriate for a special moment in time.

There was one person who stood out for me – Spider. He was years ahead of me in the journey and took the time to reach out to me, not to stroke me but to call me out, provide a reality check in what was, and still seems to be, a time of unreality in my life. When I wrote about living in the basement and staying out late – very late (okay, once returning the next morning) he emailed me, not a public flogging but a private moment. He thought 1 AM was fine, enough time for a drink and a grope, but later than that was an insult to the woman who now occupied the master bedroom. Of course he was right.

And then there were the posts that he did, described in a post of mine from four years ago. To me it was monumental; to him not a big deal. He met some homeless guys in his hometown and took them to his home – a sandwich, a shower, and a washing machine. They did not move in but left there refreshed. Many of us were moved and told him so.

Then a period of silence on his blog followed by the news – he had gone to the Doctor with one complaint and discovered that he had others, a sick man at a young age. Occasionally there would be some update but ultimately quiet. I had tried emailing him a few times at the beginning – some moral support but never really had the opportunity to thank him for his efforts; I can be a bit high maintenance yet he was patient in his support and more importantly in his critiques.

Last night I received an email with a link to another blog:
I was sorry to hear of the passing of Brett. Brett was a local blogger (and dear friend) who wrote “Spider’s Web in Thornton Park.” His health had been failing and apparently he fell, hit his head, and a blood clot formed in his brain. I was told the surgery for removing the blood clot was successful, but he never regained consciousness after the surgery.

A sad day indeed.

Out of Words

2010-06-14T22:07:00.002-04:00

The writing comes less frequently – easy to blame it on a “lack” – lack of time, lack of angst, lack of words. Time – well that part is true but angst and words: I suspect there is still some left. Maybe there is a feeling that there have been too many words or at least too many of the same ones. I would have thought there would be no new horizons – good and bad – to explore but it seems “plus ca change…” While it could be said the journey started decades ago, and in many ways it did, I am approaching the five year anniversary of the relevant portion so maybe a glance back and look at things today is appropriate.

Glancing back somehow goes to the title of this blog, something which always troubled me – a fleeting idea which somehow stays forever, not unlike our given names. Strangely though it has remained true, I may describe myself in polite conversation as “gay” but have spent enough time in this world to understand that underneath it all there will always be the “bi”. This is not a case of hedging my bets – I am in this new world - all in it appears, but I did enjoy the straight years, the sex with women, the sex with my wife. Which of course brings us to the next part of the name, that first “M” - as in married. Yes, I still am. In part a matter of convenience, a health insurance marriage but in part as a link, a link for both of us. We had the strange event of a twentieth anniversary recently; is it an event or more a nonsequitor? We chose event and had a leisurely two and a half hour dinner. Old friends, a life together but no longer the thought (in my mind) of maybe I’ll get lucky. (The rest of the blog name merits no comment: I am still white and still regret including that initial and am still male, though Carrie would not miss the opportunity to comment on that.)

There is more to be said of the family world but let’s bring in another element. I still have a boyfriend though after three years one might question why Phil has not been elevated: boyfriend seems so temporary, a date that may not make it through the week. This is a tricky subject with many elements, practical and emotional, but one stands out above the rest: Phil is not out to his adult children, nor does it appear to even be in the cards. I have struggled with this – what are my fair expectations, should it (or does it) impact me, does it make a difference? I know the children, they seem to like me, we have broken bread and the daughter warrants a little hug and quick peck on the cheek. My existence and family friendship is not in question.

But as much as I would like to ignore this – such a little thing in another wise good relationship, I no longer can. Strange how something with so little day to day relevance seems to carry so much impact. Of course it is the little things, hearing Phil talk of a trip to Chicago, our trip to Chicago, and not knowing if I was there. If I had pressed the point, an excuse for my being there would have been found, no outing that way, but the fact that one has to consider such geography is strange. The daughter has a wedding date set and I wish her the happiest of weddings – not the time for a family drama, but after that… And of course there is that nice invitation on the parlor table (okay, I don’t have a parlor but it sounds so inviting) with a cute little RSVP card. The day comes with a built in conflict, just the excuse I need. But the card still sits, awaiting my pen.

But let’s get back to the family. I have written of The Trauma, the one next to which being gay and breaking a family asunder pales by, if such a thing is possible: the soon to be ex son-in-law, still in jail, a pedophile, a blot on our landscape. Prior to the wheels coming off last July, things were settling in, Carrie and two children rebuilding, a quiet sort of life but quiet can sometimes be good. Then the arrest, an adult child moving home, a new baby crying for whatever it is they cry for – a bottle, a hug or maybe a diaper. And in a moment the peace shattered.

So you see there are words, many of them, too many for one entry but there you have it, paradise lost.

Chicago 2010

2010-05-06T18:20:00.003-04:00

I must confess to writing in a half hearted fashion; without the angst and pain, the writing feels rather pedestrian, particularly writing about being gay. This is not to say that I am unaware of the ongoing issues and still do consider what I may say to someone: Is Phil a friend or my boyfriend – not much different on the surface but so different to the listener.

This past weekend was the annual foray to Chicago, six consecutive years and all of them markers, as it turns out, on my journey from a straight married man to my current gay existence. I will not recount the journey here – feel free to read the prior May postings; suffice to say the changes have been dramatic. Last year was to have been the final Chicago post – attending dinner with Phil as my guest. But looking back I did introduce him as a friend, probably sufficient to most I met, but a tad evasive for my true friends.

This year Phil was to join us again at dinner but due to his work he had to take a later flight – he would be there for the after dinner drinks at best. Towards the end of the dinner, as the table shifted I found myself sitting with two women, two of the three that I sat drinking with years ago, discussing their divorces and my uttering, not that I remember it, that I was lost. They were both there with their new lovers – the live in variety and were glowing with their good fortune. They talked and smiled and then looked at me: “how are you doing”? They know I am separated, we have known each other for a decade and beyond.

The next moment came much more easily then I might have guessed. I announced that I had come to realize that I was gay, had a boyfriend and was happy. “Was he here with you last year?” They do have good memories. “Where is he this year?” They do ask good questions. I explain he will be here in an hour or two.

After dinner our group coordinator has made plans for those who are young at heart: first stop a rooftop bar, tres chic, tres young. We drink a little, the women in our midst dance (my could one of them move) and then discuss the next stop. Where is Phil they ask – slightly delayed but on his way. Next stop it seems is a drag club. One friend asks if that is okay and I laugh – what could be more okay.

We make our way to the club, seven strong with Phil on the way, and it is quite the show. These were not the drag queens of Harvey Fierstein stature; these are beautiful “women”. The men in our group cannot really wrap their arms around the knowledge these were men yet such clear evidence to the contrary. The women in our group, well they are jealous of the bod’s. And so there is movement as members of our group wind our way on occasion to the front, a few dollar bills for this one, a few more for that one. Lots of whooping and laughing, teasing of the friendliest nature, not of us but of themselves.

Really how much better could it be? I imagined what if I had not come out just a few hours earlier. I would be sitting there with Phil, careful not to brush against him, feeling discomfort as to who I was, which role to play in that room. And instead such a pleasant evening, simply just being who I am.

Context

2010-01-30T13:57:00.002-05:00

I have been thinking of context a lot lately. The same words, same clothing, same look can appear totally different based on the surroundings. If I were to be having a glass of wine with a friend and in a discussion of my job say, referring to my boss, “I want to kill him”, my friend might chuckle and clink my glass. Someone at the next table might whisper to their dinner mate “Must have had a bad day”. If a sullen teenager were to make the same utterance, hopefully minus the wine and likely in some electronic fashion, at best they may find themselves in the guidance office and at worst may have precipitated a lock down. And the thing is that in both cases – the chuckle in the restaurant and the terror in the school – the responses are totally appropriate.

This came to mind in a different realm the other day. I had dinner with Tammy, my thirty something lesbian friend, and we were discussing Phil. Now if this was a real diary I would describe him – slight of frame, “gay” beard…, but this is a public posting so suffice to say a good argument could be made that Phil looks gay. Tammy would change the phrasing from “a good argument” to “are you kidding?” Yet Phil remains to a great degree in that well appointed closet.

The night before my dinner with Tammy, Phil and I went to our favorite informal restaurant – a nice dive in the very gay district. While in the middle of boys’ town, the clientele is pretty mixed – some nights almost fifty percent straight. We are taken to a booth in the back and Phil looks around and does a double take: there is a couple, the wife a friend of forty plus years, a couple I met last month at their holiday party. A table is quickly pulled over and they finish desert while we nurse our beers. Now these are highly intelligent, sophisticated human beings but I suspect later that evening they just commented that Phil’s friend seems nice or boring or whatever they thought; I sort of doubt they had a discussion of Phil’s orientation.

One of Phil’s longest friends dates back to college – four plus decades – and is quite gay. A year or so ago after I had met him once or twice, Phil decided to come out to him. As we sat in his apartment – Phil and his new friend, his accountant, me! - Phil points out we met on Craigslist, a sure giveaway one would think yet a few days later he discovers the friend assumed I was found in the classifieds under tax services. I suspect the same phenomenon also occurs the other way; there are people I work with who surely know I am gay, who I suspect are not particularly gay friendly, yet they are my work friends.

It is hard to separate context from content and maybe that is a good thing because it recognizes that who we really are exists in our own unique spaces: I am a man who happens to be gay (along with a few other attributes) as opposed to being defined primarily as a gay man.

As for the poor teenager, maybe someday we will live in a world where assuming the worst is not required protection.

Night Moves

2010-01-08T12:12:00.003-05:00

Relationships are complicated – whether on the basic level of two friends or colleagues and more so when you toss in love and sex. And so it is with Phil despite our mutual mellowness and deep understanding of human imperfections. We are older, not looking to get married or have children and are quite laissez faire when it comes to comings and goings. This fits well into our parallel pathologies.

I still have the weekend wife who I speak with every day, extensively, and he still has the other boyfriend- Carrie and Stan, our bookends. Now Carrie was at an advantage knowing all there is to know and in theory a few weeks ago the imbalance was corrected for Stan as Phil explained to him the facts of life. When it comes to Carrie, there are no mysteries to me but all I know of Stan is through Phil’s eyes, a prism that at times is hard to gauge.

New Year’s Eve has never been my favorite holiday – a strange combination of forced gaiety combined with social pressure. In our society sitting alone on New Years is probably considered worse than a solitary turkey sandwich on Thanksgiving. As Phil put it succinctly, it is fraught with emotional danger. It was not that long ago that as midnight struck, Carrie had a meltdown when faced with kissing what she knew to be her future ex and more recently a little after midnight we held each other – not sexually – taking a moment of comfort in each other’s arms.

For the New Year’s we have known each other, Phil has conveniently been away – convenient for both of us – but not this year. Finally some weeks back we acknowledge that we should spend it together, albeit not really knowing what to do. I struggle with what to say to Carrie, my traditional New Year’s being with her and our children. She solves the problem asking "What are you and Phil doing for New Year’s". Problem solved.

Not so quick: As fraught as things are for me, things are equally fraught for Phil. He did explain the facts of life – his relationship with me – to Stan but I am not sure what was heard. As December quickly is winding down, Phil, a widower, announces he really wants to spend the evening with a group of old friends, friends from his married straight life, friends who know nothing of his present circumstances. He does not want to bring me, a combination of not wanting me to spend yet another evening in the closet I have left behind and also a fear: what happens as the bell tolls. Do we kiss, European cheek thing, or maybe just a handshake and pat on the shoulder. You get the picture.

I am not overly upset – spending the evening with my children is not exactly a punishment and is very much in my comfort zone. It is Anna’s first New Year’s as a mother and being alone under her circumstances is not easy, a fact that becomes clear as the evening and weekend unfolds. It is a good New Year’s as New Year’s goes, albeit not what was originally anticipated. It even was okay when a little after midnight we all hear my cell phone in the distance (no, I do not carry it on my hip like a modern day 38) and Carrie points out I should answer it, say hello to Phil. I would love to claim total comfort at those moments, but I am not there yet, but still I did answer the phone, express my New Year’s wishes to Phil.

Of course I think about everything, there are worse diseases, and come to realize that I could have gone to the party with Phil – it is not as if I have not met many of these people before, as the straight friend, and I have grudgingly accepted my place in his closet. The midnight moment, while potentially strange, was manageable, a guy hug if you would. No, the problem was Stan, or more accurately Phil’s loyalty to Stan. The thought of being disloyal to Stan, even though Stan would have been unaware of the circumstances weighed on Phil, weighed on him to the degree that he was willing to pull the plug that evening on both of us.

We have talked of this since that night and Phil has a little work to do. He needs to define who he is and where he is going. I am his friend and happy to stand by him as he works through this, but am also plain that like anyone I do have limits. The danger is that I, and of course Phil, do not know where these limits lie and unfortunately once the ramparts are breached they will be hard to repair.

So we are back at the parallel pathologies. I have a significant amount of my weekend time booked – appropriately with children and maybe inappropriately with Carrie. Phil gets his time with Stan – once again the appropriateness is a subject of some debate, but it all seems to work. The problem is that as my children continue to grow – it is rather inevitable – my weekends become more available, a trend that is already starting to kick in and with that will be the question of what my Saturday nights will look like, or maybe the question is really what Stan’s will be.

Bob Seger had a monster hit back in 1976 and one line from it has resonated as I have mulled the situation:
I used her she used me
But neither one cared
We were getting our share
　
Of course we all know that taking parallel pathologies and claiming everything is healthy because both sides are equally damaged is not a great formula. Relationships are tricky and some work lies ahead.

Peace II

2009-12-30T14:10:00.002-05:00

It seems that I have written of late and have covered the when and where’s of life – an important updating and stage setter I suppose, but I have not crawled underneath things very much. Last night I sat with an old friend – dinner and many drinks (no one drove) – and covered much ground, old stories / new events – the gamut. And as we talked I realized an interesting thing: I feel at peace. That is not to say that there are many issues and my plate is not overflowing. Maybe it is because of those issues – let’s face it, there is little you can throw at me to top the father of my grandchild being a jailed pedophile – but I think it goes beyond that. Maybe it is the self-acceptance and no longer fixating on returning to places I can never go. Maybe it is the bond of friendship that Carrie and I have – surviving family issues that either bring you together or tear you apart. I suppose in some sense all of the above.

Phil is dealing with some issues of late – implications of the closet he has so carefully built and finally having told his “other boyfriend” that he really isn’t. What particularly comes to mind is a comment that Stan used to make about his relationship with Phil: he used to say that Phil was his other half. It always struck me as strange, not so much that I had in a way supplanted Stan, but the implications of the comment in general. I think I have spent my life trying to be another half, to girlfriends and wives, subsuming all and defining myself as part of a couple.

Now, there is nothing wrong with being a couple and nothing wrong with a level of devotion but the implication of being someone’s half is that inherently you are not whole. And if they disappear you are left incomplete. I go into a new year with things constantly changing – the things that cannot even be predicted, finding the balance of friendship with Carrie while allowing both of us to personally grow, and the unpredictability of the relationship with Phil as he finely struggles with his own self definition.

And while I go into another year with changes yet to be revealed, I also go into it with a new found constant: a sense of wholeness which begets a sense of peace.

As I was saving this document I discovered that I had already written a post titled “Peace” back in December 2006. Then it was a greeting of Peace to the readers I used to have. Today it is much simpler, a lot less words: my own inner peace.

Joy & Sorrow

2009-12-14T22:08:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving came a little late this year, the product of scattered adult children. It may have been a Friday but a perfect Turkey, multitudinous sides and a coalition of the willing; what else does one need. It is the coalition which was particularly striking: Carrie and most of our children including Anna and her new addition (in what is now also their home), another daughter's in-laws and in what may be the strangest twist Carrie's ex, the biological to the step-daughters I raised. He comes with the new wife, a kid, a partridge... Alright, no partridge.

Carrie's house is getting used to it now that Anna is part of the mix, Anna and child. Her father, the ex, has become a regular and it almost seems normal. Stranger are the visits from the pedophile's parents. It is their grandchild also, distressing as it all may be.

Dinner goes well - whatever discomfort some may have brought to the table, forgotten in the passing of dishes. Carrie did the toast - it is her home- and did it well. But I had my own, for me and now for this page.

I still remember the lyrics of the first song I memorized - not because I was trying but based on the both incessant listening and the depth of the resonance in a fourteen year old’s brain:
"It’s no matter if you’re born to play the King or pawn
For the line is thinly drawn 'tween joy and sorrow" (Paul Simon)

It feels like we - our family - have spent the past number of years testing that line, frequently surging into it. And every time we border on breaking through and testing sorrow verging on despair, we seem to bounce back. The Jewish liturgy has a refrain that God offers us life or death and daily reminds: "Choose life". It is really all any of us can do. And with all of the problems, all of the issues and setbacks, we still manage to embrace life, particularly our newest testament to the magic of creation.

A Mid-Summers Nightmare

2009-12-13T14:33:00.003-05:00

It was a long time ago, three years back, that I posted “Homeland Insecurity”, probably the most difficult post I had to write. The link is here but the story is simple enough. A daughter, an imminent marriage, a visit from the Fed’s… A soon to be son-in-law was being investigated for trading underage pictures. For reasons we can only guess, the problem went away – lack of the damning computer, issues of evidence: we don’t really know nor do we really want to. What we do know is that as time elapsed his family was quick to believe him, believe they weren’t really underage, a Playboy moment in the internet age.

Bill and Anna saw a therapist, talked, and to our horror decided to reschedule the wedding. Our family, immediate and extended, would have done anything to stop it but ultimately it was the choice of our daughter and concerned as we were, she is still our daughter. I can feel the cringing starting but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The wedding is rescheduled and we are troubled, deeply troubled. Time for a talk, not with Anna – she knows our views, time for a chat with Bill, a kitchen table talk. We sit across from each other and I express my concerns, my deep concerns. I don’t really accept that he was investigated for having pictures of buxom sixteen year olds. I tell him that the marriage is a big responsibility. He listens, sympathetically nodding; he assures me, he would never hurt my daughter.

I remain concerned, look him in the eyes and tell him “You can’t choose your orgasms.” I stress that what excited him once, will yet again. He listens, not so happy now. That night my daughter tells me that he was okay with our talk, okay except for that one comment, that one uncalled for comment. I back off – my point was made, no need for a war.

This summer was off to a quiet start and one week night while laying in bed with Phil the phone rings – yes, a late night call. It is close to midnight and it is Anna. She is in her newly purchased house after a day of work and evening of school, resting her pregnant body. Yes, she is with child, six months worth. And Bill is missing. Family is gathering, police are called: maybe a wreck on a highway. Bill is responsible, not one to disappear, not one to ignore his phone. Finally at 2 AM the police are there to take the missing persons report when they get some news – he has been arrested one county over. No word on why, the arraignment will be in the morning.

Now we are secretly hoping for something “easy” – drunk driving, disorderly conduct or the like. Hope as we do, I can only think of one thing: you can’t choose your orgasms. The next day we gather at the courthouse and get the word. A police officer saw a car parked in front of a school and went to investigate: Bill, pants down, in the act, a fifteen year old girl with him. A life, in an instant unraveled. No, many lives, so many lives, unraveled in that instant.

I would love to say that was the worst: it was not. A month later a second arrest: earlier in the summer there was a thirteen and fourteen year old, a drive back to his house, my daughter’s house, and a sexual act in the bedroom – in my daughter’s bedroom. No low bail this time, the courts seem to finally get it.

What is there to say? I am a proud grandpa, the divorce is in the works, the house sold, the bedroom furniture abandoned. Bill is in jail – a plea bargain in the works, presumably real jail time in his future.

Over the last few months, in different venues, I have recalled the kitchen table conversation and I have recounted “the” quote and the response. Looking back clearly it did touch some sort of nerve. But what has been most fascinating has been the reaction of others. Five simple words, a mere six syllables and yet such power, such discomfort. Carrie has suggested that I lose the story, clearly more trouble than it is worth. But I am loathe to acquiesce, to distance myself from what I hold to be such a basic truth: “you can’t choose your orgasm.” True for him, true for me, true for us all. For most of us a truth and a non-issue but for the sick few a sad truth that is inescapable.

Gypsy

2009-12-11T03:10:00.003-05:00

It is almost four years since I started this blog and more importantly since I started my journey. While I no longer write often - pressures of time, sometimes too little to say and more often too much, it seems wrong to ignore an anniversary. Not so much wrong for you, anyone left reading, but wrong for me.

So where am I with my life? When people question where am I living I typically respond that I am a gypsy. I have my apartment in the 'burbs. It's been two years and I just signed on for two more. By the time the four years draws to a close maybe I will have spent a years worth of nights there.

And then there is Phil’s apartment in the City: another third of my life. (Let's be honest - an evening in a very quiet suburb or the center of one of the world’s great Cities. Throw in a boyfriend and the choice is pretty easy.)

And then, yes then, there are the weekends. The country "home", seeing the kids, time with family and of course Carrie. Now I would love to say she is the add-on, there because of the kids, not central to my experience. But that would be disingenuous bordering on pathological.

I do spend time with my children but at age thirteen, they come and go and as any parent should be, I am there but am also aware of the futility of forced face time. So Carrie and I share the house - her house - on the weekends. As I recently told a friend we share everything but bodily fluids.

As I started writing this in my head I realized that the gypsy description was broader than I first envisioned. I fear that I am an emotional gypsy, dancing in many camps yet not "all in" in any of them. Carrie would scoff at this saying I have it all. And she is correct, in most ways I do - Carrie who still allows me in her life, Phil who is learning to say the"L" word even without a few too many drinks and the many friends and colleagues who continue to accept me gay or straight.

So why the trouble with "all in"? I am the king of jumping feet first and assessing the long term consequences later. But I also have been a serial lover – always in love, always with one person, just not always the same person - but always one at a time. For one with my track record it may seem a bit self-serving, but there is an honesty to it all, one that allows me to look in the mirror with some sense of comfort.

As this post is written over the course of days, I share some of it with Phil who points out that I am “all in”, just with Carrie. I ask how that can be when she and I rarely touch. But he has a point; Carrie and I speak daily, the kids as the base but so much more in our lives (another post when I have real fortitude). I readily admit to loving her while accepting the inherent impossibility – I am gay and fear there is no changing and truth be told, not sure that I would if I could.

Phil is trickier. There are the structural issues. The eleven year age difference does not overly faze me.But he is semi-retired and as he eases into that world, he can float freely, time here but also time there, oh so many there’s, while I remain rooted – job and family. What will happen when he takes the “sabbatical”, a month in Florida, three months in Europe? I suspect there is a defense mechanism at work, hedging my emotional bets. Meanwhile, we also speak daily, share most evenings and even more nights. Sort of like the line from Fiddler – if that’s not love, what is?

I sit here – typing and thinking, looking for some magical words to elegantly end this post but uncharacteristically they do not easily flow… Four years is a long time and the words that come to mind are grateful and humbled: grateful for all that I emotionally have, “all in” or not, and humbled that I have it, considering how rough this road has been on so many.

As I do my final edit I realize that I glossed over what might be the essence of where I find myself emotionally – maintaining two "all in’s" simultaneously. It is so much easier to claim gypsy status than to address two “all in’s and the inherent instability that represents.

Stirrings

2009-09-12T14:22:00.002-04:00

Recently Phil and I were driving along the west side – an area that now gives new meaning to urban renewal but once was the seamy side of town. While being gay is not seamy per se, let’s face it – gay leather biker bars… not exactly part of mainstream society. As we drove I realized that the tenement buildings that once housed the Ramrod were now high rises – expensive high rises.

Many years ago – had to be 1974 – I had a college roommate. When we reached a certain moment in our senior year I walked over to the hair stylist – a trendy East Village place at the time – and cut off my pony tail, put on a suit and joined the working world. Michael was cut from a different cloth – he imagined being a writer but his vision was not so much of a typewriter as it was a bottle of Bushmills and a pack of Camels or maybe Gauloises if he was feeling both flush and French at the time.

As you might expect he did not have much money in his pockets and found cheap housing – a third floor walk up above the Ramrod, a view of an elevated highway and abandoned piers. Now he was straight and with a cigarette dangling walked the streets unaware of the surroundings and, I suspect, the surroundings were happy to give him his berth.

All of this came back to me as we drove past the spot or more specifically a moment was recalled. One night Michael and I were out and I drove him home – yes, with the real job came a real car. I cannot remember the circumstances of our being together but I can tell you it was a Saturday night in the fall, somewhere around that midnight hour and the Ramrod was happening – Harleys lined up, men without shirts, a world before aids. I rolled to the curb and he hopped out and scampered up the stairs. I watched the scene for a moment and then eased back into traffic, heading home. I cannot tell you where I was living – an age of moving around, cannot remember any faces on the street, but in some sense I can still feel the evening, in a vivid sense emotionally.

There are other stories like that from that era. Being in an elevator – the Friday night visit to my Village friend – with a man whose nipples stood out. Even now knee deep in the gay world, I have not seen a pair quite like those. A fleeting moment yet a clear memory. There are others…

I share this with Phil, struggling to explain it. I did not think of it as being gay – did not think of me as being gay – yet the moments were undeniable. Phil says “stirrings” and the word catches me. Indeed there were stirrings, stirrings as one barely approaching puberty, stirrings as a college student, and stirrings beyond.

There came a point when I suppose I graduated. I had different words then. If I lay in bed and imagined a man it wasn’t that I was a homosexual or bisexual: I was just sexual. It was easy to do, especially when having a more than satisfactory heterosexual relationship. Though I suppose if I was to write of those times I would need to change the title of the story. I guess if you have enough stirrings it is inevitable that one day you will wake up to longings.

Last night I had a quiet evening and at one point was online watching a gay video chat room. Usually the fare is someone showing their thing, lazily jerking off until the moment when it is no longer lazy. Last night had an addition – a popular one at that: a man most noticeable by his bulging midriff lying back while a boy gave him quite the blow job. The boy looked about eighteen or nineteen – too young for my tastes and bordering on questionable judgment on the part of all. Yet I did watch for a while and as I thought about it afterwards I came to understand the attraction. I did not want to be receiving a blow job from him – I am quite happy with the experience of age. I wanted to be him, to be eighteen, to be giving a blow job, to be accepting this part of who I am. To have had more than just stirrings.

Just A Story

2009-08-05T16:17:00.002-04:00

As I head off on vacation, I read an e-mail from my new friend Tammy – she likes my stories, so here's one to hold her. A brief background - Phil has a gay first cousin who lives in Chelsea with his partner. Of course Phil is not out to them. A year and a half ago he is invited to a football playoff party and I tag along - there I am, a gay man at a gay party acting straight. Really. We had dinner with them last summer and they asked about summer vacations - Phil and I were going to the Pines in a few weeks but Phil, not being stupid, quickly jumps in that he is going to see a friend in PA. Afterwards I swore I would not see them again, not until he was out - I have my pride and I have my limits.

Fast forward to Sunday night, A Viagra at the apartment, a burger at the Viceroy and then a night cap at Rawhide. We are in the zone, kissing, touching and at one point just at the front of the bar, drinking. Phil all of a sudden whispers: “Don't look up and follow me to the back.” Head down I quickly shuffle and once there ask why. He nods to the front - his cousin is there, with his partner, sitting in the seats we just vacated.

Shocking turn of events. Phil's first reaction was how to get out unseen - he had not planned on this, he was not ready. As we talked he came to realize both the silliness of it and also the difficulty of slipping by someone sitting by the door. He is ready. We walk up and say hello. Maybe a raised eyebrow on their part - maybe. Big hugs hello and then some conversation. Surprised they were not. Not even close. So a good resolution and now I can even see them again.

Anyway, my story for the road, a non-story really. There will be more non-stories I suspect, more people who if they raise an eyebrow at all, it will be to acknowledge the moment more than to register surprise.

Winning and Losing

2009-07-16T19:43:00.002-04:00

Recently I have been e-mailing with a new friend Tammy, a very pretty lesbian in her early thirties. She lives with a woman but the excitement has long faded and there is a world of women out there, one in particular who makes her heart pound and juices flow. She is not ready to walk away from what she has – the comfort, friendship and emotional bond, but she is also not ready to resign herself to a life of, to use a term, quiet desperation.

As I listen to her story I try to think of words of wisdom and I go back in time – December 1981. A client has a holiday party that was ahead of its time – a warehouse space, top shelf all the way, a harbinger of the excesses that the current decade perfected. What made the night special was the opportunity to be with Karen, a cute little legal secretary I was infatuated with. At this point in my very straight life I had a girlfriend I semi-lived with – Stephanie and I were the proverbial square peg in the round hill, only in our twenties and already playing out the string.

The party had raffles – everyone got a ticket as they walked in the door. My partner, older and supportive of my intentions, joined me as we sought out Karen and as we sat down for dinner we spread the three tickets – ours and hers – in front of Karen, a peace offering of sorts. Eventually they get to the drawings and my partners number comes up – lunch in a famous New York restaurant. Well a McDonald’s gift certificate is always useful. A few other winners and then Karen’s number: a swatch watch, or the equivalent of the day. A few other winners and then we hear my number: two tickets to 42nd Street, orchestra seats, a Saturday night. Primo tickets to the Broadway show of the season.

The evening ends and back home to Steph. Now I should have been quite talkative – a raffle, three tickets, three winners, and one of the best prizes to moi! I don’t say a word. I think she is my girlfriend; we tend to spend our Saturday nights together. And I think I did win these with Karen and to be honest what a great opportunity to extend a new friendship – hell maybe even get into her pants. A balancing act: the existing, albeit not particularly healthy relationship or throwing it all away for the dream. I still remember the back and forth and the way I came to decide. It was clear that the relationship at home had gotten off track and I decided that I would blow the roof off and maybe, just maybe, things would end up back on course. Or possibly we would be blown so far off the tracks that we could no longer ignore the pathology. Either possibility seemed better than where we were, bordering on the quiet desperation. Karen it was.

The beginning of the end of the Stephanie era: it would take another year or so, a long playing swan song but eventually the end came and I suspect we were both much better for it, even if I did not know it at the time. Karen – a wonderful night at the theatre, a friendship which years later I single handedly destroyed: a story for another day.

It all comes to my mind as I think about Tammy and particularly as I think about my relationship with Phil. The last group of posts written for a person who does not read my blog, a pretty silly way of communicating. It is time to talk more openly, to risk putting things back on the tracks or maybe blow them up. Phil and I talk, more than once, no revelations, no magic bullets, but we talk. And an interesting thing happens: we get along better, the sex is wonderful, and there is a sense of optimism.

Sometimes in order to win you have to be willing to lose.

Personal pride

2009-07-07T10:07:00.001-04:00

Everyone loves fireworks and this year the “tweenage” children decide they want the full show – Macy’s fireworks over the Hudson River, one of those things you do with a million of your closest friends. I can’t blame them and actually look forward to the adventure. We park the car in suburbia – this is a train night, stupid I’m not. Before leaving the car I prepare – pull my drivers license and credit card, train tickets and cash: no need to carry everything I own.

My key chain seems to always have more on it than one would think necessary so car and house key are on one ring and all sorts of things are on the other. I remove a key from the everything ring and start to slide it on with the car and house key – the “real’ ring. The kids notice – there is not much they do not – and ask what That key is?

Now they have heard Phil’s name over the years, usually by accident, always fleeting, almost with shame, a mirror of my own insecurities. However a theme has emerged over the last few months, one sponsored by Carrie, welcomed by me, and tolerated by Phil: it is time for Phil to meet the family. Not in a Meet The In-Laws formal weekend visit: a more unstructured whenever the paths cross moment.

“What is the key for?” they ask again in unison. I answer simply: We will be in the vicinity of Phil’s apartment and in case we need a place to go – whatever the reason – it is good to have the key. “What if Phil is there?” I answer “Phil is not there.” “How do you know?” “Because I know where he is. And if he is there, you will meet him”

We did not need the key – I never expected we would – but what a liberating moment: his name spoken, not whispered, his existence and my key acknowledged. They may not have met tangibly last night, but in some sense I feel a bridge was crossed, more by me than by them. I suspect they had crossed that bridge a while ago – stupid they’re not.

Somehow it all seems to tie in: “Pride” is important, a group believing in itself, but I suppose that pride as reflected in our day to day lives is much more important for without that there never could have been “Pride”. And when one can banish shame, if only for a moment, there is a vacuum that pride will eventually fill.

Pride – Part 3: Why

2009-07-06T08:24:00.000-04:00

Why as in “why am I writing this, what is my point.” The evening festivities are no surprise – a quick bite to eat in the Village, parade vestiges all around, up to Chelsea for a drink in Rawhide, a bar worthy of its name and then way uptown to the Townhouse, as upscale as it sounds. Some drinks surrounded by our community and home to bed though not to sleep.

It all does make sense to me, a full day, time for me, time for us. But I do realize, having written this over a few days and having re-read it a number of times that it does not really make sense: I have described a situation of inherent imbalance as if it was as stable as Manhattan’s bedrock base. There is a part of me that can explain why it all works: I have my children and get to spend time with them while Phil is occupied with Stan. I am not ready to jump all in and say let’s play house together. Makes sense…

Yet we are playing house, together most weeknights and the ones where we are not we know where the other is, what the other is doing. We talk every day; we are best friends and lovers. So the question is do I have the best of all worlds or am I just willing to ignore the downsides? And whose downsides are they? While I do not agree with Phil’s management of the situation – his children or Stan, that seemingly endless ability to compartmentalize, is it really my concern?

There are two answers here. Clearly on one level it is not my concern so long as it has no direct impact upon me. But I fear the other answer is that it is my concern. The fact that Word tells me I am approaching fifteen hundred words on the “Pride” posts, the fact that I felt the need to circumnavigate my boyfriend, fearing an uncomfortable moment, these are tangible events, measurable and real. I suppose that is the nature of relationships, the baggage becomes shared.

It is all comfortable for now and I am a patient man. Things will not change today or tomorrow but life like water does find its own level. The excitement of this journey and the Blog which tracks it, has been that unlike a novel, no one, least of all me, knows the ending, probably because short of death there is no ending, just the ride with its pleasures and its pains.

Pride – Part 2: Hitting the Streets

2009-07-05T08:52:00.001-04:00

Sunday arrives and after a weekend with my kids I head south to New York City. The parade covers miles but I head down to the Village, where forty years ago at the Stonewall one might say the parade began and is now where it ends. The streets are crowded and as a middle aged white male I blend into the background and watch the show. Parades, even “my” parade, don’t do much for me so after a few minutes I head down to the Dugout, a bear bar, to get a beer. It is packed, the type of environment where Phil is instantly best friends with the person pressed next to him but where I quietly sip my drink. After a while I head out to the street, some people hanging around, and most importantly air to breathe.

As I am standing there a fellow starts to talk with me – a few years older and one who has been there for the past forty years. Mark brings a different perspective, we are both wandering alone, so we decide to wander together, and wander we do for the next three hours. There is talking and a certain element of sexuality. We talk of life, relationships and hooking up. At some point I check my cell phone and there is a missed call from Phil. It seems that Stan and his friend have wandered off and Phil is available. We arrange to meet – me, my new friend Mark and of course Phil; we pick a spot but with the parade, closed streets, crowd control, this is more an odyssey than a stroll.

We arrive and it is strangely uncomfortable – Phil and Mark are not cut out for each other and Phil decides to head back to the Dugout where his friends have gone while Mark and I wander the other direction, potentially back to the apartment…. As we wander Mark’s desires cool with the air and the moment, if there was one, is gone. Mark thinks his old boyfriend may be at the Dugout and wants to walk back there. Now it is getting interesting – the Dugout is where Phil went to reconnect with Stan and his friend. It is not a big place – running into them is almost assured. I call Phil – he knows the dilemma quite well – and he tells me to do what I like, not exactly a ringing endorsement for running into them. I am happy to skip it all but Mark is hell bent on going and at that point we were still wandering together.

We approach the bar and I immediately spot Phil and the crew – standing on the street talking among themselves. And I realize that I am not ready for this, I cannot go and make believe that I have not seen Phil in weeks or months. Presumably Stan has a good idea that I am still in the picture but while I may write like a drama queen, I try not to live like one. Circumnavigating them is not difficult and Mark and I check out the scene. Now Mark is nice but three hours was just fine so I excuse myself to head into the bar for a beer before hitting the streets again. As I approach, there is Phil and Stan, presumably saying good bye, arms wrapped around each other, a very private moment in a very public place.

Now this is no surprise – they spend a night or so together each week, close friends for upwards of seven years. I quickly slide into the bar and over a Bud light consider it. Of course they were saying good bye and after downing my beer, out comes the cell. Phil, on his own now, is not far away – we speak for a moment and five minutes later it is time for the evening festivities to begin…

Pride - Part 1: Setting the Stage

2009-07-03T17:10:00.002-04:00

I am not sure if this is a diary entry more than a blog post, but not having a little book with a clasp this seems to be the only repository for my thoughts, even when it is more for me than for you. Last weekend was “Pride” – an event which, like some artists, has been reduced to a word. I am not inherently big on Pride or similar events: I am not a parade goer, not one for public displays with strangers. It sort of reminds me of the two vegans in my office – one high on the pecking order and the other working the mailroom. The mailroom fellow thinks of the two of them as kindred spirits and the other fellow thinks they are incredibly different unrelated people who happen to share one thing. But yet again I digress.

Last year I went to Pride with Phil and Stan – a party high above the fray at one of their acquaintances and then wandering the streets and a beer at the Dugout. Now that we are in the era of Phil having bifurcated his life, I assumed that Pride would be a Stan day and the thought of wandering myself was not sending me.

A few days before that weekend I am at a cocktail party – a networking event for us white collar types and in spite of my gayness (or maybe becasue of it) I find myself chatting up a cute tall blond maybe twenty years my junior. I confess, there is still a bi next to the gay and while I am not hitting on her, the company is nice. As we talk some more a few comments – references to Chelsea and the Pines – so being me I point out that I have been to those places. In an instant high fives and my new lesbian friend confesses she thought I was gay but was confused by the talk of my children. Tammy and I are friends. She does not so much ask if I am going to Pride as assume I am. And at that moment I realized that I needed to go – it is the life I have chosen, or maybe the life that chose me.

That night Phil tells me that Stan has a friend coming up for the weekend so I think, great, Phil is no longer tethered. It turns out I was half right: Phil would be around that evening but for the day it was a threesome again, just I was not one of the three. At first there was some disappointment, but then I realized this was a good thing: so much of my gay life has been not only with Phil, but through Phil; his friends have become mine, but of course they are still his. A day on my own would be a healthy enough event, maybe a dose of some reality for better or worse.

Unreality

2009-06-14T13:58:00.002-04:00

It seems that over time I have written much of reality – I am sure there is at least one post with that as its title. Yet it seems that much more of my current life is devoted to unreality, or so I tell Phil and so Carrie tells me. Of course in Phil I see it but I am sure that Carrie is confused which can only mean that as usual she is on to something.

Phil’s unreality has to do with that capacious closet – after seven plus years as a gay man, it still remains a mystery to those closest to him. He likes to remind me that his sex life is his own business – would a straight couple tell their children their favorite positions: “Morning Johnny – your Mom gave me an awesome BJ last night.” Yet as Phil will be off at a local gay pride event today I cannot help but wonder how many of those men and women define their gayness solely as a matter of sexuality. Do old fags who don’t do it anymore turn straight? While my activities at times may tend to belie it, I would like to think that I am more than the Craigslist “Sr8t man giving bj’s.”

Of course the scary part is that my unreality may in some ways top Phil’s. I live in many worlds which seems fine to me though maybe not to those floating in my various orbits. A recent day stands out: In the morning I e-mailed my first wife in anticipation of a visit to her and my grown children all of whom have relocated out west. I was staying in her home and she wanted to join me in a visit to some friends from grade school. Why not? Later that day I arranged a Saturday night dinner with a friend from college and his wife with Carrie in her home. (Last night was the dinner – we will get to that in a moment.) After arranging dinners involving my first ex (as she likes to describe herself) and with Carrie, I left the office and went home, pure Ozzie and Harriet in the alternate universe, to Phil, the boyfriend “of sorts”.

Last night was the dinner – Carrie and I as hosts. She cooked up a storm, wine for all, conversations flowing from topic to topic. Four hours after they arrived, hugs, kisses and goodbyes. All seemed well to me. Then as we started the clean up Carrie points out how she had once assumed she would be our friends – a couple going home after an evening out, a couple retiring to their bedroom, to their bed, to their life. She points out the evening was wrong – this was my old friend, my “turf”: Phil and I should have been having them to dinner. She is amazed – at me. To her mind our guests, while to polite to say anything, shared her discomfort, her sheer amazement at the bizarreness of it all. While this last piece can be confirmed – my friend while discrete is incapable of not being honest. He would answer fairly.

Maybe someday I will ask, a conversation over a glass of wine or coffee. But the answer seems irrelevant because Carrie’s point seems well taken. We may still be a family, a bond that survives much, but how can we be a couple. We speak daily, we share so much, but ultimately we retire to our separate corners with nary a hug or a peck. I may harbor some dreams of climbing into her bed, snuggling close but it is as likely as my lottery dreams: wonderful diversions grounded in total awareness that it is not happening.

It is a Sunday early afternoon as I type – the children watching a movie and then hopefully some time together. Frank is likely on his way to that gay pride parade. It is a distance and I am happy to be with the family, but Carrie has a point. If one is creating a new life, if one is willing, right or wrong, to sacrifice so much, then at some point one has to also embrace that life. But to me it is much simpler: in my haste to create one life, I have ended up with many lives – too many. The goal has to remain to bring the strands together and create whatever tapestry is me.

Sorted Details

2009-05-08T17:10:00.004-04:00

A few weeks after that first meeting, Phil e-mails: a friend from out of town, Saturday night, what could be bad. Back to the sub-division and into the car for our night out. I have written of that night, a post well named, Inexorable, a post I choose not to read today. The back seat with the friend, who knew what could happen back there, a night of dancing and drinking, and yes, a night of sucking and fucking: what could be bad. And the next day, arriving home not before dawn, but well afterwards, but I digress…

A week or so later, I get up my courage and suggest to Phil we grab dinner after work, two guys with the jacket and tie. In a testimony to my insecurities, I am surprised when he agrees. I am sure we played, but remember the walk after dinner, talking, taking in the familiar sights. So it started, white collar weeknights, not in the sub-division but in the City. As in any relationship, not so much steps as a ramp gently escalating from acquaintances to friends to more.

Of course I still have my family, children, Carrie, a life, so while I spend time with them, particularly weekend time with them, Phil has his time with Stan. Our circles continue to overlap – Phil may spend a day with Stan at the beach and I will join them for dinner, comfortable affairs, no expectations, no disappointments: a pattern that sounds strange in the telling but seemed quite normal in the being.

Stan was a confirmed bachelor of the gay world, happy with his friendships and his freedoms, not looking to get “married”, not capable of love as us straight guys once knew it. But a funny thing happened with the arrival of Nate: as Phil split his time and presumably his emotions, Stan realized that after seven years he had also been on that gently sloping ramp, he realized that he had quietly fallen in love. Ah, the plot thickens.

Not bad – I have managed to compress more than a year into a few paragraphs – the changes in dynamics gradual, the ramp ever so gentle. So a new pattern emerges. Phil has his time with Stan, I with my family, and we have our time together. But now the triangle is gone, and while I suspect that Stan can connect the dots, he no longer has any dots to connect. Phil doesn’t deny me, my existence secure, but he does not discuss me either. He is with Stan or he is not, my name left off the playbill. This iteration has lasted for maybe eight months now and it has been easy enough. Winters are a busy time, short days, busy at work, throw in some holidays and before you know it, spring.

But now that spring is sprung, I wonder how it continues to play out. Last summer we had those dinners in the sub-division, the triangle and more, salmon and wine. This summer I will see my family and I will see Phil. But it is inevitable that there will be days I will work and Phil will go to the beach with Stan and afterwards, there will be salmon and wine: I just won’t be there.

I of course am guilty in this also, on the positive side being cognizant of my family responsibilities – no, responsibilities sounds like a chore, more like family opportunities. But on the other side is also a bit of continuing to hedge my bets, this strange belief that I can go home again.

I have stretched my legs, wandered a bit, trying to end this post, but there is no end, yet another work in progress. And that is okay. When I found myself leaving the basement, moving to the apartment and realizing I had a boyfriend, all at once, my friends were concerned, fearful that I traded straight marriage for gay marriage, on the rebound no less, concerned that there needed to be some time to define myself not as Carrie’s husband or Phil’s boyfriend, not as my children’s parent, but as me. Not bad advice and not an easy task. As long as that ramp eases upward, the trip should be fine, where ever it may lead.

Of Sorts

2009-05-07T20:47:00.002-04:00

Over the last two years there have been these cryptic references to Phil: on occasion my “erstwhile” boyfriend and at other times my boyfriend “of sorts”. On the whole I have not dwelled – nor delved – into Phil in these pages. Part of it was who knew how long the ride would be, part was some attempt at privacy after years of life on the stage, and I suppose another part was the difficulty of the story - difficulty in expressing a nuanced situation adequately and difficulty in unraveling my own very complex emotions. It seems that I am finally for a road trip in time.

Two years ago I was new in the basement still feeling my way – lots of blogging, an occasional married gay meeting, sometimes a Saturday night out: none of which yielded what was – and remains – an essential part of my definition my being gay – sex with men. So one Saturday night, home alone, I put an ad on Craigslist. A night spent e-mailing with some scary freaks (the one who wanted my address so he could come play with Carrie’s panties stands out), a night where I was a happy to be able to turn off the computer and was thankful for the disposable e-mail address: A night where my hand seemed both adequate and safe.

The next day I check that e-mail – hope springs eternal – and there is a response from two guys who liked the posting. An e-mail in proper English, an adequate description, and a desire to first meet in a public place. Too bad I had gone to bed early. We e-mail and a few weeks later we meet – a beer and snack in a chain restaurant, the horrific service allowing plenty of time to talk and become comfortable. As we pay the check, Phil asks if I want to follow them home. As you can guess, I did not need to ponder and soon found myself in an older sub-division, upstairs, playing with not one, but two men – the possibilities I had only fantasized about.

After some fun, some sucking and fucking, kissing and groping, I came. As I got up to leave, Phil said “Lay here between us for a few minutes” and I did, no pressure, no sex, just warm bodies in the after glow. I mention this because as I look back, it is what stands out. While not yet a dime a dozen, blow jobs I had down. Laying there in the quiet was a trickier business. Just over two years later, the moment still brings a smile.

Of course there is something missing here – this is of course my story and Phil keeps popping up, but I did say threesome, and three it was. Stan, the owner of the home, had been Phil’s friend for the past seven years. They are in the best traditions of the Odd Couple: Phil a widower on a second life, a man accomplished in his profession, a pillar of the community type and Stan… Stan, while living in a closet of his own design (Phil’s closet construction may need an entire post), has always been gay, pure gay, nothing bi there. He is a kind and gentle man and not at all unintelligent. But he is not book learned: a vocational diploma and blue collar skills. Stan is my age and Phil has a decade on both of us.

Phil is the king of compartmentalizing and compartmentalize he did. He had his old life – work, long time friends, social engagements – which kept him busy in a world that was not Stan’s, and he had his new life with Stan, gay bars and friends, nude beaches, a good time had by all. “And never the twain shall meet.”

So you can start to see a picture developing. When it comes to sex, three can really be a lot of fun (my inner slut lives on), but in the real world triangles are tricky to balance, particularly if there is one point which is always the center. There is much more to this story, but as my therapist used to say, we are out of time.

Chicago

2009-05-04T20:57:00.002-04:00

During my journey Chicago has become a second home, if not physically, emotionally. It was, like many things, an accident. Every year I go there for a few days at the beginning of May. Going back to 2005 – pre-blog, pre-out, in my mind pre-gay – I find myself downtown at my hotel and as I go for a late night walk I pass the sex shops, the discrete signage and solid doors and the small print: Buddy booths. The quick look around and then a dart and then you are in and anyone who sees you there should be just as embarrassed. I sidle to the back and know what I want – a man, no, just a specific body part back then, but this night it was not to be. Then it is May 2006 and bi / gay is in the air. I blog in advance fishing for approval – should I go on Craig’s List, maybe just go to Boys Town and practice the walk.

Craig’s List it is and I make a few dates, blow off the annual dinner with my group and take what in hindsight was the plunge. The details have been covered in From 35,000 Feet and Accede To Reality, posts that even today three years later I hesitate to read: remembering the pain is enough. Suffice to say the entry into gayness was all I hoped and the re-entry from it was all I feared. I make a new friend and with the knowledge that it is a moment, a good moment but a moment none the less, I still want to go back. Chicago is my private playground, a land where I can climb the jungle gym away from prying eyes. So I decide to go back – a quick weekend to open up 2007, a quick weekend to close down nearly two decades. Before I pack my bags, the discussions of my return and then I am packing, but more than my bags: the basement era begins.

And then it’s May again and again my trip to Chicago. I will go to Boys Town, but will not blow off my conference. And after dinner that first night I am bought back in time leaping from 2007 to 2005 in an instant, brought back to a moment – a phrase I had forgotten uttering: "I Am Lost". As I re-read the post I cannot help but notice the connection between art and pain, a post that sears in a way that I can no longer muster. I still remember the night – unable to sleep, unable to be: wanting to be straight, wanting to be connected, my hotel room as cell. As I re-read the post this weekend I was thankful my little diary still existed, a reminder of where I was and where, if poor choices are made, I an end up yet again.

This year my journey was a little different. My boyfriend was in Chicago for business and waited a day for my arrival. The first night was the group dinner – spouses and guests are invited though only a few come. In advance I considered the potential consequences of bringing Phil – would they think him a friend or would they guess more. After more thought than it ever deserved it struck me that I am out of the closet at home, at work, places where it impacts, or doesn’t, every day. Yet here I am worried about what a group I see once a year will think. I consider it some more and realize that the truth goes back two years and then two years more. It goes back to flirting with one of the women; it goes back to again wanting to be the straight guy. The fact that after dinner I will go back to the room with Phil, that we can have a night of great sex if we want… but what if Lori wants me, wants to relive a past that never happens… It is hard writing this not because of shame or embarrassment. It is hard because it is so wildly out of touch with any reality. Here I have what I want and somehow still looking to complicate.

Phil joins me for dinner – maybe people thought he was just a friend, maybe some suspected more. I cannot say because neither did they. The next day I have my conference and Phil wanders the City, and then I am back in the room, the conference is over and I am in Chicago and I am gay and I am with my boyfriend. It does not make for exciting reading – no tears, no angst, none of the conflict central to drama. No, not much for reading, but not so bad for living.

Not Dead Yet

2009-03-02T17:49:00.001-05:00

So many thoughts. I marvel at how much I managed to blog a few years back while still being productive at work and functioning with my family. I suppose it was an adrenaline high – the high of exploration and new things and the high of the comments. Carrie would say I need, I thrive, on the adoration whether from those I know or just watching the site counter tick up.

So where do I stand after all of this. I fear not nearly as far along in any sense as I might have hoped. Carrie likes to say that I now have it all: a boyfriend during the week and still my weekends with her and my children. That is the strange part – I do have it all as she defines it, but yet still have thoughts racing in my mind, “issues” in modern parlance. These issues swirl around - my thoughts towards Carrie, towards my family. I have come to treasure my weekends – time spent quietly as seems so appropriate as the economic world spins seemingly out of control. Maybe the economy with a nation’s new found appreciation of true values fits into this.

The bottom line is now that I know my gayness, my bi-ness, so much more of who I am, there is no longer a need to prove it. And while a good gay fantasy still can do it for me, I confess to having had the most vivid of sexual dreams a few nights back and it was Carrie that was the object of my desire. And it is a real desire both in dreams and as I sit and talk with her, our quiet time together. Of course what haunts me, besides the damage inflicted, is what would happen should I have the opportunity to be with her – not immediately, not in days or weeks, but in months and years. Would self acceptance and love for her trump the “dark” side, not so dark now that is not a secret. Or would it come rushing back, secret trysts and lies yet again?

And overriding it all is the simple desire to do right by Carrie. Assuming that I could make a bargain – her acceptance of who I am and my willing to leave the actions behind – is that right for her or just another way of watching a slow bleed, of not putting on the bandage and moving along. She would say it can never be made right, just move along, but I am not sure how much I believe her, not when we spend our time on the weekends so comfortably, not when we speak on the phone every day.

I can hear her now asking: What about Phil, do you plan on mentioning him, so mention him I will. He is my boyfriend – a strange relationship in many ways, me being Mr. Out and him owning the most capacious of closets; me having an emotional affair of sorts with my wife and him still having a relationship of sorts with his last boyfriend; me being happiest in relationships and him never wanting to be so fully pinned down.

Carrie says that if I loved Phil in a total sense, I would not feel the pull towards her. While she has a good track record, I fear this she has wrong for it ultimately is not a commentary on Phil in anyway: it is a commentary on the strength of the bond that she and I have. There is comfort in my friendships and the honesty of the relationships. And there is a true comfort in the knowledge whether as lovers or friends, Carrie and I have crossed back into a land of honesty and friendship, albeit with emotional speed bumps a plenty ahead.

ET

2008-12-21T20:09:00.002-05:00

It is a Sunday night and I sit in my apartment. For most sitting at home is a normal thing – most nights save an occasional trip or vacation. For me it has become almost the exception, particularly when it is just me: a welcome respite at times.

During the week I may see Phil, sometimes here but other times at his place. Weekends are for my family. In theory it is for my kids but in reality it is also for Carrie and very much for me. I go to their home, spend an evening or two, see my children in their natural habitat. And it works for them. They feel they have a Dad but do not feel imposed upon.

Last night they went to a party: a two hour affair. I drop them off and go back to the house and have dinner and some quiet time with Carrie. We lie on the couches in the glow of the fireplace and talk softly across the coffee table. “Do I have any regrets?” she inquires. Do I have regrets? It was only ten hours earlier that I drove up to the house when an old Bruce song came on the iPod, Walk Like A Man. As I listened:
Well now the years have gone and I've grown
From that seed you've sown
But I didn't think there'd be so many steps
I'd have to learn on my own

A tear came to my eye. So many steps.

I did not talk of the song at that moment but the answer was easy: “Every day.” That is not to say that I have a bad life, that I deny where I am, or more importantly who I am, but yes, there are regrets, so many of them.

She asks if I think I am bi or gay. The answer there is pretty easy also. While gay as an answer is so much easier to deal with, so much more understandable to the masses, I am bi. I don’t see what other answer there can be. So many years with Carrie, so much incredible sex: I do not believe that is something anyone could fake.

She can understand my sexual desires, the gayness of it all. But she asks what else there is, what beyond that to justify the lengths to which I have gone, the damage that I have done. One would think this would be another easy one, a hanging curve ready to be drilled. But it is not. I wonder how much is the gayness and how much is the pent up “demand”, the result of so totally denying this portion of myself.

The answer is so intangible: variations on being comfortable in one’s own skin. And with that seems to be a greater comfort in all around me. Strangely though, part of that greater comfort is with Carrie and my family. Sitting by the fire, talking of these things with her: what could be more comfortable, and I suppose comforting, than that.

Of course there is a problem. We are separated, I am bi and quite gay in many ways, the world around us knows. It is not simple and we do not live in a vacuum. I spend my time there and then go back to this other life, a life with the famed boyfriend of sorts. Carrie asks about Phil – she is surprised that I want to spend New Year’s with the children and her, not with him. I explain he will be away – down South for a few weeks of family and friends.

But there is more and I explain it – the post that keeps being postponed. When I met Phil he had a boyfriend. A strange sort of relationship which would qualify as an alternate universe: he sees Stan in Stan’s world, which is now to a degree Phil’s world. But Phil maintains his own world without Stan’s existence. But yes, no matter how you cut it, Phil has two boyfriends of sorts.

Now this strangely works for me: I have my weekends without having to feel guilty. It’s a proverbial win-win. But I have come way too far to not realize the unusual aspects of it and sense the unhealthiness as a foundation for my life. But it works for me – not only having my weekend time but the fact that while he may have another boyfriend of sorts in Carrie I have another girlfriend of sorts.

As I drove back to my apartment today a thought got stuck in my mind. When Phil hurts, I feel bad for him. I do care. But when Carrie hurts, I hurt too: a connection that seems to transcend in many ways where we find our selves and just continues to confuse my sense of where and who I am.

Borders

2008-11-30T11:01:00.002-05:00

I have been playing with this post in my head for a while and it seems somehow fitting to be starting it now. It is a Sunday morning, the end of a long Thanksgiving weekend; I am in the country with Carrie and my kids, our home since Wednesday night. It has been a comfortable visit, time with the family, meals together, some time just with the twins and some time just with Carrie. She is out for a few hours, the kids had a friend sleep over so while I may be the titular head of the family for the moment, I am not in any immediate demand (other than the breakfast I just took a break to cook and serve).

Of course there is another player in all this, my erstwhile boyfriend Phil. Considering that I have not seen him since Tuesday, have only spoken on the phone with him for maybe five minutes each on Wednesday and Friday, and had only minimal e-mails, his presence in Carrie’s mind feels a little outsized. On the other hand, I will likely see him tonight when I return home and Carrie would point out, not incorrectly, that that proves her point.

So it seems that today is the microcosm. Having woken long before the kids, I laid on the foot of Carrie’s bed – the dogs and I – while we discussed our lives. Last night while the kids played with their friend, Carrie and I watched some TV together. Such simple acts, so comfortable, yet fraught with all of the underlying emotions, with the knowledge that these moments are the exceptions and not the rules.

Sometimes my blog is read by those close to me and sometimes not. If Phil is reading this, he has stopped at the “erstwhile boyfriend” phrase, just as a year ago he quickly noticed being my “boyfriend of sorts”. Neither phrase really shocks him in that we do live the same reality. But if Carrie and I have issues with boundaries, Phil reminds me more of borders complete with gate houses and guards. He actually would prefer the phrase “compartmentalization” though any twenty letter word should be suspect.

You see Phil has quite successfully created compartments in his life, a process eased by his being a widower. It was a number of years ago but he never had the moment of needing to explain anything to anyone. One life continued in a sense – family and friends – and another, the gay life, appeared: “Separate but equal” to steal the phrase. Of course that phrase was a failure, rejected by the Supreme Court fifty-four years back.

Now how Phil chooses to live is his decision and I try to limit my judgments and concern to the areas where it impacts upon me, not always easy distinctions. So, for example, I know his children – adults at this point, and get along quite well with one of them. To her, I am just a friend of her Dad’s: a widower and divorcee navigating the loneliness together. All of which is true while managing to avoid the truth totally.

Phil has a broad circle of gay friends and time with them flows naturally, not saddled by pretense. But then we see his gay relative – back to the family thing – where I get to now be in an alternative Disney world where I can hang out with my boyfriend and a gay couple while making believe I am straight…… No, I am not making this up.

Somehow, a few posts have melded here and it is getting a bit long. There is more to cover – whole uncharted compartments for Phil, my inability – lack of desire? – to “properly” separate from Carrie, my acceptance of the gayness and my regrets for how it all seems to have played out. But anyone still reading has surely had enough for today.

Children

2008-11-23T20:54:00.002-05:00

One of the things I had forgotten about blogging was the give and take, particularly since after such a hiatus I was not sure anyone was still looking. So imagine my surprise to see a comment from Brad – no, not just a comment, but an accurate remembering of what I had written two and a half years ago.

For those who did not follow the link in Brad’s comment (you really should) he took note of my current reference to seeing my kids - an easy hour and a half, and remembered how back in April 2006 I commented on the difficulty I still had discussing kids from my first marriage including a not so easy two hour drive to see them.

As I thought about it I realized the complexities of this whole arena. My sons, who were extremely young when I was first divorced, are twenty-three and twenty-one year old young men. While there is no replacement of lost years, there is a certain redemption in our current relationships. Things had improved over time but somehow it seems that coming out to them cemented the bond, allowed for some redemption for us all.

It is joked about among all the kids: the old dad and the new dad. The children did not realize that the start of the new Dad era was unfolding at the same time as I was beginning to question who I was including issues of my sexuality. Hell, I am not sure that I realized it at the time either. But it seems to be agreed that in spite of all of the hell surrounding my current existence that I am a much calmer, less wound parent than existed a few decades back.

I do not think it is just the gayness: I am older and more mature in life in general, a condition that attaches to most of us as we age, but it seems hard to ignore the gayness in total.

So where does this leave me today? It leaves me with the fact that I will never have the day to day existence with the tweens that I craved. But it also leaves me with the opportunity to remain a regular and vibrant part of their lives. It is just up to me when feeling lazy, to get in the car and enjoy the ride.

I have not been feeling 100% this weekend and decided not to drive up on Saturday afternoon. Somewhere late last night I noticed Brad’s comment and it caught me. This morning I woke up, had some coffee and got in the car – a very easy drive on a Sunday morning. I was still not 100% today, but I had all the percentages I needed to sit on the couch and be with my kids. And it was good.

Thanks Brad.

A Retrospective

2008-11-22T20:13:00.001-05:00

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…

Significant Other

2008-09-22T12:25:00.002-04:00

It’s not that there are no words anymore: they fly through my head, post titles, opening lines. But then there is life, what at times is the fullest of times stuffed into a gypsy like existence. Last night my pillow in the country, my weekend home with Carrie and our children or maybe the night before, “my” pied a terre in the City, a night with Phil. I am sure I slept somewhere the night before that, maybe at Phil’s, maybe my place in the suburbs. I really should be packing again now – I think tomorrow is a city night.

Now I am not complaining, it is actually rather nice having a full life, no time to be bored, no time to harbor the lurking confusion and regrets, and still, as Carrie would be happy to point out with just a tad of bitterness, so much love. And of course among the things hard to carve out the moments for is the writing, the actual fingers on the keyboard style of writing.

A few weeks ago I could have been found in my weekend haunts, the house in the country – their house in the country. Carrie goes to her room, a phone call with a friend so I take the moment for a quick check-in with my friend, my boyfriend. When she emerges and sees me, the anger and hurt flash. The next morning we speak. She acknowledges the complexity and points out she is alone and I have someone, a friend, boyfriend, significant other. The problem of course is in the nuances. I do have a friend, no denying a boyfriend. But then the murky area: I do believe I have a significant other – Carrie. Now usually there is linkage – a boy or girl friend should be the significant other and I do not mean to denigrate what I have with Phil – a wonderful man, a dear friend, a good person. And he is clearly significant – I write now as I wait for him to arrive after his evening with his family.

But still so much is tied in with Carrie – twenty plus years of friendship, a seeming menagerie of children, the day to day issues, the “kitchen table” financial affairs, and yes, I still do in so many ways love her. Maybe it would be easier if she did have a new life – a date here or there, a moment on her own. Not so. Her life is with the children, being a mom and when I spend time with her it is strange, betwixt and between, but still an evening when she can talk as an adult, not always on the level of the kids.

She tells me how if I just handled it differently I could have had it all. I am never sure fully what that means. I know much of it is if I had remained in the closet to the world so she would not have had her humiliation – part real and much on her part imagined. Well, she may not agree with the last sentence – it is all real to her and then some. I wonder the same thing and do understand part of it.

The thing is that if I had understood my gayness, the process would have been: “Hi honey, I’m gay. Where do we go from here?” But that was never the case for me: it was for me to discover and learn and the problem with realization on the fly is that you cannot steer a straight course, a rush to the finish line, not when you do not know where the end is. I do realize that many may think that disingenuous: "Just go back and read all you wrote." The answer was there but denial is a mighty powerful force.

I also wonder where the magic compromise would have been. A life of lunchtime hookups, a veritable liberal Larry Craig. Or maybe it would have been that Daddy had business trips, late night meetings where I needed to stay in the City. And as absurd as it sounds, sometimes it sounds good. But I do not believe it, not really. It is easy now to imagine this arranged marriage, this middle road. So much to be said for it, but still a glaring fault line, that of honesty. It’s funny, Phil and Carrie (who have yet to meet) agree on one thing – well maybe many things in fact. But the relevant one is my need to be out there, to be honest, with those I work with, my family, my friends. Phil would say whose business is it, is it relevant. He is not wrong, but it is still not right.

So do I regret not living with my family, my children: of course. Anyone who can be separated from their children without regrets is lying –either to you or just to themselves. But do I regret that my world knows, that I do not have to measure my words, do not have to skirt the truth: No, I do not. There is much I wish for, much I wish to change but there is no denying who I am and that now that I have a modicum of honesty with myself, I do not regret sharing that honesty with others.

Greetings From Fire Island

2008-07-24T13:53:00.001-04:00

Somehow certain moments seem worthy of posting even though I am not sure how to go about it. I am at the end of my week vacation – a week in Fire Island or maybe I should say The Pines. To anyone in New York or well steeped in gayness it is like saying Mecca to a Muslim. I am here with Phil, my companion, friend, lover and also I suppose my safety net though I am thinking that maybe I am ready to have the net rolled up. (Phil stays: just in the other roles.)

I have been thinking about Sis this week. For the past two years she has kept a helmet in her garage with my name on it; when I would send her my “Maybe I’m not so gay, maybe I can re-constitute my marriage” e-mails she would strap on the helmet and bang her head against the wall. The helmet has progressively been getting less use of late but as far as I move along the path that is my new life, I still have those small moments of back sliding.

After this week, I think the helmet can be retired. It has been a gay week in gay Mecca. It shows itself in the ways that are quite G-rated and then there are the moments where this Blog may need to have an X or three in front of it. I think back to a day mid-week, sort of overcast. A few nights earlier we had met a nice man at the bar and we cruised over to where he was staying to kill some time. A pleasant hour and a half of conversation later, we meandered back home and to our beach. There we again crossed paths with a thirty year old from England who could have been an Abercrombie model minus the pecs. It seems these English lads like older men and having seen me nude on the beach, I passed the test.

I have to confess, we had met him the day before also on the beach and Phil and I spent the evening trying to decide what was wrong with the picture – was he getting ready to hustle us, should we be hiding the proverbial silver. This of course is quite the commentary on our own self-image. I suppose our questions were answered when he agreed to meet us back at our room and the three of us quickly found ourselves in all positions of kissing and sucking and more. I can get hard again on the memory of playing with my first uncut, figuring out what one can do with a tongue and foreskin.

That night again to the bar and now another lad from London: we spoke for an hour or more before going our separate ways, much talk of straight things and some of how I came to be here. And somewhere in the middle of all this is our landlord, a wonderful sweet man – a mature gentleman heading towards seventy. He does not normally play much but the chemistry was there and our threesomes are almost daily.

I write this not to brag (thought the ego is quite stroked by it all) but for the realization of how well it all fits – the new friends (if only for the week) who we just spoke with, bent an elbow at the bar and the new friends where much more was bent then just an elbow.

The only way to get here is by a Ferry and as the week has progressed I have come to the final acceptance – the ferry is docked and the helmet can be laid to rest.

Closet Systems

2008-07-17T22:23:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons I stopped blogging was a concern of dragging those around me, the essential players, into my quasi-public existence. And while that still weighs on me, there is no way to continue this tale without dragging them into this.

Carrie always said I would find someone because I was not one to be alone. She intended the comment critically and I do accept a level of truth: I am a social creature and do enjoy companionship. But I disagree with the implication that my need for company would force me into just any relationship. I did manage to start to build a social network, limited as it was, on my own.

But the fact is that I do have a boyfriend – maybe a gay lover is a better phrase for a couple whose average age is closing in on sixty. I do not feel I have settled or jumped in: it more sort of happened. Phil was also married once, though having come to this world as a widower seems much more honorable than anything I can claim. We became friends and that is still the basis of the relationship, though I will readily admit that the sex is great.

Phil is compassionate, intelligent and quick to smile but also reserved as any good Methodist should be. There is some punch line in that I could have also written that sentence about Carrie; I am consistent in my attractions other than this little thing of gender. But it is that reserved quality which can be a bit of culture shock for a New York City ethnic like me. I came from a background which was not much for secrets or dancing around the point – perfect for one coming out late in life.

And it is this reserve which is Phil’s Achilles heal for as one would expect from one trained in the design world, he has designed the most impressive closet system one could imagine. When we met there were two worlds – a straight one with family and friends, even those who were gay themselves and a gay world with new, separate friends, different geography: not much cross over to put it mildly.

Then I came along – a friend to romp naked on the beach with and have nights of wild sex but who also dresses up nicely, perfect for a suit and tie and an evening of Handel’s Messiah. So we have become regular companions in both worlds. But there is a difference – I am fully out so when Phil meets my friends, siblings, others, there is little doubt of our relationship.

The opposite is not true. Phil has come out to some of his gay friends as we have met them for dinner or drinks. But his family – his children and aging mother – do not know. I was going to say they have not a clue though I wonder if the children are not smarter than they let on. They have met me many times at this point and we get along quite well. But there is a part of me that is terrified that they will someday hate me, and him, when they realize for how long this little thing was not mentioned.

One might wonder why write about this – it is my Blog, my story, not his. And so it is. But at this point it is also our story. We nearly live together – five or more nights a week sharing a bed, sharing evenings, learning to share friends. And it all came to the fore this week when we had dinner with his gay cousin and his cousin’s partner. Imagine four gay men in a cute little restaurant, but two of us are there as straight friends. It does boggle the mind, though I could handle it. Hell, there is not much I cannot handle at this point.

But I found myself in the one position I swore I would avoid- watching my words, editing on the fly. They are leaving on vacation in a few days. So are we but if I say that they will ask: “Where?” The response would flow easily: “Fire Island, some time at the beach.” “Oh, we were there last year – which part of the Island?” The moment of truth: “The Pines.” Might as well tattoo a rainbow flag on my forehead. So I let the moment pass, a pause, and on to the next topic.

Somehow I believe this will evolve – it already has to some degree, but it has proven to me one thing: I made the right choice and will not be personally investing in a closet system ever again.

Maybe a Comeback

2008-07-16T21:51:00.001-04:00

There was a time when my fingers regularly danced across the keyboard, when I would drive and draft in my brain and when the words would find their way to my Blog. There was much thought about the content, but very little over the act. Over time that changed, the joy of the writing replaced by fears, fear of who was reading it (I remain married to the mother of my children, I have a boyfriend, I am not one for secrets); a fear of the name of the blog – Am I bi or gay, is “MWM” still true.

Of course there was also this issue of who I was writing for – me, others - both? Time is always a factor – the days fly by and I am no longer alone in the basement at night. I still stick with the choice of doing over writing and doing does keep me busy.

But I confess – I miss the writing. I miss being forced to form my thoughts coherently. I will miss not having a diary to go back and read – that picture of where I was a year or two earlier. And as shallow as it may sound, I miss the comments, both those that kept my honest and those that fed my ego.

Carrie pointed out recently that I should write if for no other reason to share with those who have followed this journey, particularly for those a step or two in my wake. And a journey it still is: one with costs and one with rewards.

The next question for fixation: which Blog – “Tales” or “Second”. The answer comes more easily than I would have thought. Nate’s Second was always a misnomer: it creates a before and after dividing line in a life which has had many befores. So while Tales of a BiMWM may in many aspects be inaccurate, it is where I came into this blog world and where I will stay. Anyway, there are still all the links and maybe someone is still reading.

So I will try my hand at this again – never with the frequency at my peak, I have neither the time nor the angst. And maybe it will quickly fade. Only time will tell. But one thing I have learned: as often or infrequently as I post, it will be the perfect interval.

Epilogue

2008-01-27T20:53:00.000-05:00

I have resisted giving up this blog, all the links, all the feeds. The ego is still there. But I realize now it is time to move on – a blog with a new name. One that I suspect Carrie could find, but not without effort. It is not that there will be anything here she does not know or at least correctly suspect. But I have learned – the hard way – that suspecting and feeling is much different from reading.

I have also come to a point where I can go back to writing for me. If people read and appreciate I will be gratified. But this started as my diary and it is time to return to that. The next blog will be less exciting I suspect. Pain, angst – hard to live but good to read: Peace, contentment – fun to live but boring I would guess.

This post will only be here for a little while and then will be gone. The blog will remain – deleting is not in my current lexicon.

So if you are feeling brave, Nate can be found at http://daybygay.blogspot.com The title for today is Tales of the Nate, though I think I can still do better there.

Thanks for having joined me on this journey, but it is time to move along.

From The New World

2007-11-30T22:18:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I sat at the computer to write, to both look in to my own soul and to also share with the community that I still feel a connection with. When I last posted some six weeks ago I did not think it was my last post, but as I read the comments it became clear: I had said my piece and until there was something new to say, it was time for a break, for me and for you. Frankly, I had become tired of my own story, the “I’m gay, I’m not”, the delusion of being a permanent resident of the basement, the sheer cruelty of thinking that Carrie (yes, I almost typed her real name just now, a good thing for she is a real person, not a foil in my literary memoir) would just stand by accepting whatever I felt at the moment. I can sit here now and I can speak for I write from another country, an apartment, my new home.

For an intelligent person, I can be rather dumb. For two years we have walked this path, each step leading me a little further away from my home, from my roots, from my comfort zone. And it was a long path leading to a basement, to my own bed: a long walk composed of many little sections, the famed baby steps of self-help books. So what is one more step, the step from basement to apartment, the step from in-house separation to true separation. And the last phrase says it all, “true separation”. No baby step this time, no incremental stroll down the path, no. This is the step off the cliff, a cataclysmic change in being, for me but truly for Carrie.

I have, as expected, landed on my feet. My new home is a modest one bedroom apartment in a garden apartment complex, a very middle class rental. The apartment is bright and airy, a southern exposure, a far cry from a near windowless basement. I can sit here and write this while looking at Craig’s List with the knowledge that I can – can look and can act. I will not act tonight, it is late, and I am tired. But there is another reason. Tomorrow afternoon I will meet my friend and we will spend the evening, we will spend the night. Yes, I have a boyfriend of sorts. We are not exclusive – neither of us are looking for that at this time in our lives, but there is a bond, a bond of sex and a bond of friendship. He traveled with me the day I found the apartment, the day we bought the furniture and the day I moved in.

Of course Carrie knows of this – I have never been one for secrets and lies, my charm and my downfall all rolled into one. And of course it hurts Carrie more, she being the proto-typical woman, caring for the kids, maintaining the household and convinced she may never lay with another again. While I have more faith in her future than she does, it is hard to ignore the statistics: it is a rough road for a middle aged woman with children to boot. This tempers my own happiness for I do still care about her. But it has become clear that my vision that we would be best friends, all but lovers (and maybe even that on occasion) was silliness borne of raging ego, the “why would anyone not want me” ego. Now this is healthy in many ways, a level of psychological security many dream of. But when it leads to such delusions, maybe it is not so healthy after all.

The other day I found myself musing about all the time and energy spent on whether I was gay, trying to avoid that fact, the constant testing of myself, tests I always seemed to “pass” with flying colors. And I could not help but wonder: if I had spent less time on the issue of being gay and more time on what being gay meant, to me, to Carrie, to my family, would I have handled this journey better. I do not believe the ending could have changed – that was pre-ordained it seems. But maybe I could have managed less pain on those around me. It is strange that even now, at this way too late date, there are moments where I still want to deny who I am; still want it all to go away. But those moments are less frequent with time, less frequent with every night spent with my friend, with every time I get fucked and every time we hug on the street.

I will write on occasion, when there is something to say, but it has never been my style to write a diary of what I did today. My life is busy – seeing the kids now involves driving and a different commitment, there is that pesky day job (which I do enjoy) and yes, there is a boyfriend a few times a week. So I will check in on occasion but when given the choice of living my life or chronicling it, I will live. There have been some e-mails, ones looking for my insight, for my wisdom. To those I say I have no insight, no wisdom to share. I feel less wise now than I did a few months ago. I have left a swath of destruction in my wake but I am also fulfilled in being who I am. Carrie has, as always, given the best advice: I have inflicted a huge toll over the last two years; I have what I have dreamt of. To do anything but embrace it would be the cruelest joke of all. So embrace I will.

Of course a post needs a name, and as I was cutting and pasting it came to me – From The New World, the name of Dvorak’s symphony number 9, and I remembered something that has always fascinated me. The music evokes a European coming to America, to the New World, and the fourth movement is climactic, the old and new worlds colliding. The American conductors fly through it, rushing to the only place they understand. Yet the Europeans take an extra two or three minutes to do the same notes because while the Americans are rushing to this New World, the Europeans are torn, torn between the new and old. I have long preferred the European versions, the almost palpable tugging of the old while inexorably moving to the new. So tonight I also inexorably move forward, but always with the knowledge of what has been, what must be left behind.

Love to all of you and good luck with being and living.

End of The Line

2007-10-14T21:42:00.000-04:00

We have recently discussed selling the house, Carrie and the children relocating to a neighboring state which we have always thought fondly of, and of course my finding my own place. We envisioned many weekends of my visiting and staying with the family in their future abode, but my weeks would be essentially my own, remaining here where my career is firmly rooted and where my new life is slowly starting to sprout.

Inquiries were made, house values determined, feasibility considered, and a choice was made: to do it. It was at first a choice like many of late, an abstract decision, a policy statement. Then on Tuesday a phone call, our local real estate broker, a man we have dealt with over the course of two decades. He thinks it is saleable, he is comfortable with the pricing, he wants to meet. So Tuesday night we do, we meet around our “famed” dining room table. He has papers – this is a business transaction, and not insignificant at that – papers to sign. Carrie and I barely look at each other; we both know the reality of the moment. I sign, slide the papers across the table and pen in hand, she does the deed. The house is on the market.

It has become clear that any hope of continued friendship can only be salvaged by my moving along, with my not being a constant reminder when I am there and even more so when I am not. When the house is sold this will happen by default, but that may take a little time, a little too much time. It is funny the breaking points. In January a quick trip to Chicago and a long journey to the basement. And next weekend, a flight to the West Coast, a few days in a gay resort (such civilized phrasing) and a lifetime to think about it, to think in a new home.

I went apartment hunting today, a man on a mission. At 2:30 PM one might have said “Mission Accomplished.” I filled out an application, left a check for a deposit, and became the proud future tenant of unit 2B. I am deep down both terrified and at peace. After November 15th, there will be many nights to wonder how this came to be, to revisit the last two years. But it is time, time to stop the slow bleed and allow us all to try to rebuild our lives, both together and separately. The last person to utter Mission Accomplished publicly has had a little time to regret the words (if said person knew of regrets). I pray that our road will be smoother, particularly for Carrie who has suffered more than she ever deserved.

Queer as ...

2007-10-06T23:35:00.000-04:00

While glancing at blogs I came across Geoff’s entry concerning Queer as Folk and I vividly remembered many years ago watching an early episode of the show. I was straight, married and watched it with Carrie. Of course the fact that I heard about it and watched it (much as I sought out Angels in America on Broadway years earlier) is a commentary in and of itself. The show was real and multi-dimensional – gay people in real life and gay people unlike Will having sex with each other. I watched it a few times, then we gave up Showtime. One less premium channel to pay for, $10 a month saved. But I suspect that I felt too strong a connection, one that I was not ready to admit to, not yet.

And if I am to be completely honest, I remember sitting with Carrie and her hand wandering and feeling me, feeling me get hard at all the “right” places. The episode ended with my receiving a blowjob, but also I suspect with certain things being much harder to deny, though deny we did for another four or so years.

I share this because I still find myself floating in the netherworld. The other night I missed my gay dad’s group – busy at work, a late exit, but also a lack of motivation. If there is such a thing as my gay time, I would rather spend it “being” gay as opposed to dissecting it, at least that was my feeling last evening. And the opportunity for dinner out with my family just felt right.

After dinner while the kids and their friends ran amuck, Carrie and I hid in her bedroom and watched some television. We lay on far sides of the king size mattress, I controlling the temptation to place my hand on hers when I saw it in the DMZ. We watched, we rested, we were comfortable. At that moment I could have stayed forever.

Which is why it is important that I be transported back six years in an instant, that I remember a moment watching Queer as Folk, that I even remember specific scenes – a shower with a new young lover, a scene in a corporate men’s room – and remember my reaction to those scenes, the erections that Carrie monitored as if she knew these days were a coming.

I would love to write of stability, of confidence and of direction and certitude. I cannot. I will keep moving forward as it is the only direction I seem to know and the only path remaining. But I will not deny that my emotions and desires are as labile as ever. Only one thing seems clear at the moment: I should have never cancelled Showtime.

Searching For A Rainbow

2007-09-29T14:48:00.000-04:00

Sis responded to an e-mail the other day:
“Put more simply, you are neither the sole reason for her current situation, nor her salvation.”

The line struck me – it of course is reversible in a sense, Carrie could say the same to me. But the more I thought of the line – of the concept – the more it resonated, though the chords kept changing.

Carrie and I have been together as a couple for nigh on twenty years and had a friendship for a number of years before that. We each were in unhappy marriages, each not in the best place in our own lives. Looking back, we were each in our own way looking to find ourselves, who we were, who we wanted to be. And then we found each other, a wonderful thing in many ways. But with the wisdom of hindsight, not so wonderful in other ways.

By finding each other, we found a level of joy – friendship, sex, companionship: the whole package if you would. But once we had found each other we no longer needed to find ourselves. Why search when conjugal bliss reigns. Of course now it is clear to even the most casual reader of these pages that both of us merely put our personal searches on hold and that an underlying truth is that one cannot solely define oneself through the prism of another.

There is another theme which Sis’ comment also touched home with: “not her salvation.” For much of the last year or two Carrie has been taken with the concept that I have been a domineering force, the maker of family decisions, the center of our universe – a mantle I have oft denied. It seems that here there is a truth, though not as stated. Carrie was in a horrible marriage when we first met, her husband a poor provider, their home exceedingly modest. Carrie was the primary breadwinner. Along comes Nate with a chance for her “salvation.” Psychological joy for both of us – the abused child being rescued, an almost fairy tale move to the big house in the nice town and of course for me a chance to be the knight, far from the inner geek that is still, all these years later, lingering.

Looking back one can see the inherent inequality and why it worked. I did not dominate as accused, but psychological inequalities do not need to be effected in order to wreak an underlying damage. Carrie and I spoke of this last night – after twenty years, after countless hours of therapy, after two years of hell, we finally could glimpse this little piece.

But the finding of ourselves – the main event for today: once we found each other the search was over, or so we thought. The tale of the moves, of the search for a shared peace is a post for itself. Suffice for the moment to say that we are about to place our house on the market and Carrie and the kids will hopefully move sixty miles north, another state, another start. There will be a place for me, my weekend country home, a new start with our new definitions.

Looking back over the years I am particularly struck by the issues of my sexuality and wonder how much of my search, my interrupted search, was related to that and how much was the myriad of other issues in any life. Of course in finding Carrie, in her willingness to allow my homo-erotic fantasies to exist, even thrive, it both solved my search, or so it seemed, and did nothing for the search which has since taken on a life of its own.

For me, and as it turned out for Carrie, the last two years have finally been back to those basics, our search for ourselves. And it is that search that has both led us apart and has also kept us, if not as a traditional couple, together. Somehow there is comfort in stepping back and realizing the depth and breadth of it all: I would hate to think that the swath of destruction in my wake was solely for some fleeting carnal pleasure.

Atonement

2007-09-22T06:47:00.000-04:00

It seems like the Jewish High Holydays have become a marker in my life. Being both the Jewish New Year and the start of another academic year would suffice, but at various times it has been infused with additional meaning. It was nineteen years ago that my first wife asked, standing outside our Temple, if I loved her: she already knew of my infidelity. The answer popped out: “I love you; I just don’t like you. “Maybe the holiness of the season just begs for honesty.

And it was a mere two years ago – God, it seems longer – that Carrie skipped questions and instead settled for a simple declarative statement: “Do what you have to do.” I did, with a vengeance it turned out. And last year, everything on the table, no secrets left to bare, I sat in Temple and prayed, as much as a heathen can. I prayed for forgiveness, I prayed to be straight, I prayed for it all to go away – a bad dream that one just shakes off.

So it is that time again, time to sit, the service in the background while my mind wanders around, peaking around the corners of my soul, thinking of what was and strangely, what will be. It is strange indeed to be considering a marriage failed and how one makes it right and then have the mind do one of those little jumps and realize you are thinking of the new life, and a smile is there.

This brings me to the concept of Atonement, the name for today’s Holyday. Bob asked this week about Temple, about the season and how I was feeling. The thoughts were there but it was a day later when the words coalesced. I do not feel the need to atone. Yes, there are regrets, things that could have been handled with greater sensitivity. I could have lobbed the ball with more touch like ones floating into the back corner of the end zone; I did not need to zing every one.

But that is water under the bridge and matters of fine tuning. There remains the big issue – self acceptance of being gay. And for that, I no longer pray, not for atonement and not for change. I like myself, I like my new life. It will have ups and downs and that is okay, that is what life is.

My writing is less because writing is the process of refining my thoughts and finding myself, of trying things on for size, and in some way giving others an opportunity to throw in their two cents. Ultimately it is much easier to write a sad song than a satisfied one, easier to write of conflict than of resolution.

The last line for this blog (when that day eventually comes) was recently suggested: “I am gay.” That it seems should be the next to the last line.

"And I am at peace with myself." Now that will make a last line, and writing it feels just fine.

Will and Grace Sont Mort

2007-09-16T20:34:00.000-04:00

Late Tuesday night I found myself sitting at an upscale bar, having a drink, waiting for a burger and talking with Phil. He is my date for Palm Springs and he had not heard the story of Carrie’s discovery. As he listened, he could see the collision ahead and without wavering softly said – before I got to the relevant part – “you and your fucking blog.” He is not a stupid man and is quite facile with words and letters, but he just hears the tales of what has gone wrong and is aghast. He does realize that I have a tiny place in a community and would never suggest disappearing. He is even happy to assist. “Your blog should end with the simple statement: “I am Gay.”” It is not the worst ending line.

There is a part of me which longs to take his advice and I had both before and since been writing a final post. But then it struck me: this is my blog, the tale of my journey and while journeys of life never end, they do have some clear break points. I know what the break point is and I suspect that once that moment is reached, it may very well be farewell, as opposed to my less frequent random rants of late.

The thing is that I still live at home, still write in my basement. It is clear – crystal clear – that the original pipe dream of this being good for years to come is exactly that – an ethereal dream born of delusion. There will need to be a day when I carry boxes up the stairs, throw a suitcase in the trunk, try to keep the suits on their hangers, and drive off if not into a sunset, into something, something unknown and likely exhilarating and terrifying all at once. A moment that will truly be a border crossed.

We are trying to avoid that – at this point economic realities more than anything else. I do not want to force my family to “downsize” because I have taken a little long to address my own issues and because I have decided to live a new life. Carrie is good, sure a little comment here or there, but meanwhile I am sated by an incredible homemade dinner of one of my favorites. She and I lingered after the kids scattered, sipping wine, listening to music and considering that we do have a lot of history, that we are still friends.

But we also know that the myth of being Will and Grace… We have thought about the simple fact that Will and Grace were never lovers, never shared a bed. It is much harder to be fast friends after having been lovers. And while I am a bit circumspect and in a rare moment do not share my thought, I think about Will. He was a “good” gay, a television approved gay. As far as I can tell from the limited episodes I saw (I was never a huge fan) Will never took it up the ass and I don’t remember seeing him on his knees. In fact, I am not sure if he tops or bottoms. He is a very cute made for television asexual gay. And of course Carrie is on to me – she knows that I am not asexual; she knows that I come back from nights out a bit tired, and yes, from our years in the bedroom together she can probably hold court on my submissive bottom side.

So we continue, we share the house, we have our good days and bad days. In short much of a typical life, but in many ways not typical at all. We both know that come next May we will need to make some tough decisions. I will have to weigh the pleasures of my family day and excellent dinner with the knowledge that I cannot bring someone home and that while it is accepted, my comings and goings are noted. On the whole I have nothing to complain of, I am as happy as can be under the circumstances. But there is that damn other shoe.

So someday I will pack the bags and move on. Until then, I suppose you all are stuck with me a little longer.

Being

2007-09-09T08:38:00.000-04:00

I have completed my morning writing but fear there is nothing for the outside world. While I will continue to blog when I have what to say, it is clear that my productivity is way down. And as I click on my blogroll, I see I am anything but alone. Is it a question of shooting one’s load – bloggers equivalent to singers with some of their best on their first albums? Maybe it is more that we have blogged a journey and whether it has brought us back to our families or found us new paths or, as in my case, a strange combination of both for the moment, we are all starting to live again.

The morning writing I refer to is starting a diary. I am not sure how long it will last but for today there was something satisfying about writing and not needing to translate the names, no concern who may read it. Maybe it will allow a greater degree of self-honesty, one that I suspect existed when my sojourn in this land first began.

This week I had an interesting moment when I realized that I have come a long way – not just in the gay world but in my own. A friend mentioned an upcoming business trip to LA and would I be interested in joining him the weekend before – we would rent a car and drive to Palm Springs, a land he explained of gay resorts. He was giving me plenty of time to consider this, not at all pressuring. Without hesitation, with the only caveat being a semi-affordable airfare, I said yes.

Now this seems like a non-event. Guys in my office have their annual outings - Vegas, golf or fishing – it is not at all uncommon. But I had reached a state in my own life where if I had been invited to one of those events there would have been so many questions – money, watching the kids, Carrie’s reactions (real or maybe just in my mind).

I have my plane tickets and the Cathedral City Boys Club awaits. I had written Sis of being “terrified and exhilarated” and in her usual cut to the chase fashion she responded: Terrified? Of going on vacation? There’s something wrong with you. What an adventure! WHEEE!!!

I read her words and responded in kind: Good news! I believe I lied to us. I am not terrified at all. The old me would have been terrified.

The point of course is not so much going to CCBC, though I am quite looking forward to it. It is the fact that I am willing, that I am able to go there, or sit in the back of the Mustang in the wind and walk a nude beach. It is a sense of freedom to move beyond acceptance to being.

WHEEE!!! Indeed

Post Script:
When I wrote the post it was titled "Being" and when I put it up at the last moment opted for WHEEE!!!
I have changed it back. Carrie no longer reads my blog but in a bored internet moment today did. She knew of the weekend trip, but not the destination. While it should not have had such impact, it did cause her distress, upset and anger. But as I have re-read it, other than the title being a bit over the top, I can see nothing wrong in the content. She has asked that I "get with the program" whenever I have tried looking back. And this does seem like the "program."

Still, a sad end to what started as a good day.

Craig's List

2007-08-30T20:14:00.000-04:00

It must have been five or six years ago that I had an early evening conference at the St. Regis, a hotel as swanky as its name. I arrived a few minutes early as is my wont and made a detour to the men’s room. No, not for sex, just to take a leak. Now the men’s room is as swanky as the rest of the joint and there aren’t just “stalls”: the partitions are floor to ceiling and the doors are beautiful louvered numbers. All of which was unimportant as I moseyed up to my urinal. As I stood there, preparing to pee, I realized that the door to the handicapped stall was closed and there were, albeit softly, two voices emanating from within.

This was five or six years ago, well before the journey so eloquently chronicled in this Blog, well before my lunch time hookups, well before the roof caving in. Not to say that I did not have my fantasies, but my actions were then in remission. Yet that night I heard the two voices, sensed the breathing, felt their excitement. There was nothing for me to do; it was not an open party. Still I hesitated as I washed my hands slowly, hoping the door would swing open, hoping to see them emerge. Finally, hands very clean and the door still closed, it was off to the conference.

A few long hours later I emerge, a pillar of the community, suit jacket buttoned, tie nice and straight, ready to head back to the suburbs. A quick block to the parking lot, but my feet keep moving, carrying me another ten blocks to Times Square, crossroads of the world and home to the sex shops. While I have never done a men’s room or highway rest stop for that matter, I am familiar with the sex shops and more specifically the “buddy booths”, strange little places where one’s presence is all the sign that is needed as to signal one’s intentions. It was already late when I arrived and my experience came down to a few minutes with a video screen and a quick release followed by a walk back to the car all the while reeling from the power of my desires.

By now I suspect most have figured out this is a little ode to Larry Craig, for the moment of the United States Senate. When I first saw the story of his little problem in the Twin Cities airport, the yellow dog democrat in me leaped for joy. More Republican family value hypocrisy exposed, another one biting the dust. But then I stepped back from the partisanship and started thinking about the Senator. Make no mistake, there is probably nothing we agree on in terms of the issues of our day and his anti-gay voting record is hard to abide. Yet I cannot help but feel for the generation even older than mine, one raised in a severely homophobic world, ones whose denial became a reality of its own.

If someone had come up to me that night and had asked if I was gay, I would have honestly answered: No. Sure I believed myself to be “sexual” in a broad usage of the term, but surely not gay. I have already admitted to never having had a men’s room encounter, but that night if, while I was washing my hands, the door to that stall swung open and a cute guy came up next to me, tapped me with his foot and invited me back from whence he came, I know that I would have followed like an over-eager puppy dog. My heart would have been racing, the fear would have been palpable, but I would have followed.

So I feel anger at the Republican apparatus which is just honky dory with David Vitter, the Senator from Louisiana, making a nice apology for breaking the law to purchase sex while vilifying a man who wanted to commit a legal act in an illegal place. I feel disgust with Larry Craig’s overall political view of the world and revulsion towards his strict anti-gay voting record. But ultimately I cannot help but feel some pity for a closeted gay man losing everything because of… The thing is I am not sure what it is because of other than the rampant homophobia of his party and his state.

There is one more thing I feel: gratitude that in spite of everything, I have managed to come to a point of self awareness and self acceptance so that my encounters with men now take place in bedrooms and living rooms.

A Beginning

2007-08-27T12:32:00.000-04:00

I have been struggling with the future direction of this blog. It is not my style to write a travelogue – the cyber equivalent of the friend with three carousels of slides from their vacation. I try to have a point to all of this, even if I am the last to figure it out at times. And I suppose as with much of this new life, the balance will find itself. But I have had a good and an interesting weekend which I thought worked – as we will see Carrie was not in full agreement – so at the risk of the slide show that never ends, here goes. If you need to leave just say you have to go the bathroom and slip out quietly.

Friday was slow at work – this is the end of August, so I head into the City a little early. The main event is dinner with eight other guys from the married gay group followed by a play at the aptly named Fringe festival. One of the men in the group did the lighting so it is a show of support for him and for a very fringe, very gay play. But first I drop my car and my bag off by my friend’s apartment. A quick hello and plans to meet later

Meet we do, a drink, a late dinner and back to his apartment for the night. (I do confess here to a certain jealousy of the sex bloggers.) The next day we head east towards the land of some beautiful beaches. All summer long we have talked of my joining him and his friend for a day at the clothing optional beach and today it is destined to be. I climb into the back seat of his car for the ride down – a vintage Mustang convertible – and as the wind buffets me, we hit the beach.

Now I need to digress: when I left the house Friday morning, I expected to be coming home, just late that night. Carrie says at the door: “I guess we will see you tomorrow sometime.” I nod, leave, drive five blocks and turn around. She is potentially correct so it seems an overnight bag is in order. The next day I call and Carrie is plain – she is fine: “Go and do your thing,”

Now I thought we were going to a gay beach, but I was suffering tunnel vision. This was a clothing optional beach, men and women, straight and gay, and a few families thrown in. It was a liberating place in a very comfortable non-sexual way. There were some nice men to look at and yes, some very nice females for the eyes also. And for those of us who love the ocean, the joy of not only swimming nude, but coming out and not having to endure a wet, sticky, sandy bathing suit: a joy indeed.

The sun is sinking and the Mustang is raring: back to the house in the burbs for a simple dinner. The man of the house is a restorer of vintage automobiles so the back yard is ringed with heavy blue tarps covering the carcasses of autos past and in the middle a simple patio, a table with many candles and an electric palm tree. And there the three of us sat, moonlight, candles, and “palm tree” for illumination, and if one looked carefully in the low light one might have noticed the lack of clothes on a balmy summer eve.

I make it home after midnight, quietly slip down to the basement and get some sleep before my “daddy” day. The next morning as I make the kids breakfast my ex calls – our eldest son is returning home after a year abroad and do I want to bring down the girls for a surprise dinner. Perfect – an opportunity for the three of us to give Carrie some space and have what will end up being an eight hour adventure. It is a series of trains – the kids will take them over cars any day, and frankly it is not a bad deal to be relieved of what is a very tough eighty miles each way.

We are on our second train emerging from under the Hudson, a daughter on each shoulder, when it strikes me just how lucky I am, what a perfect weekend I am living, the balance I have written so much of. Even the iPod is agreeable playing a little Bruce in honor of Jersey:
This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singing,
This Train
Bells of Freedom ringin’

It is a joyful afternoon of reuniting: talk, hugs, food. All one could ask for.

This should be the close, but early on I mentioned Carrie did not fully share my view of the weekend. The issue is her perception that she had them all weekend except for an eight hour break - an issue for any separation, one that is accentuated by sharing a house.

I realize the inherent emotional volatility - truly the first week of trying to create a whole new balance for us both and I do believe we will, in our own inimitable way, find our way. But clearly there is going to be some rough patches along the way, particularly as Carrie feels trapped and I continue to make social opportunities.

But tonight as I go to bed, it will be with the strains of Bruce in my mind:

Faith will be rewarded.

Bittersweet

2007-08-23T20:40:00.000-04:00

Back from vacation and a new phenomenon, a form of writer’s block. Last night I carefully crafted a post, tried to get the words right, yet today I do not even open the Word file. I realize that I was so worried about my words, my style, that I was avoiding what should be a simple letter to friends.

It was a good vacation, time away, time with family, time to think. We spent our last week in Little, that aptly named cabin. Our children did not acquiesce to the one parent / one child per room format so Carrie and I shared a bed for six nights and learned just how big a queen sized bed could be. We were respectful, but we will not find ourselves in that situation again. I fear our trips to Canada, to our usual spot are at an end. God seemed to have recognized it with an electrical storm for our last night, an hour and a half of sky sizzling over lake and woods, Biblical in proportions.

Upon our return we broached the last frontier – we told our younger children. Weighing in at just under eleven years of age, they are accepting types. They were dying for the “lecture” to end so they could return to their playing. Hell, what’s one more or less gay person in this family. While the conversation was calm and brief, I have since come to realize the significance was not in the fact that they are different; it is in the fact that Carrie and I are different. It added a sense of reality and finality that maybe we should have found long ago.

A few days after the talk, Carrie’s best friend’s husband succumbed after a four month illness. He had sent an e-mail to Carrie a month or so ago expressing his gratitude that she would be there for his wife, she who had also recently lost a husband. And today as Carrie went to the funeral I know she mourned, both for this kind man and for a marriage that no longer is.

A few nights ago I went to see my friend Phil – it had been a long vacation. I forewarned him that I was overtired and maybe a tad cranky, that he may not want me this evening. He e-mailed back: “Hey, we're not friends for just the good times..... so of course I want you.” So visit him I do and we spend the evening, we spend the night. As we walk back from dinner, arms around each other, comfortably strolling through a quite straight neighborhood, it all coalesces in my mind.

For so long I kept getting back to being just a little gay (about as real as a little pregnant), getting back to maybe if Carrie could live with my little secret, getting back to questions of needs and whims: I had lost sight of some basic realities, ones that are probably quite obvious to even a casual reader of my blog. The simple facts are that I am gay – surely bi in a sense, but that does not seem to mean much when one’s desires are as skewed as mine presently are. More importantly I do want to explore that side of me, it does feel right in so many ways.

You may wonder where is the change in my thinking and while it may be imperceptible to most, to me it is huge. There is a difference between accepting one’s gayness and admitting to wanting to pursue it. A friend told Carrie yesterday that she saw me as an addict, one who cannot stop, one who keeps drinking more. I do not buy that. I could stop, have in the past. But when I am truly honest, the answer is I do not want to stop.

I do not profess to understand my gayness anymore than I understand why some men like blondes over brunettes or why one becomes friends with one person and not another. I suppose some things just are. More importantly, I do not overly feel the need to understand what seems to be a state of being, a state of my being. It is time to just go with the flow, not look for excuses and not try to place blame.

I suspect I have much to write, many stories to tell, but I also hope to spend more of my precious free time living this new life, wherever it leads. I suppose now that the marriage is ended the real journey begins.

A bittersweet end to two of the best decades I could have ever asked for.

If It's August...

2007-08-02T13:37:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed a few months back that I added a picture to my blog header. This was no stock picture, this is the view we have enjoyed for probably eighteen of the last twenty Augusts. It is the view of “our” lake.

This weekend we will pack the car – kayaks on the roof, bicycles hanging off the back, family ensconced within, Jim Dale reading Harry Potter to us all. And for two weeks we will look at the lake and do what one does on family vacations, as we have for so many years before. We will be happy.

While gazing at the lake, I will have some time to think and to consider what a year has wrought. Twelve months ago Carrie and I shared a bed and more importantly shared confidences, those late night talks where under the cloak of darkness truth could be spoke. I remember some of the topics – outlets to explore who I was, retreats and the like. I suppose there were retreats this year, but they were not the “sponsored” kind where a facilitator helps one find the inner self. They were self arranged retreats – a weekend in Chicago or some evenings or nights out.

While gazing at the lake I will consider all of the times that I could have stepped back from the precipice, made different choices. I will consider the emptiness of a marriage ripped asunder and the feeling of fulfillment that comes from a level of self acceptance, fledgling as it is.

While gazing at the lake I will try to understand some issues of my sexuality and the land where it is neither straight nor gay, the land of secret desires, areas I have only skirted in my thoughts and in my words.

Most of all I will try to look forward, to that elusive land of building a new life while continuing to honor the one that has been my bedrock for oh so long.

My thanks to all who have stuck with me throughout this past year. It could not have been a pretty ride.

See you in a few,
Nate

Requiem

2007-07-30T22:04:00.000-04:00

A piece of a song has been floating in my head, a lyric in honor of Digby. I took it, brief as it is, and set up a post for after his passing. What’s a post without a title and it came to me: “Requium”. Short and simple, the whole post would be:

He danced for those at minstrel shows and county fairs
throughout the south
He spoke through tears of 15 years how his dog and him
traveled about
The dog up and died, he up and died
And after 20 years he still grieves

Jerry Jeff Walker
Mr. Bojangles

That was yesterday.

Digby went to sleep this afternoon, 12:40 just as planned, Carrie on one side, me on the other and the vet, quite aware, directing his assistant to bring the tissue box. He has done this before I suspect. We cried, took his collar, and put on as brave a face as one can at such times. It has been a difficult day.

Then it was back to the car, back to work, and as I cruised along the highway I thought of this post and thought of the title and realized: the title is perfect but the post is all wrong. It is indeed a requiem, but for more than Digby.

Digby joined us almost nine years ago. A little over two years earlier was Washington, that non-watershed weekend when I first spent a night with a man, a rather gay night, and returned, after minor consideration, as straight. It was not long thereafter when Carrie and I floated with the loons, listened to stories of the Bible, and decided to have more children, children that would be the “ours”. And so the twins were born, seemingly on gossamer angel’s wings.

Digby joined us as we moved into a new home, a large home with the backyard of Carrie’s dreams. It was a time of my moving from my own small practice to one that makes the national lists. It was, in short, a time of eternal optimism, right down to the little pup terrorizing any loose shoe in his path.

It is nine years later. We sold the house seven years ago: A beautiful backyard which was good, because there was no neighborhood – a problem in fancy areas, and real estate taxes that would be embarrassing to even mention here. The switch in jobs was a wonderful decision. But before the switch, Carrie and I worked in the same building on common goals, shared lunches or just quick mid-day hellos with the occasional stolen hug. After the switch, a forty minute commute, not so bad, but no longer the working together we once so cherished.

There was more, the economic issues we all face as the little ones became less little and the bigger ones grow into colleges and cars. Once again, not fatal blows: just more of life’s pressures taking their inexorable toll. Still we held it together, we were lovers and friends: we were a family.

Then came TGT, roaring like a freight train, leaving little standing in its path. First the late night conversations, trying to find our way. Then the basement, still a shared house, but not really a marriage, a marriage as most would think of one, anymore.

So today we stood there on either side of Digby, we felt the life drain from him and we cried. After, I tried to do the right thing and put my arm on Carrie’s shoulder. Then by her car, a quick hug for the road. There was a time we would have been in each other’s arms, heads bowed on the other’s shoulder, warm tears mingling together. Not today. I suppose not again.

It was my second cry of the young week. On Sunday while packing for vacation I came across an envelope of pictures from our first vacation together so many years ago – no kids, just the two of us. One picture jumps out at me: Carrie lying on a towel by the side of the lake with a smile, a smile that could light up the night, a smile that came from deep within, from her very core. And as I looked at that picture I realized both what was and what will never be, for I fear that smile, the joy and the innocence walking together, will never be seen again.

Yes a requiem indeed, a requiem for what feels like lives gone terribly awry.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. (Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.)

Digby

2007-07-29T15:41:00.001-04:00

Just shy of nine years ago Carrie and some of our children went off to a breeder to interview a litter of Golden Retrievers. Some were too aggressive, some to meek, but one after being accidentally kicked by a two year old, came back tail wagging. Digby had found a home. He was your proto-typical Golden – sweet, loving, a family dog, and of course not the brightest. He was also your prototypical pure breed – every genetic condition that inbreeding can create – seizures, hips, ears: a veterinarian’s dream if one wanted to be crass.

I think of Digby as my first dog. We were not a pet family growing up. I once brought home a stray beagle in middle school, but we found him a new home in two or three day’s time. There were some cats, but maybe it was just the family curse: one with cancer after maybe a year and another with a silly habit of resting on top of car wheels. As an adult, Carrie and I tried. A dog from a shelter who liked to escape – best exercise I ever did have – which coupled with a daughter standing on the table indicated using that two week return policy.

Of course there was Fred and Charlie, a pair of bichon’s we adopted. (I am happy to say spell check in Word does not recognize the breed.) There were a few factual omissions of course. They were 4 ½, not 3 and the fact that the owner’s boyfriend would beat both her and the dogs may have been of some interest. They did not like men, something I still claim to be, so an uneasy truce existed. That is until one night I came home late from work, tax season and all, and as I prepared for bed smelled something: dog pee? Could not really locate it until I put my head on my pillow and realized I had found the spot. They were found a new home, one with no men.

So when we were next ready for a dog, we did it right and in Digby we were amply rewarded, Digby did have quirks – the only Golden who did not like water. He did go swimming once when he mistakenly took a three year olds spastic splashing in our pool to be a sign of drowning. For the first and last time, and without hesitation, he dove right in.

Digby has also proven to be a capable trainer, imparting his unique mellowness to other dogs, particularly his two “sisters”, a five year old Wheaton and a one year old Cock-a-Poo. They took his lead and are as sweet as can be.

I suspect you all know where this post is going. It is time to allow Digby his rest, an escape from physical maladies that keep worsening, one bumping into another. On Tuesday we will say goodbye.

This has caused me to think both of my reactions to Digby’s “going to the farm” as my daughter prefer we phrase it and also my previous brushes with death. I was never good with death – maybe city boy syndrome, the polar opposite of farms with life and death appearing every season. Maybe it was having three grandparents die before it was born and the fourth passing before I was three. It would be until high school that a close family member died, an Uncle, a man deserving of his own little post.

I am sad that Digby is being put to sleep – I will leave the “farm” imagery for my daughter – and have welled up more than once while speaking of it. Yet somehow I feel I should be sadder – nine years, my first real pet, that should not be sadness: it should be despondency bordering on depression. And maybe come Tuesday I will feel that overwhelming sense.

Maybe it is just the perspective that comes from having caught up with death after such a slow start. I have buried both my parents, a few years apart. My father’s death I have written of before, on an anniversary of his death, of being with him as he passed.

But issues of relative grief aside, issues of pets as opposed to humans, the simple fact remains: on Tuesday we will bid Digby farewell and he will be one dog whose memory will remain with us – family and friends - for ever.

May peace be with him.

On Being Alone

2007-07-27T06:28:00.000-04:00

Some months ago I found a gay men’s book club, relatively local, a nice website listing all the books. I went to Borders and a few nights later was flipping the pages for the June entry. For the first seventy nine of those pages I was wondering what was the point – sure the author was gay as was the main character, but still it seemed rather universal – a book, no more, no less. Then I read page eighty: the protagonist, a gay man in his thirties goes to a bar to be surrounded by others, others of his persuasion:

“He’ll soon be too old for this club, which pulsates with bass lines, youth and arrogance. In a few years he’ll find himself exiled, patronizing the piano bars favored by men of a certain age who mistakenly believed there was still plenty of time to find that someone special and settle down.”

I read it again, nearly committing it to memory. I have been in that piano bar – in our town it is called The Townhouse – and have watched those men, ones who seem to be rooted there, the hardcore regulars. They are nice men I am sure, and I have spoken with a few but standing there on a Saturday night at times their loneliness seems palpable.

I have thought about writing of this, and suspect I may have in passing, but then last night I read of Spider’s eight little factoids, I read the first one:

“. I am scared to death... of being left alone and not having anyone…. I am petrified of getting old and not having anyone…. I crave someone who thinks I am as special and wonderful as I think they are.”

And just as I read page eighty multiple times – hell, I was just able to pull the book off the shelf and turn right to the paragraph – I re-read Spider’s words multiple times. Both times a chord was struck, the same chord.

While the chord is the same, my hearing of it has changed, a change borne of two more months in my journey. When I read Brian Malloy’s words what seems like so long ago, the answer was clear. Not to be gay, not to lose Carrie, to run back to the nest where in so many ways there is so much love and happiness.

Last night as I read Spider’s words, there was a different reaction. One that I indeed may end up “lonely” but I do have my friends – including Carrie if I am capable of treating her with the respect she rightfully asks, I do have my family which considering I have six children is not inconsequential, and with time I should end up with at least one new bestest friend: myself when I grow into accepting that person.

But ultimately, I share the terror. What sane person would not? I suspect Spider will find that person – any who knows him through his writings and comments would agree he’s way too special not to be snatched up. And maybe I will or will not find that perfect person, but considering the brevity of my sojourn in this strange new land, I too cannot complain having made some new friends and started building this new life.

And ultimately while I share the terror, those psychological night sweats, I realize that while I could have done many things differently these past twenty-four months, there is one immutable piece of the puzzle. I am gay and when I am out there being gay, whether in a bed having sex or in restaurant with one of my gay friends talking or just here blogging, that the gayness is real and in many ways feels right.

Note: The book quoted is Brendan Wolf by Brian Malloy. And Spider should require no introduction around here.

Rent versus Buy

2007-07-24T03:10:00.000-04:00

It is a common question in my line of work: lease or buy a car, rent or buy an apartment. It is a question which leads to more questions. How much can you afford each month, do you have the down payment, and of course, how long are you staying – the commitment factor. I even toyed with this idea in terms of my own living arrangements. (For the moment the basement is the right price (or should I say rent), but that is for later.)

As I lay in bed tonight I realized that this same question – rent versus buy – applied to my gayness. Forgetting latency, deep suppression, and the like, it is fast approaching two years of my journey, two years of exploration with men – sexually and emotionally, nearly two years of long talks with Carrie and a full year and a half of pouring myself into these pages. A long time by any measure.

During these two years I have not been an owner. Sure, I have discovered the gayness, but I have worked hard to keep it as a rental and a short term rental at that. There are advantages to renting – beat the heck out of the car and bring it back to the dealer after thirty six months, get bored of the neighborhood and pack the furniture into the U-Haul after a year or two. No need to pool all those pennies for a down payment and no risk that you cannot sell it at the end.

Of course when my clients ask about renting and buying there is the concept of equity. When you buy you have something. Each month besides paying interest, you are paying down a loan and thereby owning even more. All in all a very good thing for one who is staying.

I have re-read the above a number of times, looking for the next paragraph, looking to end the post gracefully, but it seems that the post, succinct and to the point, stands on its own. It is 3 AM and sleep beckons.

Armageddon: Not Really

2007-07-22T21:50:00.000-04:00

It is before 7 AM, the car is still there and I hit the road. An easy enough reverse commute back to the ‘burbs, back to the office. Not much more than twelve hours has elapsed. Fire up the computer and settle in to what should be a long day considering the meager sleep of the night before. Driving in the car I hear reports – scattered thunderstorms – heavy at times. Not really relevant for a day spent in my office.

By 8:30 the sky has darkened. Actually it looks like midnight and the rains are falling. Lots of rain. The parking lot – a sprawling affair which in eight years prior has never had more than a puddle starts to flood. The rains continue, the waters rise. I see a group of co-workers looking out the window at our cars, my car, and realize the water is almost touching the bumper. I break down – off with the shoes and socks, roll the pants above the knee and move my car to higher ground. Once in my car, I realize that I am prepared – my shorts and tee shirt from the prior night. I march back in style – ready for the beach.

The rains did end and the water did subside and it was an easy ride home marred only by my trepidation of arriving after missing a night. I walk in and the phone rings – a daughter saying turn on channel 7 and hanging up. Must be pictures of the flood – cool. But no, there has been an explosion in the City, a massive steam pipe, geysers, a tow truck swallowed.

Now this would be an eye-catching story any place, any day. But it is not any place, it is not any day. It is twelve hours after I had left the City, left a parking space a few short blocks from the explosion.

I am not an overly religious man and I do realize that if there is a God, he has bigger fish to fry than moi, but floods, explosions…. There may be a message in this, but I for one plan on ignoring it.

The rest of the week is not worthy of a post – it was brilliantly mundane. Welcome home dinners, a Harry Potter pre-party followed by the obligatory line-up at Borders. Bicycling with a friend, watching the dogs romp and throwing steaks on the barbie (though at times I think throwing Barbies on the stakes may be more me).

But I mention it all the same because the week in many ways felt right – the time with Phil and the time with the family. I have written much as to finding the balance – that fine line for me of accepting myself, of living a life that includes my gayness while also continuing to live my family life. For a week it worked. I have no illusion as to the fact that there are many days ahead – both easier and harder.

Myths

2007-07-21T22:50:00.000-04:00

To understand the week, one has to understand the month prior – a month of straightness, weekends spent fixing the bedroom formerly known as ours: wall paper removal, painting, bonding with Carrie. Enough to re-kindle my Achilles heel: being only a little gay. Concurrently Phil disappeared. E-mails to nowhere it seemed. Of course I am aware of his technological challenges but why let reason stand in the path of paranoia. “He doesn’t like me anymore. No, impossible, his steady must think I am around too much, and wants me out.” Raging ego with healthy paranoia: a combustible mixture.

The week is already looking a bit complicated, and it has not even started. Thursday a child returns from camp and that evening is the gay men’s book club: I swear I will get there some day. I still read the books knowing that I may not make it. Friday – well, if you live on planet earth, you may have heard a book is being released. It is also the third Friday of the month – married gay group.

I check my cell last Sunday and a voice mail – Phil’s e-mail is down and he thinks maybe I fell off the edge. We go with a novel concept – we call each other. He is available and while I will not find myself in the City on business, it is a quick enough drive, particularly in the summer months. So Tuesday it is – 7:15 PM at his apartment: Maybe play a bit and then a drink and dinner and surely a quick ride home, no train schedules for me. I get a spot in front of his apartment, good till 7 AM, not to worry.

Now it is time for Nate to show his past patterns, the seemingly innate ability to get it wrong. Carrie knows where I am going and the assumption of my coming home. Why even discuss the alternative. I really do think I am coming home, but as Tuesday progresses I realize that when we made the plans, Phil had made a passing comment about spending the night. I realize that showing up at work the next day in the same shirt may be a bit much. Not a problem, I am not spending the night. Which is why I made a quick stop at Kohl’s for a cheapo golf shirt – just in case.

I get to Phil’s and he is still suited up – literally – and needs to get casual. Of course between suit and casual one has to pass through naked, a rather distracting spot. And we always knew we would play, so why not. Three hours later I realize that the cheapo shirt was a good purchase. And I wonder if Carrie is expecting me – as I had left it. I can still go home, but it will be a late night and which is worse – the night out or that creaking door at some ungodly hour. I want to communicate and do the right thing so I call. She answers the phone and sounds quite chipper, that is until I ask the question. It seems, either possibility was fine with her, but the phone call was a bit much. The night out it will be.

Back to bed, its only 10:15, early by the gay clock. And we play some more. Now I have to express some admiration for you sex bloggers – either your memories are extraordinary or your narratives are composites because I could not write a blow by blow if I tried. And while I am not one to detail the sex – a thin veneer of modesty still remains – the fact is that we played – gently, roughly, wildly. We reaffirmed that versatile is more than CL code. Uncharacteristically, I let go, I went with the moment, with the flow. And we had fun. Sometime around 3:30 it became clear that sleep was preferable to dinner. The next morning I wake early, I have to move my car. Might as well just head to work.

What happened next is a mini-post of its own and we will get there. But the important stuff had already happened.

I have hung on – desperately at times – to some myths: The myth of being a little gay, the myth of getting harder for Carrie than for the guys, all of which is really the myth of going back. The myths have some truth – that is from where they derive their power. But on this night I had no “performance” issues, no trouble playing all night, a long all night. I had let go. A little gay? I think not.

The next evening at dinner, Carrie glances towards me – I am wearing on an old tee – and points out I should be wearing a higher collar, something that will hide the hickey better. She points out that she hasn’t seen a hickey on someone over sixteen in ages. I suppose I blush, a little giggle, and of course change shirts. But I keep thinking about being sixteen and realize that the night before I was sixteen, making up for what I missed along the way. Phil, also late to the dance, listens to me say “I’m making up for lost time.” His soft response: “Don’t I know it.”

It’s too late to make it right,
Probably wouldn’t if I could.
Dixie Chicks

The week does continue, times of thought, times of family and right choices, times of floods and explosions. But most of all times of reality. It is late now – tomorrow we can continue.

Embrace

2007-07-11T17:54:00.000-04:00

Send Carrie the letter or let things be: by now we all know the answer; I did share it with her. But the next day before sharing, I had a mini-epiphany: how much I was ignoring what she has been trying so hard to tell me. It stopped being about sex, men, celibacy, and who might know – the “shame” factor – a long time ago. It is about Carrie having grown to a level of self acceptance to which I still aspire. She does not want a gay husband. She wants a man who will want her – all of her, nothing but her – with all of his soul. Bob teases me that she is a bigot, but he is wrong. She does not mind gay men and looks forward to having one as her best friend.

But the thing that most amazes me is her acceptance that she may never find this mythical man and she may be left with her family and friends, with books and errands. And that is okay with her, she has chosen authenticity over safety. And by so doing in some strange way she is guaranteed some level of happiness no matter what.

Yet I still vacillate, wanting to hang on, out of love, out of friendship, but also surely as much as I do not want to admit it, out of fear. I try to define that fear, not an easy task, but I suspect it is the fear of being alone. Sis and I had an extended IM chat and she went for the fear like a hound on a hunt.

Sis: I don't buy that you're not scared. You can tell me that you're not scared all day long, and I still won't buy it. I think you're terrified. Not of being alone, necessarily, but of never finding someone who "gets" you on such a basic level.
Me: To have found one person who "gets” me on that level is awesome. To find another.....
Sis: The thing is, I think Carrie can continue to be that person for you, just not as your wife. But for you to be able to accept that and make it work will require you to really start to "get" yourself and embrace that person. It will make your relationship with her a lot easier.

As I re-read the snippet from our exchange, I realize that Carrie told me the other night that I need to embrace who I am. She was referring to the gay Nate, but it is more. It is learning to embrace – to “get” myself, all of me.

So a little over a week after having come home and sat on Carrie’s floor fighting back tears, I sit here a little older, a little more mature. Carrie has moved on and so shall I. This is not a question of moving out – after looking at the finances we realize every month of delay is much needed money for our family. But it is still moving on as we slowly evolve sharing a house while still moving on. A temporary state – nine or ten months at best – and one that may yet change, for if there is any lesson as I look back over this year it is not to make predictions. Life will chart its own course quite nicely.

Letter To A Friend

2007-07-10T20:23:00.000-04:00

Today I considered that my relative lack of posting, while having many causes, is to a great degree predicated upon not wanting to share for fear of reactions, if anyone is still reading, But I have been re-reading my blog this week and realize that this is my story, written for me, and to pick and choose the content is wrong. When I re-read this someday, it is important that at least it is an honest record.

But as I went to write tonight and opened up a word file – my scrap pages – I found a letter I wrote to Carrie last week. The background is that I came home around 11 PM from a date and tearfully suggested to Carrie that we try again. And as I re-read this tonight, I realized that someday this is what I will need to re-read.

Dear Carrie,
It is an hour best suited for sleeping (3:24 AM) so of course I am writing. It was not my plan to bring up many topics tonight. They were of course in my mind, percolating over time, but the plan was to write and “speak” in that fashion which does not put you on a spot, allows thoughts to be formed, and allows you to simply say no.

For a simple no would be well within your rights, it would not be shifting of blame as you think. I am well aware that in many ways I have created a situation that has no going back in that “going back” at this point can never truly happen. We can perhaps be together but it would be in some new emotional place. And I am aware of the shame that I have brought upon you and that a good case could be made that being apart is the only way for you to maintain your new found self esteem.

But I want to simply say what can and cannot be. Can I forgo sex with others – I have before and suspect I can again. Can I forgo building male friendships predicated on the underlying promise of sex – again I believe so. Can I – or for that matter should I – go back to our co-dependency. That one would be a no for both of us – each of us having outlets for ourselves might have helped us both a long time ago.

Now for the cannots: When I opened Word and a file called Basement which is where I draft and then delete (it is password protected) I went to delete as one would erase a blackboard. As I was erasing I realized the last sentence, all alone at the bottom of the document, was probably never used, maybe the base for a future post, or just an unused part of one called Approval:

A lifetime of repression has had a series of consequences including a need to define myself through the prism of other’s eyes

And as I read that I chose not to erase because it seems relevant here. My nature is not going to change. I cannot go back to making believe that I am straight, Gay, bi, queer: take your pick, but as much as I want, the straight just isn’t happening. Actions I can control, but as you know better than anyone, one cannot choose their orgasms. Now it is inexplicable to me how I can be queer yet have the best sex – not just once, but multiple times – with you. Maybe it is the love, maybe just the knowledge of each others bodies, maybe the liberation of not having to hide any side of me anymore.

But what is clear is that sex with you is incredible and that the thought of sex with men just excites me further. So if we make love again and at some point you invoke my fantasies, I will respond, my body will betray me. Except I no longer think of it as a betrayal, it is part of me and I have come, grudgingly and slowly, to accept that part of me is here to stay.

If I was advising you as a friend, I am not sure what advice I would give. I suppose it would be to follow your heart – in a sense ignore my pleadings, ignore your therapist’s bias – and decide what is right for you. The girls will be fine. I will be here for them; I will do everything to make sure that the house remains intact, that they can continue to have their little world. The question is what is right for you. And choosing to maintain a gay best friend as opposed to a gay husband is more than reasonable – it is what would traditionally be considered the right thing – the only thing - by the vast majority.

You had suggested I speak with my advisors about this and I will speak with Bob who I respect and whose views I would not venture a guess on at this point. In terms of Sis – this may come as a shock to you – but I have not mentioned our being lovers since you asked me not to many, many months ago. I am not sure I can ask her advice while leaving out that piece of the puzzle. For if you and I were not able to still have that level of intimacy and have it work for us, then the rest would be doomed to failure.

I suppose the question you have asked yourself since I opened my mouth last night is: Why now, why after putting you through hell do I dare to even go here? I am afraid this is the part of the story that I would have thought through better if I had not just opened up so unexpectedly last night. I suspect it is many cumulative things. It is a level of self-acceptance that I know who and what I am and therefore do not need to prove it to myself anymore. It is a realization that as hard as we both try, our friendship will be severely tested by the road ahead – first by my having new friends and then by you eventually doing the same.

But I guess the real reason is how comfortable we are with each other, comfortable in the little ways that are the true base of life, little errands, having dinner, stripping wallpaper. The thought of not calling to check in with you every day – yes, I know how annoying I can be – is inconceivable. Hell, even our little blowup last week was okay: we said things, we cleared the air a little and we moved on.

Michelle Shocked said the night (my son) and I saw her: “it is not about happiness, it is about growth.” But of course it would be nice if growth leads to happiness.

Do not feel the need to answer this anytime quickly, unless it is to say a preemptive no. And have the courage and pride to tell me to find an apartment: that you have moved on. Whatever happens, it is the result of all that I have done, my misjudgments, my need to play out my issues on a semi-public stage. And if I am looking for an apartment (or small house sounds good), tonight will be a private thing between us, a little blip, because it is important that this not be cast as you having kicked me out. I have left, I have left in a hurtful way to you over a long period of time and that will always be one of my crosses to bear.

Love,
Nate

The Basement: 4:17 AM

There is an epilogue to this dialogue, but that is for another night. Re-reading and deciding to share this has been difficult enough.

Take Action against Hate Crimes

2007-06-29T23:11:00.001-04:00

Watching and reading this tonight, it struck me that maybe for an evening, I could use my little corner of the net for something positive.

Thousands of people are attacked every year because of their sexual orientation, and there's still no federal hate crimes law to protect them. This video is the most powerful statement I've seen on hate crimes, and I couldn't help but pass it on. I think you'll see why.

http://www.hrc.org/FightHate

There's a bill in the Senate right now that would address this heartbreaking problem, and we only have a few weeks until the vote. It would mean a lot to me if you could take a minute to watch the video and write your Senators, and then pass this along to five friends. I really believe none of us can sit this one out. Just go to:

http://www.hrc.org/FightHate

(Apologies for the hyperlink not working - Lord knows I tried)

Approval

2007-06-27T22:03:00.000-04:00

I have found myself sitting with Phil having some late night dinners and after a few drinks have not had much interest in reading menus. Taking his lead, it’s hard to go wrong with a simple burger. But as we settled into a booth in a diner for some desert last week Phil looked up from the menu and with a twinkle in his eye said I had to order first. It was good natured but with a deserved edge. And I realized that this fits into the writing I have been considering concerning my therapy.

My therapy, my relationship with Bob, is on the backstretch. If the purpose of therapy is to understand things better, it has been a success and I suspect the next step – integrating and growing with this new found knowledge – is one I will need to tackle primarily on my own. Much like ordering desert it is time to make my own, hopefully wiser, choices.

There was a breakthrough in my therapy a few months back, a breakthrough both from my time with Bob and from the consequent conversations with my sisters. It seems there was a moment in my life when things went wrong or maybe it would be better phrased to say a moment in my family’s life because I was merely, as the new term goes, collateral damage of that evening. I was four at the time and my eldest sibling was eleven, time for what was then called junior high school. Except she did not want to go to junior high school, she did not want to go to any school. Now I knew this story already and have the slightest of memories of sitting in therapist’s kitchen while my Mom took her for a session.

As I revisit this with another sister, the classic middle child, she asks if I remember the night of the war, the night my father was in “you will go because I say so mode”, a night of raised voices and of, I fear, raised hands. I do not. But then my sister explains how my mother tried to in some way intercede, to protect her eldest, but my Dad was a force of nature not to be trifled with in his own home.

I finally had the answer to the question of my life – when did Mom go missing, when did the depression which morphed into Alzheimer’s begin. It seems it began one night when I was just four. She never truly re-appeared. Sure she cooked dinner, kept me clothed, bagged those school lunches. But emotionally speaking she was gone. This was 1958 – long before the era of Prozac and Lexapro. I can almost hear the gossip – she’s a quiet lady, her husband talks enough for them both (as I had grown to do around this house). Depression – what’s that?

It was not as if my Dad making up for her deficits did much, other than answer questions directed to her, just continuing the crushing of her spirit. He was, as Bob would point out, emotionally absent. An absent Dad, a Mom in the throes of silent depression and sisters who on some level were at best resentful of me, the male heir to the throne, the Prince of Beach Street. Who could blame them?

No wonder when I turned fourteen I adopted my friends as family and found solace in music and pot. As we listened to the music – a rich time indeed with Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and The Grateful Dead understanding our angst – as we smoked the joints and snuck the sweet wines, there was approval, there was that sense of family. In retrospect it does seem quite a reasonable reaction. But in hindsight, it was not enough: the search for approval became a backdrop to my existence.

And as I look back at my choices over the years I see how many of them have been colored by my desire for approval and acceptance, by my desire for the comfort of a male figure. I do not write this as a “that’s why I’m gay” moment – that is really of little concern in all this. But it has undeniably impacted on my life choices in ways big and small. It drove my educational choices, it impacted my career choices and it downright seized control of my relationship choices. Each of these could be, and someday probably should be their own posts.

But those choices have been made and their consequences are a part of who I am. As I continue to work through these past choices, the central issue remains: learning self acceptance, learning to make my own choices, the “ownership” I wrote of not so long ago. And of course learning to be the first to order desert.

The Pipettes - 'Pull Shapes (Live @ Paradiso)'

2007-06-25T22:07:00.001-04:00

As I was playing with music tonight I re-discovered this and was reminded of a few things: my roots, my love of music and most of all life is meant to be enjoyed.

Have fun.

Just Being

2007-06-24T12:25:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning is an early affair, a drive to the City - early camp bus. We gather on a Manhattan side street – five buses worth of parents and children, four weeks worth of hugs and kisses, many waves goodbye. And then her twin announces she is happily an only child; now the day is hers. Breakfast in a coffee shop made special by being in the City, by being three instead of four. And then a day of Museums: Up to the Cloisters, barely past opening time, serenity and beauty, side by side. The Cloisters are a division of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and our little badges are good for both places. So back into the car, a quick drive over to Fifth Avenue and as I turn to look for parking, a space opens up, an omen of the continued good day.

We have figured out on past visits what we like so even though the Met can be daunting we are a team with a mission – a surgical strike and back onto the streets. Barely past mid-day and what a day it is. Sunny and warm, low humidity, a pleasant breeze: too beautiful to not savor the City some more. So back into the car and downtown: Did I recently mention “an outdoor space on a perfect temperate night”? Why not on a perfect temperate day? I find the place and at that moment a parking space opens right out front. For those who are reading and wondering why such excitement over parking spaces, I remind you we are talking of Manhattan: The gods of parking are never to be trifled with.

The cafe is hopping but we are immediately seated: an outdoor table shaded by trees. Now I need to mention that this is not a gay restaurant but there are gays about. As we sit there Carrie looks over my shoulder – a table with two men and a woman, one of the men clearly gay – and says: “Too young.” Then glancing at a different angle points out a table with three men, three gay men even with the gaydar turned off. She notes they are a better fit – right age, right look. This is all done discretely as our daughter works on her burger. A little later another gay couple: hardly a mention by now. But then they are joined by some more friends and as they kiss European style, I see Carrie smile. Quite the little show.

We return home, seventy-two hours that felt so right comes to a close and as I swing in my hammock I try to put it in perspective. I suppose it is having had so many different pieces of the puzzle that is me come together at different times and different ways. I suppose it is the fact that I can admit to such pleasure of my evening with Phil and with my time with Carrie and family. I suppose it is the fact that I can accept my desires and appreciate how much a bond of friendship adds to the mix – gay or straight.

But ultimately what I am left with was today – the fact that Carrie and I could have such a nice day while continuing to come to grips with the reality of our lives and the fact that we can still talk and joke (though I did not find the first guy to be too young). I asked her tonight – now that she is such an aficionado of gay men – if she saw me as one of them and she thought and laughed. She pointed out how gay I seem to her in many ways – the way I run or move at times – and my knee jerk reaction was to feel hurt. But that gave way in a moment to the sheer humor of it and the fact that she was right.

On Friday my friend asked if magically I was no longer gay could the marriage be repaired. Of course such talk is silly but I told him how if there was a pill I would take it tomorrow, but let’s be real. While there may be truth to swallowing that pill, there is also untruth. The truth, the real truth, is I like myself – always have. Maybe that sounds egotistical but ego in moderation is healthy. And if I like myself then I do not think I get to pick and choose which pieces of Nate’s basic nature I keep and which I toss. I suspect that if the pill was put before me today, I would read the booklet, check out those risk factors, think of being a different person. I would pick it up and hold it between my fingers. And with all my strength I would likely put it back down.

Because last June I was writing posts discussing the difference between wants and needs. This year I chose not to write it, but my thoughts were on the silliness of wants and needs when the real issue is one of being, just being.

Seventy-Two Hours

2007-06-23T22:28:00.000-04:00

It seems strange to be writing a post on the laptop sitting in the screened in porch, gazing at the backyard. Carrie is off to the left in a recliner and the dogs are circling as they are wont to do. The strangeness is the shear normalcy in the middle of the maelstrom of our lives. As I swung in the hammock earlier, enjoying what is still for the moment home, I considered the past seventy-two hours.

It was Wednesday afternoon that I checked in with Phil – I was in the City and figured we could catch dinner before the suburbs beckoned. It worked for him so we met on a Manhattan street corner and started to wander towards his apartment. On the way we passed a public art exhibit and spent some time looking and talking. And then a quick stop at his apartment which ended up being not so quick. As always, I leave some things to the imagination. Then off to a roof top bar – so what if the average age was twenty years our junior. The drinks were okay: the skyline views intoxicating.

Phil asked of my Father’s Day. I tell him of a cool shirt from my daughter – one that came with the note: “For when you go out!” In case I had missed the intent, she later explained that it was perfect for a New York summer bar. I tell Phil of Carrie’s gifts: a recliner for the backyard – her backyard, my backyard, it is so complicated. And then in the true spirit of mixed messages some boxers and tees – my favored summer sleeping. When I comment she must be bored of my old ones as I float around the house, she tells me these are for my nights out with the boys. In a rare moment of judgment, I do not share that on those nights, I do not use pajamas.

We finish our drinks and downtown for dinner, an outdoor space on a perfect temperate night. And then a walk across the village and some coffee and desert. Phil knows the City better than I and shows me things – different styles of brickwork, unusual buildings. We end the night on a subway back uptown leaning into each other as the evening drew to close. For once I get the coming home part right – it is after midnight and all is quiet.

The next day was a graduation – grade school albeit, but still big for two little ones. An afternoon off, a small family dinner: the real celebration will be the next night, but let’s not get ahead of things. That evening I had planned to attend a gay men’s reading group. It had popped up recently while trolling the net and I had even read the book. But Wednesday had been late and it was a graduation day, so home I remain. I go down to my basement office to write but my daughter is on my computer. She offers to finish up but I tell her keep playing, I lay on the couch, we exchange occasional thoughts and comments. And at some point I nap. When I awake she is still there and we continue to quietly commune. For at least one night I have chosen wisely.

Friday we celebrate – the graduation and a going off to sleep away camp for one of the kids – her first time. We have our insular family, we have a gathering of the older kids, and we have the couple who have been there with us every step of the last twenty years. And yes, we have the steaks and lobsters. In the strangeness that passes for our lives, the total success of the evening is also its dark cloud. This is our life as we once envisioned it, the backyard looks great, the evening air cool and fresh with the backdrop of music punctuated by conversation and laughter: Family and friends that any would take. It was perfect. That is except for the fact that we are separated, that I am gay, that the late night conversation – us and our friends – is on where I should move.

Everyone leaves and Carrie and I hold each other, tears are lurking. We talk but what can one say. Ultimately she is right: I never stopped when the opportunity was offered, I never accepted the unsaid offer of discrete sexual liaisons. Even if I could offer that I would not “live” my gayness, it would not change who I am. And of course that is ultimately the deal breaker. So she sheds her tears, freely now, and I try to comfort, but really, what comfort is there?

For those who are counting we are not yet near seventy-two hours but it is time to step back and let the evening settle. Tomorrow is another day, and early one at that.

Shopping Anyone?

2007-06-18T22:25:00.000-04:00

After a night of serious reading, my eyes drooping (it is late) and my spirits sagging (an unhappy ending to my novel on top of a sad sort of evening), it is time for one last check of the e-mails.

And it turns out a little smile to end my day.

Ownership

2007-06-11T22:21:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I attended my gay dad’s meeting – an 8 PM tee-off on a Friday evening. While I could have worked late, my concentration was off (no surprise there) and I was in the big City. So with some time to kill I consider my options: why, a gay bar of course. Now bars and me do not really mix – not unless I am already with a friend when I walk in. But it seemed like a thing to do, a way of mainlining gay culture. I expressed this ambivalence to Sis and she took me to task: “Don’t go if you don’t want to: write, walk – Do whatever you want.”

Feeling a mite misunderstood in this cyber exchange, I whip out the cell and call across the country. “I do want to go, but bars and me…” And then she pulled out of that bottomless hat of hers a telling point: “Go” she tells me: “Or don’t go. I don’t care, but take ownership of what you do.”

The word – ownership – instantly caught my attention but it is in the days and weeks since that it has continued to percolate and grow richer with time. I have spent much time rejecting ownership of my gayness in ways big and small. I am reduced to Sis reminding me to do what I choose and to Carrie reminding me to read my own blog. I remind myself that I must first own my own life: then the rest will follow. And the twin of ownership – the good twin – is to embrace.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to test these concepts, to take ownership out for test drive. In an e-mail to Phil a passing reference that I will be in the City Friday: an early business dinner. Phil goes away most weekends so I did not expect the invitation to spend the night. Now the last time – the only time - I stayed in his apartment was almost a month ago and my neurosis ran rampant. I fixated on staying and going, on moments with my new friends and anticipated consequences with my home life. I drove myself near mad.

Carrie had already presumed I would spend that night in the City – well before I had even e-mailed Phil. We discussed the problems of last time and she asked that I come home at an off hour – very late or very early – Sunday AM in her mind. A place to spend Friday night was a stretch, but I did pull it off. Saturday night: well, we will get back to that.

My Friday business dinner finally ends and off to Phil’s. This time I knew to bring a bag not my baggage. For the first time I spend the night without a worry of the consequences. I live in the moment without the clouds of guilt and fear obscuring the sun. The “sun” made it better warming all we did: it made the sex better, it made the hanging in the bars better, and it even made the sleep better. It was liberating.

The next day Phil and I woke together – yes we played as two gay men might and yes enjoyed a shower together. Then time for the day – breakfast at a diner, coffee and newspapers and the lightest of chatter. Then some time around town until I dropped Phil off at his friend in the suburbs: a quick hello to Stan, a quicker goodbye to Phil and back in the car. Now I had no place to go, but I am clever enough to know when to move on. It was with a light heart that I popped in the car and disappeared around the corner. It was 3 PM on Saturday.

I was well aware that Carrie wanted me to arrive home at an off hour. I was well aware that 3 PM on a Saturday afternoon is anything but an off hour. And I was well aware that I really had no place to go. Sure I could have killed a few hours, but arriving home at 6 PM struck me as even worse. I round the corner and whip out the cell. I ask permission to return and it is coolly granted. Return I do, quietly but our home is no mansion and my presence is noted. The temperature has shifted, the cool now bordering on frigid.

She is right – how can I walk in like nothing has occurred, like I am coming from the library. I am right – it is my home, my only home: should I just wander for eight hours awaiting the cloak of the night. We are both right and it is a situation that will recur. We have anticipated this, tried to finesse it, but it continues to lurk.

That night I think more about ownership, about my plans for an apartment. I think of the waiting until the fall – no need to rush into things. I particularly think of the winter rental – Labor Day to Memorial Day, a nice beach community: why does it smell so sweet? I know the answer – it’s the dream that in nine months things will be healed, that it will be time to return home or to make new decisions as if the decision has not been already made. It is again a failure to take ownership, a failure at embracing the reality of my life.

Sunday dawns and Carrie and I calmly talk. We talk over the Sunday paper – the real estate section to be exact. It is time to find a place – not a temporary place, not a seasonal rental. It is time to find a new home - close by where I can see my children many times each and every week. But a home – not just a crash pad – where when I return at night I can feel comfortable. We have seven years before packing the kids off to college. It is time to make myself a home for those seven years.

And it is time to do it while Carrie and I are still best friends. I knew on Saturday with Phil when I was about to overstay my welcome. It is now time to practice that with Carrie.

"And then I go outside and join the others, I am the others,"
Dar Williams

More Masonry

2007-06-10T17:08:00.000-04:00

So today I met Frank, the outgoing leader of the local Masonic lodge. He was grateful as I returned the items and asked where I found them. When I mentioned the handicapped parking space he laughed as he explained the owner of these items was handicapped and like many of his lodge mates must have put the items on the roof of the car to open the door. And of course he just drove off – a moment some of us have had and most of us have feared.

Frank again asked if I was interested in the Masons – I struck him as a fine man – and took the opportunity to share a moment about them. Now I was expecting to maybe hear of the sense of fraternity and the fun at the meetings. But Frank – a nice man without agenda – needed to share their current project. They are doing a child safety project – pictures and fingerprints on a CD in case a child goes missing. I was struck by this. I suspect the community service aspects of the fraternal organizations are more noticeable in smaller towns, places where they are the lead in the local papers. But in a close in suburb of New York City it is not exactly front page news.

So I am still going to take a pass on becoming a Mason, but I am glad that I had my five minutes with Frank. It’s funny – I teased about putting a face on the gay community for him and instead he put the face on his community for me.

Masonry

2007-06-08T17:21:00.000-04:00

No, not the bricks by my pool which can use some work: Freemasons as in the secret handshake and the like. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday while walking in the railroad parking lot, one underneath a rather dingy trestle, I spotted a glimpse of a hat. There on the ground it was: perfectly folded complete with gold letters along with a starched white apron with a Mason’s symbol, and a folder with a few papers. No one had run it over yet – an inevitability for that spot – and it was clearly possessions cherished by someone.

My schedule was tight so I took the items, tossed them in the car, and hit the trains. I forgot about the whole thing, that is until I got back in my car that evening and saw them waiting for me.

That night I prepared for a project – enlisted the children – to use the clues to track down the owner. When I opened the folder and found a program from the previous night’s dinner, I realized my task was easy: there was the lodge leader’s home phone number. Seven digits and I had his wife – he was (surprise) at a lodge meeting but would call me in the morning.

And so he did. I will return the items to him on Sunday – a ten minute ride. He offered me lunch (I declined) and then said something which caught my attention: Was I interested in becoming a Mason? Now I am not the fraternal organization type on a good day and I am not sure the past year and a half qualifies as a good day in any event. But here was this sweet offer. I politely demurred.

The thing is that part of me on Sunday looks forward to handing him the items and heading my merry way. But there is another part of me which would like to say:

“I don’t think I’m really your target market. I am a liberal Democrat gay Jew.”

I won’t say that of course, but there is that little piece of me which just wants to share that simple acts of courtesy really are universal and maybe leave one little mark that gays are really okay.

Time for the weekend: I am still uncomfortable with the terms, but I suppose I do have a date – a night in the City with Phil (pre-discussed at home: no more surprises) and a day at the beach with him and Stan tomorrow. The new life begins.

Have a good weekend all.

Moments

2007-06-04T21:25:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I went out with some new friends, the famed night or as I have already written the infamous morning, the legendary late arrival home. And as I have thought of the evening I have realized a few things. I spent sixteen hours on this expedition, two of which were emotionally trying for me. I have written of those two hours, waved them as proof of my underlying devotion to Carrie. But the other fourteen, I have treated with a wave – yes it was good, but oh the angst.

I have written of a choice – drive my car into the City and be prepared for an early morning escape or travel with my friends. It was raining after all: such a good reason not to take two cars with its implications of safety and maturity. I mean I have only been driving into the City for thirty-six years and yes, sometimes in the rain. I did make a choice that evening. I chose to stay with my friends, to go with the flow, to ride in the backseat knowing I would not have it to myself. I wanted to be with them and to experience all of it. The rain does sound better, but really.

I have been considering this but today was called on it. An out of town friend – one who I am fully out to - phoned and I was telling him of this week's decision to find a place of my own. He is about to end a ten plus year run of sharing the house but not the bedroom with his wife: they did it for the children. He truly can say “been there, done that” and today he honestly noted that it is a severely flawed model. He supports the moving out to enable the moving on. I told him of the weekend, of Carrie’s upset over the late arrival. And he politely but directly made the point that I had made choices and those choices illuminate my desires.

I have wrestled with what to say about that weekend in these pages. Part of me says the unsaid says enough and part of me wants to be a sex blogger with a blow by blow (what apt imagery I suppose) of the whole night. I will err somewhat on the side of modesty, but there are some moments that just stand out. One was going to be the basis for its own post – even had the title picked out: Juxtaposition. Our first stop in the City was a party – one where a catering room is rented out by a specific group – this was an Indian / Caribbean party, quiet at 11 when we arrived, but soon pulsating.

Well into the evening Phil asks me if I want another drink – I have already had a few and suggest that I would be willing to share. He smiles and takes my order. A few minutes later we are perched against the wall on a small speaker, a quiet spot under the circumstances. He goes to kiss me and my mouth is infused with alcohol: we truly are sharing the drink. And as we are “sharing”, a woman comes up in front of us and looking beyond us adjusts her – I was going to say blouse, but it was her cleavage. I suspect we were sitting in front of a mirrored wall, we were just background – she was the picture.

Phil is aware of my gaze and I admit that under other circumstances she could also make me happy. He laughs and says that if he was not there I would be happy to do her then, as would he. My turn to laugh as he lifts the glass, takes another drink and we again kiss, the liquor flowing between our mouths. I tell this for a reason, for it was then for the first time that I truly felt that it was okay to be a gay man and still admire and even desire women. I was not being kicked out of the gay club and more importantly I could not use it as the old excuse to myself. To look at women and pretend that I am not so gay may have worked in the past, but to look and then be right back to “sharing” the drink, Absolut Mandarin coursing back and forth, our tongues dancing, tasting. No, that was a gay moment, pure and simple.

It was a night – and morning - of moments, kissing and touching, blowjobs and hugging. A night of sitting at a table with three other men sharing dinner and a morning of sitting at a table with the same men having breakfast. Moments of humor, moments of sex, some raw and some tender. Moments discussing basements (the live-in variety) and moments discussing New York urban architecture.

I wanted to go with the flow, to have the experience and I did. I write of this on some level to share my story –this is a public blog, not a private diary. But I also write because it is true. And maybe one day sitting alone in my apartment (it is out there somewhere), I will go back and re-read this. And on that day as much as I will want to remember the two hours of angst, a misjudgment, I will instead remember all those other moments. And maybe it will bring a little smile to me and surely it will be a reminder of who I am and why I am where I am.

The Promised Land

2007-06-02T06:50:00.001-04:00

I am driven: at work it has served me well – quite socially acceptable and rewarding in many ways. I am also sequential (or as a client preferred to phrase it once, a tad OCD) - a straight line approach to solving problems.

These skills serve me quite well professionally but have some real limitations in life, particularly as I try to navigate some hairpin turns. If my life was a car you would hear two wheels screeching and the ultimate crash. Navigating the Titanic – that would be me – full speed ahead.

This line of thought struck me on my way home from the gay dads support group. There are men who have been coming for years – five, ten, maybe more; there are men who have been divorced for years, men with partners. Yet here they are at the meetings, struggling with issues of children, struggling with coming out. As one man said tonight, coming out is an ongoing process, just part of our lives. And I look at my life and realize both how far I have come and how far I have to go. A culture of immediate gratification has taken its toll.

I stepped back from my blog last week when I realized that I was just repeating myself, hopefully well written, but repetition of a theme all the same. A whininess had seeped in, that uncomfortable feeling of watching someone embarrass themselves. Time for a break until there is something new to say: I do have some things to add, but as always first I must digress.

Recently there was a day when my therapist asked what it is that I want: my flippant answer – everything. That same evening I went to my Married Gay group – round five of a scheduled six rounder. Maybe it was random or maybe in the facilitator’s playbook that they can get feisty for the last sessions, but the question from the morning reappeared: “What do you want?” I hem and haw, I try to claim everything – the dollar and a dream theory. I answer without answering. Again Jim asks: “But what do YOU want?” Finally in frustration I blurt out an answer: to be with a man, to truly explore my gay side.

The next night an impromptu dinner out with just Carrie – kids off with their friends. We talk as only old friends can. I tell her of being pressed by the facilitator. I do not share my answer. No need: the truth has been clear to her for a long time and probably clear to me in the quiet moments I am willing to admit it. I am not only a gay man, but I want to live as one. We discuss the problems inherent with the current living situation. One of the older kids described it as toxic the other day. It is a comfortable toxicity - carbon monoxide, not sulfuric acid: but toxic all the same in a somnolent sort of way.

We do not expect to be back together, not in the sharing the bedroom sense. But even being back together for sitting on the porch as old friends could only occur upon my returning from these new lands. And one has to leave in order to return. We realize that this is not an overnight proposition and I am beyond "come to Jesus" moments. But the start of that road needs to be through my own front door.

Our timetable will be figured out - presumably the fall when I can get a winter rental in a nearby beach community. We then have the summer to prepare the twins and ourselves, time for us all to adjust to the changes ahead and be made comfortable that even with a new geography, we are still a family.

It would be a move with a beginning and an end - nine months to try it on, to grow into things, nine months gestation for a new life for all of us. And after nine months I suspect the decisions will be easier, the lay of the land clearer. But before the nine months, there are some days coming up: the day we tell the twins, the day I sign a lease and of course the day I pass through our front door, suitcases in hand. There will be many tears that day and hopefully a rainbow when the sun does come out. It always does.

So our journey continues. I harbor no illusions of the road ahead - highs and surely lows. I accept that there will be days this summer - frequent I suspect - when I will tell myself I can change my mind, it’s a nice basement. But my support team of Sis and Carrie will be there to remind me of all I have said, of all I have written, of who I am.

I do not want to grow old wondering who I am and it is no longer necessary for me to know where my road ultimately leads. It is no longer a matter of comfort and I am learning that happiness is a by product, not a goal. If I can live with honesty to myself and respect for those around me then the road will be fine.

It is time to take the ride where ever it leads. It is time to live book three. I'm in.

Posted with the humility the journey here has taught me.
HakaN

There's a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I'm heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain't got the faith to stand its ground
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost andbrokenhearted
...
Mister I ain't a boy no I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land
Bruce Springsteen

Learning How To Live

2007-05-24T23:36:00.000-04:00

I am glad to have taken a few days since my last post. For those I left hanging, the rest of the story was pretty simple. I arrived home at 12:30 PM. Carrie had assumed that I would have shown the good taste of an earlier arrival. She was pissed. I was chastened. We have moved on.

Today my therapist made an interesting comment. Now this is my therapist since the fall, no Johnny come lately to the scene. Bob pointed out that he understands Carrie – a person he has never met but has heard much about. But he still does not understand me. The explanation is really quite simple. Carrie understands Carrie and that comes through in my stories. I do not understand Nate. Yes, there are all the pieces, a giant jigsaw puzzle, but I remain unable to create the cohesive picture I desire.

Bob asks what I want and the answer is easy: everything. We do live in the land of “a dollar and a dream”, my state’s lottery tag line. I can dream. Bob comments on wanting the trappings of a family and I disagree: it is not the trappings that torture me. The trappings are nice and I am not complaining, but it is the specifics that torture me. Simply put it is not the thought of not living with a woman and family. It is the thought of not living with Carrie and my children that leave my head spinning.

Carrie and I talk. We do not have any answers; lord knows if we did we would implement them. My therapist suggests that he speak to her therapist. I am happy with the suggestion but point out that Carrie will ask what the purpose is. With a smile he points out that maybe the fact that we both feel to be in purgatory? Works for me. Carrie later agrees, let the therapists talk, let them see if there is a purpose for our meeting together with one of our therapists.

We will never be in the place where we once were and maybe the next step will be from the basement to an apartment. But in spite of the massive damage that I have inflicted, I am just not ready to throw in the towel. Some will tell me to get with the program and move on, others will say keep battling. Personally, the competing voices in my own head have me reeling without the judgments of the rest of the world.

There is one thing I believe tonight: that I need to step back and get some perspective. The answer to the question of what I really want is not going to be found in actions. Actions will tell me I love my wife and that she remains my best friend. Actions will tell me that I am gay and enjoy sex with men. There are many truths in all of this, none of which alone will bring me to my own truth.

Part of stepping back is taking a little rest from these pages which have served me so well. I am sure this is not my last post and we all know the book is far from over. But like any good author, it is time to do my “research”. To continue to restate the same chapter over and over in different ways is getting old for all of us.

To my friends out there, feel free to e-mail: I am not entering a convent. To all, Thank you for being there for the last seventeen months.

They say the best is still yet to come
But the taste of you is still on my tongue.
I can't forget and I won't even try
To erase your image
And the way you made me cry.
I'm learning how to live.
Lucinda Williams

Inexorable

2007-05-20T20:55:00.000-04:00

I have written many posts this weekend, some building on others, some replacing and some probably contradicting. These posts, like most, are written in my head, waiting for the opportunity to sit at a keyboard and allow them to grow. And as I thought today I realized that I desire sharing none of them and desire sharing all and am truly not sure where to even start.

This weekend really started in a decision made a week ago. Carrie had mentioned getting together with some friends, maybe Saturday. I had already had some e-mails about the weekend with a gay couple I had seen once before. Phil and Stan suggest a beach trip if the weather holds. Sunday was booked with family and Saturday seemed good. Anyway given a choice between being home Friday or Saturday, Friday seemed the day. It was our anniversary, a perfect day for a dinner with family and friends, a perfect way to acknowledge without actually celebrating.

It was a good plan, grounded in some logic: so I knew it would be trouble. And trouble it was when Carrie had an unexpectedly busy day on Friday and first started to prep, cook, and organize at 3:30 that afternoon. The panic bordering on hyperventilation was clear in her voice and I knew enough to come home early.

It ended up being a good evening with Carrie, as usual, pulling it all together – a beautiful table, bountiful food, and lots of good noise. The anniversary went mostly unnoticed, kindness on our guests’ part. Things do seem to go well before the wheels come off.

Saturday, cold and wet, is not a beach day and my friends call – they have an out of town friend they think I would like and would like me. They suggest I join them at Stan’s home in the burbs, have dinner and head to some parties in the City. Phil has an apartment with enough space for us to crash for the night. Seems like a plan and when Carrie asks if I will be coming home that night - she assumes not - I confirm I will not be home that night.

As Phil and I discuss the details of the evening, yet another decision for Nate, yet another opportunity for poor choices. They are driving into the City, not my usual train routine, and I can drive in with them – the four of us – and they will in my honor get back to the burbs by noon, plenty of time before the family afternoon. Or I could drive myself in, park near the apartment and then meet up. It is rainy, I am tired, and the choice seems easy enough. Deep down I know it will be trouble.

Now I could write a post about Saturday night. I could write a post about my new friend Vic, about the drive into town, about the back seat of a car. I could write a post about the first party – a paying affair, empty at first, but music and crowds pulsating by the end. I could write about the dancing and kissing, the bumping and grinding. I could write a post about our second stop – a leather bar, people packed together, men without shirts getting boots shined by men with barely underpants. Nothing really to write, nothing you cannot imagine.

We go back to Phil’s apartment. We are on gay time; it is well after 3 AM, far beyond my preferred 10:15 tuck in. Again, I will leave things for the imagination. Let’s just say, my friends don’t realize there is any debate about my gayness. And yes, the Holy Grail, curling up for sleep with a man’s arm draped over me. But sleep does not come. I am overtired, maybe a bit too much too drink, but most of all a problem that has bedeviled me my entire life, an inordinate need to take a leak, seemingly every few minutes.

Sleep is spotty but I get a few hours in along the way. I wake at 8:30, as I have done most every hour of this night. Sleep is elusive and I consider there is a railroad, there are cabs that take people home from the station, I do know where my car is. My friends are sleeping soundly. I silently dress, find a pencil, scrawl a note on a paper towel and stand by the door. I waver. Tiredness washes over me, I know by the time I get home it will already be late morning, I sense my friends will read the note and think me disturbed. I wonder is it yet another flight, flight from the gayness, flight from the fear.

With the same stealth I showed in pulling my clothes on, I pull them off. I quietly slip back into bed. A thought again crosses my mind: I would never do it, I love myself and my children too much, but a fifteenth floor apartment with the window open: the insurance would never be questioned. And I realize that such a thought, even in the most abstract of fashions, is still severely disturbing.

A few minutes after I lie back down, Vic shifts and his hand is lying in mine, our knees gently touching: we lay there both hazing. Holding hands at that moment was the salve I needed, the connection to humanity, a connection to myself.

There is more to say, I did forewarn you of many posts competing. But it is getting late, I am tired. But most importantly, I need to do some more writing in my head, to try to understand better what I have already shared and figure out how to tell the rest.

"Aha!"

2007-05-18T14:54:00.000-04:00

We have long joked about the Gods of Music – that moment when a song comes up that could never have been planned and the phrase has had spinoffs - those various “Gods” that inhabit our lives. But I have just encountered a new one – the Gods of Word of you would. I am in my office and have plenty to do, but my mind is reeling from the last few days, from the reality that is starting to sink in. So for the first time in months I turn to my writing while at work and open a password protected file, one that I use as a scratch pad for drafting posts. And I am confronted with words, words written many months ago:

The past week or so felt like a war in my being, sadness bordered on depression, I reached a level of fear, almost paralyzing, and I whined like I have not done in a long time.

I feel better now.

I go on to describe a dinner – a date – with a man, a man who was introduced in my last post as Jay. I continue with a discussion of the comfortable place Carrie and I have found and I discuss the minor price for this all:
Respecting each other in ways big and small, respecting each other by being honest, honest in our thoughts and actions, and honest as to who we are.

And then my concluding paragraph:
So it is time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself, it is time for me to stop making believe that I am some person other than myself, it is time to stop protesting to Carrie that meeting someone for dinner and a bar scene on a Saturday night is not a date. It is time to embrace: embrace my love for my family and for Carrie, embrace the fact that I am a gay man and enjoying my new found self.

I am strangely glad I have happened upon these words because they fit so well with the theme of the day, the reason I wanted to write in the first place. The simple fact is that these “Aha!” moments (as Sis calls them) have become old, they have become repetitive, they have become disrespectful of Carrie who has endured so much and has done so with grace. Most importantly they have become so harmful to whoever I am. It is our anniversary and today I grasped how far I have come from where this all started and how impossible it is to live where I am. I have crossed the border and am crawling around some mythical DMZ and then wondering why there are bullets flying from both sides.

So I want to categorically state: I do NOT feel better now. And that is good because every time I announce I feel better it is code, code for getting back on my personal road of denial. Whoever said that mourning and grieving should feel good? It should hurt like hell and only then will it be time to move on.

So I will go on with my weekend, keep my dates, even have fun, but it is with the sadness of realizing that it is time to move on, that being on either side of the border is safer, and saner, then trying to walk a tightrope.

It is also becoming clear to me that this concept that I will live in the basement for the next seven years is not grounded in reality, that I will need to consider other arrangements, not tomorrow, but it is time to start planting seeds.

Earlier today Sis e-mailed me: You’ve spent too much time trying to believe that you could make it all go away with a wave of your hand and an apology. So now you have to play catch-up.

As I was responding my fingers did their own thing and wrote: Part of my desire to both talk of the separation (as painful as it is) and to come out is that I know that will force me further out on the limb and maybe once I crawl out far enough I will realize I am just on the branches of another tree.

Time to trust my fingers, and my friends.

Resolve

2007-05-17T21:58:00.001-04:00

There has been so many thoughts running through my mind of late – each day has a sense of adventure – will Nate be happy, sad, depressed or just be? There are themes to it all: questions of going forward that keep colliding. On Tuesday I had my married gay group – round three of a scheduled six rounder. This week was Jay’s turn. Jay is around sixty five, has had his own bedroom for a decade, and is not interested in living with anyone because of the compromise inherent in relationships. And yes, Jay is suffering depression. Shocker. Jay’s wife was kind enough to suggest he renew his relationship with his therapist.

His story deeply affected me because as I listened to the compromises he forged, compromises I truly understood, I realized that the definitions he has chosen to live under could have no possible outcome but the depression and loneliness with which he constantly struggles. He is friends with his wife, but it sounds strained. He has children he loves, but as any of us with adult children know they have their own day to day existences.

I had met Jay before, we had dinner, a date if you would. And I like Jay, we talked, we held hands, we kissed. And I looked up to Jay as a possible role model, a man finding that compromise of what was, what is and what could be. But as I watch him more and as I sat there Tuesday night I saw the “was” and the “is” but also realized the utter lack of “could be.”

Another night last week I was reading blogs, something I am embarrassed to say that I do not do often enough. In one of the blogs was a comment from another blogger, one who used to occasionally comment on my posts, one who I had some e-mails with and one I greatly respect. I thought he dropped out so to speak, but there he was kindly encouraging another. I was hurt at first – the old fears of rejection, of not being good enough. Then I was strong – who really cares, I write for me. But driving home today I thought about it some more and I am neither hurt nor am I strong.

I am sad because I understand what happened. This person who had been so supportive of me as I struggled to move forward had thrown in the towel. How many times can you give the same advice before it gets old? He has been where I am and he has moved forward, with great pain I am sure and at great sacrifice in many ways, but he has moved forward.

Tomorrow night is an occasion of sorts, an anniversary – seventeen years. I asked Carrie earlier what is the etiquette? It is a real day, an anniversary of a marriage that is still technically on the books, but not the day we once would have anticipated. We acknowledge it, but there will be no exchange of gifts, no quickie (duh) before dinner with some friends. And after Friday night comes Saturday night and I will not be home. Life is changed.

The word that came to mind on Tuesday sitting with my fellow married men was “resolve”: the resolve that if I do not force myself to move forward, there will be no chance for either Carrie or me. We will unwittingly fall into lives of quiet desperation, good nights and bad. Sure it is okay to watch TV on occasion as any friends might do, but once lovers, I am not sure one can ever be just friends in the same way that might have been otherwise.

I am not looking for an apartment this weekend and I am savoring tucking my kids in every night. But I am also cognizant that I will probably need to make some choices much earlier than I ever anticipated. My friend who used to leave me comments once told me he lived seven months in the spare bedroom before lighting out on his own. He shared this as I was contemplating the basement and I could not understand why the hurry. I understand now.

I took a break as I contemplated how to bring this post to a graceful conclusion – tucked in the kids, let the dogs out and visited Carrie. And as usual she brings more grace to the table than I could ever imagine. She correctly points out that she is okay with my being here, okay with my Saturday night out, okay with herself.

She also correctly points out that I am the one who is not okay, who is conflicted and tormented. And it is clear to me that I will need to emotionally move on and if that can be done with the basement as central command, fine. But if I need to create a new outpost I will, hopefully with a dignity that those around me deserve. Either way it is time to continue taking the baby steps that will move me forward.

Time again for some ambient induced slumber. I do appreciate all of you, on line and in person, who are patient with me. It must not be easy.

Dissonance

2007-05-13T22:27:00.000-04:00

A topic of late has centered on telling people that we are separated – co-workers and neighbors. It is not that we have a pressing need, but particularly at work there is a strangeness to answering: “Yes, Carrie and I had a great weekend – life is just great.” So it is time to practice a little honesty, if not on being gay at least on the fact that it is a very nice basement, thank you very much.

The thing is that people have an image of separation – voices raised, plates flying, an anger that is palpable. People separate for a reason – personal dislike, disagreements on child rearing: anything you can imagine but always – ALWAYS – a reason. A good reason, a bad reason, but a reason all the same.

Yet we talk at work and it is frequently quite an accurate answer in some strange way: “Carrie and I had a good weekend. We had dinner with friends, we had the big kids over: we are fixing up this or that in the house.” Separating couples do not typically spend an afternoon looking at new kitchen cabinets.

When I tell these friends that Carrie and I are separated, they suffer cognitive dissonance. Without knowing the gay, they cannot really comprehend the picture. Accept it on faith: yes, but really understand, no. Now I am somewhat okay with this. I do not have a responsibility to defend my life and the gay thing will come out sooner than later.

Today I realized that the cognitive dissonance is real, a very tangible problem. But the thing is that the problem is not co-workers or neighbors. The problem is ours: Carrie and mine. We are treading on such undefined ground. If we want to practice for a divorce, there are role models, on TV, in books, down the block. Hell, we have both been there, lived with the screaming, the lawyers, the loathing.

We joke about Will and Grace, but Carrie points out that Will and Grace were never married. They have no children and ultimately do not have a lot of – if any – sexual history. So on a day like today – Mother’s Day – what is the etiquette? (I brought flowers and we had a family day.) When is it appropriate to nod, to do a semi-low five or just to give a little hug? When is it appropriate to share with your best friend and when is that an imposition, sharing morphing into a reminder of all of the pain. Last week after my night of personal hell I called Carrie and she was there for me. But it also hurt her – being called on to listen to me feel bad about the pain I brought on both of us.

So yes, there is tremendous dissonance between our hearts and our heads, between the life of being separated and the life of sharing a home. And I do use the word “home” advisably – we are not living as college style roommates, I am no mere boarder. I go to work and all that I reap is shared and I come home and partake of whatever was made for dinner. Ozzie and Harriet on LSD.

I do not want to change it – living as a family, interacting with my children without the imposition of set times. And with luck we will pull it off. But is an ongoing act of creation as we both learn every day.

One Week Later

2007-05-12T00:03:00.000-04:00

Seven days ago I sat in a hotel room in Chicago, reeling from the evening and wallowing in my life. I lost my balance that evening, doubting all that the last year and a half has meant – good and bad. Since then I have continued to stumble, listing first one way and then another.

Tonight was another long planned evening: two tickets to a concert, a small venue, a performer I liked even though I only knew two of her songs – the “hits”. Carrie demurred on joining me a while ago and suggested I find a friend, a presumably gay friend, as if that would be a mere snap of the fingers: my turn to demur.

My son likes music, albeit not necessarily my music, and accepted an invitation to join me. He does not live with me so the answer is not as automatic as it may seem: he took various trains and probably spent three hours in transit. We grabbed a burger, talked away and headed to the show. A wonderful time before the festivities even began.

Music is my thing and I have seen a few shows in my day. Tonight was Michelle Shocked backed up by Uncle Moon, a space where folk rock, blues, and rockabilly met. Simply put one of the best shows I have seen in a long time. At one point she did one of her hits – Come A Long Way – and digressed about love, the joys and the pains, the love she has now and the pain of a thirteen year bad marriage ended in a blissful divorce. I was by this point in my own bliss, considering how long ago last Friday felt. And then she said something that moved me to near tears: "It is not about happiness, it is about growth."A familiar theme that I tend to forget.

So I head off to bed – should have done that when I first came home – finally feeling that there is some balance back in my being. Still a long road ahead, but it is hard to walk that road when one can’t even walk a straight line.

Lost

2007-05-05T08:51:00.000-04:00

Its been a while since we have gone on a road trip but one is in order. For those of you who have read these pages for a while, you may remember that the first Friday of May, 2006 has become a totemic evening in my life – a milestone. It generated two posts – From 35,000 Feet and Accede To Reality, but for those who are new here, and still have a life beyond reading blogs, the facts are simple enough:

Nate goes to Chicago on his annual conference and in advance puts a post on CL looking for a friend for dinner and maybe more. Nate has an e-mail correspondence with Jerry and eventually spends Friday night with him – fifteen hours, fifteen perfect hours: it is hard to go home and make believe I am still the straight guy with a passing penchant for giving head. Especially after Carrie accidentally reads the second post, the post on how much I enjoyed the time, the post on how Jerry and I spooned in bed.

So this year I return for my conference – third annual – but things are a little different. I am gay, I am living in the basement, and Jerry has a local boyfriend – a keeper as he likes to say. I am fine, I will have dinner with him and his friend on Saturday night: life goes on.

But I did mention a road trip, more through time than geography. Two years ago, first Friday of May 2005 I was also in Chicago for my conference. I was of course straight back then and as any straight guy would do I found the local sex district and determined which shop had a buddy booth. Friday we have our conference dinner, good food, liquor flowing, old friends. And after dinner I find myself in the hotel bar sitting with four others: one man and three divorced women. It is comfortable and we have a few more drinks. The other man leaves – conveniently just ahead of the bill – and then we all part, me gladly picking up the relatively minor tab.

I can tell you where everyone was sitting, I remember some of the conversation, and I remember how badly I wanted to go upstairs with two of the women. Of course I did not – both respect of my marriage (its okay to chuckle guys) and social ineptitude. Instead I went to the elevators, basically went up and then right back down to the sex store where I was unsuccessful. Back up to the room for my first CL post ever. And finally to bed, alone, thinking of the men I had not met and the women I had.

All of this has resided in my memory, not forgotten but not overly dwelled on either. I came home from the trip and told Carrie of the drinks and the women. I left out my desires – for them and for men. I suppose that in retrospect what I shared with her did not really count for much.

Last night it all came back, with a vengeance, in a torrent. One of the two women I was very interested in was at the conference this year and she and I walked over to the restaurant together. She reminded me that I had missed last year’s dinner and she remembered my excuse – seeing an old kindergarten friend. She smiled as she said it, she smiled with polite disbelief. She had heard me say earlier that I was now separated and she heard me say that I was meeting someone after dinner, someone who ultimately stood me up, but we are getting ahead of the story.

After dinner, Lori and I lead the group (we are thirty plus strong) back to the hotel, we are arm in arm, we are a little drunk, we talk, we hug, we flirt. We end up at the bar of this years hotel, get some more wine in case we had not had enough already and we toast. She refines what she taught me at dinner – the importance of looking in the person’s eyes when you click the glasses, when you say cheers. She now teaches me to first look right eye to right eye and then left to left. She asks what I see. The answer became apparent to me later – it was not what I saw, it was what she saw – right through to my soul, my very tormented soul.

Then she reminded me of our drinks two years ago, how she and her friend would have slept with me that night, how they expected it after all the talk. Then she said something which cut to my core – so much so that I am typing at 7 AM having maybe slept an hour last night. It seems that over the drinks I simply said: “I am lost.” Last year I knew I was lost, this year I am working on finding my way, but two years ago. And as I listened to her I was struck by the fact that she remembered the words and the fact that I undoubtedly uttered them. I tell her I am finding myself and am ready to say much more – the whole truth if you would, but she puts a finger to her lips, nothing needed to be said.

Around then another member of our group comes in to announce they had gone to a club and he had a cab waiting for us outside. He hops in the front and I throw some money on the bar and pile into the back next to Lori. We kiss – kiss deeply – and then we are there. Once inside its noisy and at one point we kiss again, again a real kiss, and then she heads towards the ladies room and then quietly to the exit. She never returns: an early flight and what could have happened two years ago will not happen tonight. Given the opportunity, I am not sure what I would have done – as strange as it may sound, I am married still and while at this point I will gladly fuck my way across America with men, it is still different when it comes to women. (As I have re-read and done my usual editing, I realize that I am again lying to myself: I would like to say I would have done the “right” thing but the truth which we all know is that I would have gone to her room in a heartbeat and just hated myself that much more in the morning.)

So here I am, a gay man, on the second anniversary of being “lost”, on the first anniversary of being “found”, sitting up all night in my hotel room, feeling alone, feeling isolated, eventually crying into my pillow. And maybe in the strangest twist of all waiting for it to be a civilized hour back home in New York so I can call my best friend for comfort and support. Carrie took the call as any best friend would.

I will move forward today – life marches on – I will go to the Art Institute to visit some of the paintings I befriended last year, I will have dinner with Jerry and the keeper, and I will dry the tears. But I will not lie to myself about just how fragile I have become, just how tough the road ahead may be. And I will also not lie to myself about how much I need to continue my journey.

The Family Gay (oops - Guy)

2007-04-29T10:16:00.000-04:00

When I wrote my last post – Relativity – it was pretty easy: to my mind some non-controversial, incontrovertible truths. Either my writing was not up to snuff or I am missing the forest for the trees. In any event after reading the comments I feel the need to take another stab at this topic, if for no other reason that it represents core aspects of my very existence.

The Gay/Bi Dads group I attend crosses my mind – okay more than crosses: charges right at me. I have attended twice, both times around twenty-five men in the proverbial circle of folding chairs. I gather the group has been around for decades now with an ever shifting cast of characters. Some have children who are mere toddlers and the range continues to those whose kids are now adults. There is one thing in common in that one room: a love of and devotion to our varied children. This is neither a hook-up group – a number of men show up with their partners – nor a gripe session. It is twenty-five serious men grappling with how to be the best dads they can be under varied circumstances.

To be blunt, these gay (and a few bi) men have not abandoned their families, are not uninvolved with their children; in some cases they still live with their wives and in many other cases maintain close friendships with their now ex-spouses. If you were to meet them on the street walking with their children unless you have advanced gaydar, you would assume the vast majority of them to be straight.

Now if I am going to let this post continue to write itself I have to step back and share a little more of who I am than I really want to. I have already been divorced once and have children from that marriage. It is hard for me to type seventeen years later but my divorce occurred when those kids were extremely young – one and three. There is a shame in this that is mine alone to bear. But the real shame is not in the divorce or their ages: it is in the fact that I was not nearly as good a dad, not nearly as involved, not nearly as caring as I should have been. And I was straight back then.

Whatever happens with this marriage, those mistakes will never be repeated: never. I have grown and in some ways starting to address issues of my own sexuality is a big part of that growth. Whether I stay in the basement or get an apartment down the road, whether I become gay celibate or have a full blown slut phase, it is all irrelevant to how I choose my priorities in terms of my children.

And as if this venting has not been enough, let’s go down a different path. Carrie also has a seat at this table and Carrie has been plain on her views of being married to a gay man. She does not want to maintain the marriage as it once was. She does not want to share her bed knowing my sexual fantasies center around men. She is happy to share the house and the family, happy for me to explore my gay side responsibly. She is not willing to share a bedroom whether I act on being gay or not.

So when I sense a belief that I am not being a good father, “husband” or provider because I am gay and I am choosing to integrate that into my overall life, I do get a little defensive, both for me and for Carrie. We have no illusions as to the difficulty of our lives and the finesse and devotion that will be required. But if we are both okay and our children are all okay, then I say things will be okay.

Time to start my day: I have a young ‘un having a minor hissie fit, Carrie and I need to go look at some major appliances and this evening I think I have arranged a date. All this and in one day: there are worse lives.

Relativity

2007-04-22T21:59:00.000-04:00

Flip once coined the phrase “Right Sizing”. It had a certain resonance and I gladly expropriated it on occasion. Today I realized my problem with the phrase. It implies that there is an appropriate size for things and while I can tell you twelve ounces are the right size for a can of soda – not the monstrous mega-gulps that Seven-eleven wants to foist upon us, I am less sure of the right size for my gayness.

This weekend was the third Friday of the month: Married Gay group at the Center. I look forward to this monthly event – an interesting group, a safe environment to continue to grow, and a mass migration to a Gay bar after the meeting to hang and drink.

This weekend was also “fence” weekend. My son-in-law was coming down to help – okay, more than just help – replace 120 feet of fencing (a daunting task). Another son was also coming to be part of the crew – family central. The festivities fully commenced Saturday morning, but the masses were gathering Friday night.

A few months ago I would have fixated to the last moment on how to spend my Friday night: this time by mid-week when I realized how things were breaking, I announced to Carrie that I would be home Friday night, home where I should be.

Normally the right size would be to go to my meeting – it is only once a month and it is not as if I am going out for a CL style hookup. But this week it would have been the wrong size. And as I thought about it today I realized that much of the rest of my life will be a balancing act – balancing an already incredibly full life while integrating new pieces into my puzzle.

Part of the problem is that while Einstein gave us relativity, Newton gave us conservation of matter. If life is measured by hours and all my hours are accounted for, then anything added will create decisions and choices which can be summed up in one word: conflicts. Carrie and I are trying to create a responsible framework – my nights out and the same for her – if only for a glass of wine with a friend. But on many weekends the commitments of life fill the schedule before any chance to create the separations.

It has been a great weekend – surrounded by family: building, eating, drinking, and of course talking. We had a festive dinner last night – nine of us – and I was in my customary place at the head of the table. Not much more I could ask: which is ultimately the problem – balancing the joy of this family weekend with being gay. Not “being” gay in the essence of Nate sense – I am out to the family and my gayness is pretty much accepted in many ways. No, the problem is living gay – meeting men, developing relationships. Heck, with my schedule even hooking up is more complicated than I would have thought.

So I have no magic answer today. I realize that having a busy life is not an excuse to stop accepting - and growing with my gayness, but I also realize that my family has to maintain a clear primacy. It has been a year and a half of challenges: I suspect I will find my way through this also – being true to my family without denying myself. And I am sure there will be times when I choose poorly, but hopefully more often I will choose wisely.

Finding The Ball

2007-04-10T21:02:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a post and the next day announced a mulligan and started over. When I opened Word tonight to write a brief post, I found the missing “ball” and re-read my words. I was struck by the phrase “sadness bordering on depression”, not being satisfied with denying all the reasons I am depressed, denying the depression itself. Part of what I wrote made it into the “new and improved” model, but I need to resurrect the rest, with a little added commentary.

The past week or so felt like a war in my being, sadness bordering on depression, I reached a level of fear, almost paralyzing, and I whined like I have not done in a long time.

I feel better now. (Ah, wishful thinking.)

Last night was interesting in a strange way. I met a friend from several of my gay worlds for dinner and drinks. We went to a bar that caters at men my age and the while the piano player taps out show tune melodies, the informal choir belts out the words. I mean how gay is that? But I am ahead of myself. As we had dinner – an informal diner meal – I expressed my recent sense of confusion and depression. And as I explained it, the shear absurdity of my recent self became apparent. I am a gay man – yes, I can still be aroused by women and have quite the wandering eye, but that does not change the gayness.

The evening developed a sense of humor. At various times my friend – okay, my date, but more on that word later – would tease that being out with a straight guy would ruin his reputation. As we hung out, quite comfortably in a gay bar, he would tease me. And as we held hands and kissed he would tease me, each gentle barb being a reminder of who I am, where I was, and what I was doing.

And now probably three weeks after that evening and the telling of the story, I realize how much deeper the depression is than I was willing to admit to myself, no less others. I realize how on target my friend’s barbs were, how I could spend a night like that and still deny it all. I said more on the word “date” later: Carrie would comment on my date and I would say no just dinner or drinks. She was of course correct. A date by any other name…

And as I write this I remember the only post ever deleted, and in record time – mere hours. It was a simple picture that was worth a thousand words, taken with my Chicago friend on my last trip there. Spider saw the post and correctly pointed out I should consider how Carrie would feel if she opened the blog and saw it. The thought was correct then and my decision was judicious. But as I sit here tonight, as Carrie and Sis try to bang into my head the fact that my gayness is more than wanting to give a blow job, I feel a need to share it – not so much for any of you, for all of you have me figured out better than I know myself. It is as a reminder to me of why I must continue down this path.

One more week of my work hell, and then time for some serious reflection as to who I am, where I am from and to where I am going.

A Passover Homily

2007-04-01T21:53:00.000-04:00

This week Jews celebrate Passover, an Old Testament story, one that Jews and Christians share: the exodus of a people from Egypt. The Jews leave Egypt, cross the Sea of Reeds, and then wander for forty years. Now if you look at a map, it is a distance across the Sinai, but even on foot, not a forty year trek. And on the trip an amazing thing happens: every one who started the journey dies - everyone except Moses who lives to see the Promised Land, but never actually enters it.

One might wonder why. One theory is the people who left Egypt were slaves and God did not think that they could transition to being a free people. A new generation was born, one who did not know of slavery, one bred with freedom in their bones. I have long known this tale, but this year I have been haunted by it in a slightly different variation. The story deals with transitioning from Slavery to Freedom, but would not the converse be true: a people born into freedom would surely be ill equipped to be slaves. It is not the value of the relative worlds: it is the transition between such different ones.

So this year I consider the transition from having lived in the straight world for my entire existence to joining the world of gay men. The facts relating to my gayness seem rather irrelevant. The simple fact, the only relevant fact is that I have lived my entire life as a straight man; my self identification has, until the past year, always been straight. It was the world I was born into and the world I embraced.

Crossing the Rubicon was the title of a post written a year or so ago, a post about telling our first friends of my changing times. The title could have been Crossing the Red Sea, not nearly as catchy, but so much more accurate. Because I have crossed into the desert, in search of some promised land, and it is in that desert that I find myself wandering.

I am not exactly sure what being gay means. My gay family members have partners and speak of a life as mundane as any – raising families, maintaining jobs – real life. Of course they have friends who are also gay and while not solely, it is a major part of their social milieu. My life is mature – long term friends, family, many children: strong foundations, though by my actions clearly not enough.

The thing is that I foresee a lifetime in the desert, transitioning in ways that are terrifying and possibly unattainable. I am not afraid of the journey anymore if for no other reason than I am already on it, if for no other reason than my gay side cannot be denied, if for no other reason than I have crossed the sea and the waters, once parted, are again a raging torrent: if for no other reason than Carrie does not want a return. So the wandering is started and maybe I will find some promised land, but I am not sure it will ever be natural in the way the land of one’s birth feels.

When people think of Martin Luther King, the “I have a dream” speech comes to mind.
I have always had a soft spot for a different speech, one given in Memphis, given the night before he was assassinated.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

After inserting the quote, I felt strange – including such majestic words, words tinged with the tragedy of that next day and using them in such an unrelated way. But I wonder if maybe the resonance that quote has always had with me was related to things I did not yet understand. And surely if we are dealing with oppressed minorities, still not there, but straining every day, LGBT has a seat at the table.

So I will continue my journey, but have little illusion that it comes with an epiphany. And remain thankful that in some ways I remain in a promised land, maybe not a gay one, but one of family and friends that remain the foundations of my little world, even as I strain to continue to grow into myself.

A Vignette

2007-03-29T21:54:00.000-04:00

My 23 year old daughter, Jane, calls to tell me that she “bonded” with a customer on a sales call this afternoon: my daughter recognized the woman’s vintage Fendi bag. At this point in the conversation Jane proceeds to tell me what Fendi is. I interrupt and say "I know what Fendi is" and without missing a beat she says "I forgot; you're gay" and rolls right along with her story.

A bright moment in a rather non-bright day.

Grateful

2007-03-26T21:49:00.000-04:00

Last night I started on a post and blissfully the Ambien drove me from the keyboard to the bed. I could re-read it and start to edit, but I choose to take a mulligan.

In honor of turning fifty a few years back, I actually went for a checkup and a year later got around to the suggested nuclear stress test and colonoscopy: both came back perfect. Today I thought about the struggles that Brett is undergoing and the specifics of the two tests I actually had. And as all of us send our prayers his way, I considered the backsliding and whining that has welled up in this blog in recent weeks. I suppose I could blame it on Spider – if he was reading he surely would have gently prodded me in the right direction. So in his honor, I will do it for him.

I have attained more than a modicum of success in my chosen profession. I am well respected, well remunerated, and enjoy what I do and where I do it.

I have a wonderful family. Four older children are up to speed with my life and continue to love me unconditionally. I have a best friend who is still my wife, albeit in a changed fashion. And if ultimately we end up apart, I have no doubt that our friendship will endure. There will be a day, sooner than later, when my younger children will know and I have no doubts they will continue to love me.

My residence may now be the lower level (sounds so much classier than “the basement”) but it is still under the same roof as my family and in a few minutes I will wander upstairs to tuck in the young ‘uns. And as lower levels go, it really is quite nice – a three room suite complete with bath.

My extended family has been touched on before – an incidence of gayness that would make a sociologist cream: can you spell genetics. Not exactly a hard family to be out in.

So why all the whining? Simple enough I suppose. At age fifty-two I find myself coming to grips with being a gay man. I am learning a new world while maintaining an old one. I am dating because I want to and not to would be just another form of denial, that old friend which has become so familiar of late. The circle of those that I am out to seems to be increasing and will ultimately, like all pebbles dropped into the water, spread far and wide.

I readily admit to terror, to excitement, to joy and to sadness. There will surely be more bad days and weeks: more backsliding and whining. But for now it is time to take a step back, look around, and acknowledge the obvious: I have a very good life, one filled with good health, with family and with love.

Being gay is my greatest challenge, a challenge indeed, but really not all that much to complain about.

The comments on my last post were very much appreciated. I have three more weeks of work "hell", but needed to share my thoughts tonight. And remember - get those taxes done:)

Two Minute Drill

2007-03-19T22:21:00.000-04:00

Maybe this is a post or maybe an e-mail to a friend. I recently sent an e-mail called two minute break though it ended up taking more like fifteen to write and there are so many things in the response, I don’t know where to start and frankly I want to go to bed in fifteen minutes. So here goes – a “two minute” drill, which means no huddle.

In many ways I see an incredibly complicated life in very simple terms. I once said that I want Carrie with a penis. It somehow sounded really gay – wanting the penis, where really it was meant as a complement to all of the ways we are compatible. Yes we have some issues of unnatural dependency, but let’s face it: most of those stem from having the same tastes. While I was a mite Law & Order overdosed by the end, we watched (and still watch) the same TV shows because we like the same shows, we listen to the same music, because we enjoy the same music. Sure, I will rock out on occasion when alone, but our tastes are similar. It is what brought us together originally and is what makes separating so hard today.

Much talk has been given to labels and while I understand the difficulties in trying to over label, the fact is that labels are words and without words, there is no communication. So accepting the limitations, I am a highly sexual being. I enjoy sex with women and enjoy sex with men. Whether it is a deeply ingrained gay side or just a pendulum swinging high after a lifetime of being held in a far position strikes me as almost irrelevant: at this point in my life I am unwilling to give up exploring relationships, including sex, with men.

Would I like it all, the famed CLR (closed loop relationship, a wife and a boyfriend), sure. But that takes two and the fact that Carrie does not want a husband on any side of the gay scale is something I can – I need – to respect. Are we capable of great sex: sure, but that does not change the fact that I have the gay needs.

The hard thing is that Carrie envisions that I will find a man where I can have the same level of compatibility as I have with her. I am not as sanguine about our future. I truly see an honest future which comes with the price of both of us being lonelier than we would have been together. We are both healthier today than we have been – a fact that is hard to ignore.

There is one thing that is also hard to ignore. That the gayness has started to feel comfortable. As I fight it less, as I accept that is who I am more, it feels good and right in some sense. Would it feel as good and right in an apartment without my family, both the kids and Carrie? I don’t honestly know. But I do feel better in my own skin. How does on interpret that my best sex with Carrie has been on days I have had sex with Sam? Maybe Bob is right – Sam is the foreplay but clearly the gay foreplay leaves me on a more receptive, hotter sexual level. So while I look at the great sex with Carrie, isn’t it a statement of the gay side?

I promised a two minute drill and while I would like to go on, my fifteen minutes is up so I will head off the field now.

Crescendo

2007-03-15T22:22:00.000-04:00

Tonight it struck me that I am living a symphony. Like all great symphonies it opened strong, it opened big. One could imagine my announcing to Carrie “I am bi-sexual” to the massive chords of Beethoven’s Fifth, the whole orchestra heaving as one. And then other themes are introduced in bits and pieces. Themes of marriage and fidelity, themes of sex, themes of emotional ties with men, and themes of friendship, such a deep friendship: so many themes.

We enter the middle movements, the music calm and soothing. The audience leans back in their seats, but it is still the same symphony, the same themes recurring, teasing in and out of our consciousness. They ebb and flow, occasionally rising in volume and then falling again.

Then there is always that fourth movement. I am particularly fond of the fourth movement of the New World Symphony with the allure of the new world balanced by the tug of the old. It is strange but there are great variations in the length of the fourth movement – shorter for American conductors and longer for Europeans. The extra length is a slowing down of the old country themes, a pulling backwards, a reluctance to leave. Yes, I do prefer the Europeans on this one. We will end up in the new world, but oh those gentle tugs.

We are in that fourth movement. I will enter the New World, the kicking and screaming behind me, but still that gentle pull of the old. Like the Symphony, my life is building in volume, the brass waiting. But now it is the roll of the kettle drums, increasing in volume, increasing in tempo.

It is of course the tempo of my coming out, still slow, but now inexorable. Every day it seems closer. And in a month the brass will kick in, the bows of the strings will be at full speed. I will be out. I am the music, terrified and exhilarated in the same breath, pulled back to the old world while rushing headlong into the new.

The thing is that the boat has landed and I have disembarked. I bring pieces of the old world with me: I enter a land which I was not born into. I will always have an accent and still eat those strange foods. But it is in this new world that I will make my life, a new life, a life of moving forward while still remembering where I have been.

Good friends we have, oh, good friends we’ve lost
Along the way.
In this great future, you can’t forget your past;
So dry your tears, I seh.
Bob Marley

Even Moses Knew

2007-03-12T22:28:00.000-04:00

Today I wondered – where was I one year ago? Easy enough to see – read my blog. So I go back to mid-March 2006 and there it is: “Denial, Sweet Denial” and I wonder can it be that I have spent so much time, so much energy – and taken so many of you with me (today we broke 20,000 hits) just to be in the same place as a year ago.

So much of my life is based on my sexuality, but I am so careful of writing about it, as if I can maintain this on a higher plane. So tonight a couple of stories, stories about sex.

I have referred to my late night visits with the blue glow of my computer monitor. Sometimes the glow is G-Mail and others my blog. But there are other places, particularly queerclick.com and squirt.org. For the uninitiated squirt.org could be considered the Craig’s List M2M listings on steroids. It has profiles, bulletin boards, and an area to see who else is on line trolling through the night.

Now there is only so much you can look at queerclick and squirt before even they get old. But sort of like a bad movie, I keep coming back for more. And one night an IM pops up, a local guy. We chat for a while – our living arrangements, our shared knowledge of the nicest short stay motel, and yes, what are we into. This is fun and a bit exciting. Finally we bid each other a good night with a shared acknowledgement that we are both going to bed, both going to masturbate to the thoughts of our conversation. And for the first time in a few weeks, I masturbate and the orgasm is substantial, the body shuddering as I cum and cum again.

Of course, the level of excitement is not wasted on me. Pictures are okay, videos even better, but the contact, albeit not in person, with another man made the difference, added the layer of reality which translated into real pleasure.

Another story, because I am quick to balance the gay with the bi: I have not written of the fact that over the last few months Carrie and I have had the occasional sexual encounter – fuckbuddies. The first one or two were tainted by my turning the sexual encounters into the hope of a new beginning, a resurrection that will – that should - never be. But we have talked and gotten beyond that – even I know there is now no going back.

This weekend was wonderful – honest talking, a last minute gift of tickets to a Broadway play, and a family Sunday, the four of us enjoying the beautiful day and each other. That late afternoon the children went to a birthday party and Carrie and I had an early dinner and with the understanding of no pressure and no false facades, we went home and hopped into bed.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. I did not realize it fully until after, but looking back, it is sort of clear. We hop into bed – well she hops in and is waiting for me, sans clothing. I join her, but I am not particularly hard, I am not really there. I suppose I am successful – I did cum, but it was perfunctory – not because of her, not because of anything she did.

At first I point out that we had been drinking. Carrie looks at me – a pint of Black and Tan and one Perfect Manhattan? That might be considered a tune-up by our standards, a buzz but surely not debilitating. But I masturbated the night before, more than once – I did not realize that I was going to get lucky. Carrie again looks at me – twelve hours to recharge, a fucking lifetime by our history.

The thing is that after nearly twenty years of being together, after more sex than I can start to add up, Carrie knows me, knows me intimately, knows me well. There is an explanation, a simple enough one at that. As she phrases it: I have crossed over, what once was bi is now gay. She is just amazed that I seem to be the last one to figure it all out, to realize that the days of Kinsey threes and fours are a mirage in the rear view mirror, I am into the higher numbers now.

So it has been a year since I wrote of denial and I have devoted the year past to turning it into an art form. It has not been a pretty picture – a necessary one, a journey that needed to be taken, but no, not pretty. Today I tell these stories because I have learned the importance of writing the posts I do not want to, of sharing what seems too personal: it is necessary because it is hard to deny what is written, what is real.

As I drove to my therapist today, I heard:
You don't know where you're goin',
But you know you won't be back

Tomorrow I will be seeing an old friend – kindergarten to be exact – for our annual few minutes. He will ask how I am. I will answer, honestly and fully. Will it be easy – I don’t rightly know, but it will ultimately feel good. Over the next months there will be more of these moments, as the closet walls start to recede, as the lies come to an end.

It is undeniably hard to head off into a new world, one without markers and maps, but at this point my choice is simple – to learn, albeit slowly and with small steps, to embrace who I am or to wither and die. I choose to embrace. I choose life.

Call heaven and earth to witness against you this day,
that I have set before thee life and death,
the blessing and the curse;
therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed.
Deuteronomy 30:19

How Are You?

2007-03-12T14:00:00.000-04:00

I have very loving sisters who are concerned and caring. They call and they ask how I am. I answer as much as one can in a brief telephone encounter. They do not read my blog – a conscious choice on their parts borne of a desire to allow me my own space. It is probably a wise choice, but in some ways those who read this are in a better position to answer that question – How Am I?

So here it is my attempt to answer them, to summarize a world in a few paragraphs.

Dear Sisters,
You frequently kindly ask how I am. I suppose the first impulse is the flippant Dickensian “best of times / worst of times” response. But I am not feeling particularly flippant. The answer is that I have the most favorable circumstances one could possibly hope for: remaining in the house, a comfortable basement, wife as best friend, and incredibly supportive family. Which makes me wonder how those without such advantages even manage to lift their heads in the morning. If this is the best case, I would rather not witness the worst. Of course I have friends, I go to my groups, and I do see others and both realize how lucky I am and how not alone I am.

Last weekend Carrie wrote me a letter – my blog friends have read of it – a letter plainly stating there is no going back, the marriage as it once was is now over. And more than a few wondered – So, is that not the reality since my move to the basement over two months ago. The answer is that sometimes a life can change from within: denial is a powerful tool and having that sliver of hope, as unreal as it was, removed can be very powerful. I read the letter and I wept for what was and for what will never be.

What is troubling, what weighs on me, is how compatible and comfortable Carrie and I are, how we are finally at a point in our lives where the weight of children is becoming lighter, albeit marginally, and how it all feels to be dissipating around us. Much of me wants to scream out I’m bi, not just gay, I can pull this off. Of course Carrie knows – as do I in my heart of hearts – that I cannot pull this off. Not only because she wants more, wants a straight man, but because the lure of the gay world has become too powerful for me to deny. Sure, I can deny it for a while, a very little while, but it is always lurking like Audrey saying “Feed Me.”

I have also spent much time trying to separate the emotional and physical aspects of being gay – is it wanting sex with men or is it an emotional need: a few hugs and send me back home. The truth is, as my blog friends have kindly pointed out, there is no separating the physical and the emotional and for that matter there is no separating the family man and dad in me either. This is me – all of it in its utter confusion.

Ultimately the undeniable truth – the one that Carrie always gets back to – is that through the pain, through the veil of sadness and tears, we are both in many ways healthier than we ever were. And I am intellectually capable of understanding that my path of self awareness and self acceptance (as limited as the latter may be) has allowed this growth. Of course I am emotionally incapable of processing that stopping now, going back, would not leave me where I am but drag me back to where I was. Luckily Carrie gets this and will not allow either of us to go back.

I do have a nascent social existence, have some new friends I have broken bread with, shared a few drinks – and yes, a little more. Carrie has noted that I am not out with them until late hours because I am not having fun.

So I suppose there is a sense of excitement, but there is also a sense of dread, social concerns, coming out to the more general world – not a billboard announcement, but secrets never stay and are never healthy.

As you know I write to form my thoughts, to grow and to learn. And as I have written I realize the answer is in the question: How am I? The answer is simple: I am. No more, no less: at this point it is just a matter of being.

I hope you understand my writing in this manner – it is just how I best communicate in many ways.

Love,
Your Brother

February 29, 1972

2007-03-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

A family night – many years ago Sunday nights were Murder She Wrote – and now with a new generation we have Cold Case. With the DVR we are a week behind, but hey, no commercials.

The series and I have something in common – a love of music, the same kinds of music. And the show always ends with a montage set to a fitting song. Tonight I watched and listened: “You are my sunshine…” I did not have sleep away camp as a kid so I had never learned that classic: Never learned it until February 29, 1972. I was seventeen, a freshman at college and in love with Allison. I wrote about her last October, a bit of my history.

I lived on campus, but it was a mere train ride from what was once home, a ride on the A train of Duke Ellington fame from the High School where Allison was a senior. She took the train that day. It was the day that makes it a leap year – Sadie Hawkins day: that once in every four year moment where the girls get to do the asking. She came to the dorm and went into the bathroom – very hush hush. When she emerged she handed me a little box and inside a littler shell – scalloped on the outside and smooth on the concave. In her inimitable handwriting it said:
You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine.
You make me happy
When skies are grey”

Listening to that song tonight and lying there, Carrie on the far side of a child, my mind wandered back. My sunshine has been Carrie for more than half of the thirty five years since that afternoon and now my sunshine has been clouded by the haze of my gayness, by the knowledge that we are both moving on. Life seemed so much simpler then. At that moment, reading the shell, I could see my life ahead of me so clearly.

It was a mere three months later when that dream ended. I cannot tell you when the shell disappeared, but that would be measured in years, if not decades. It took a while to recover from that disappointment. This one is easier to measure – it is a disappointment that I will take to the grave.

Accidents Will Happen

2007-03-07T21:49:00.000-05:00

Last night was a bad night’s sleep. So much on my mind, maybe a “rebound” from the Ambien induced slumber of the night before, and maybe just the wrong bed. You see my son has returned from six months of travel. It was an easy airport pickup, a great afternoon, a successful coming out and then off to bed. He is my son and my little bedroom is quiet and comfortable. I opt for the futon. Not so comfortable.

Lunch at work with my hood today – the two people I will tell: sooner than later. Tell of the basement, tell of the marriage in tatters and yes, tell of the gay. One of them is tired also – a night with a sick child. We compare notes and as she tells of her night, I form my thoughts, my next sentence. “I gave up my bed for my son; I slept on that hard futon.”

OMG

It strikes me before I speak, barely. They do not know of the basement, the failed marriage, the gayness. They think all is well in paradise. My mind is numb from the thought of the conversation that almost was. “What, you and Carrie gave the kid the master bedroom? Hellooooo”

The thing is that I have built my life, my whole persona on being open and honest. These two work friends have lived through so much with me – they know about the basement and Anna and Bill, they know of the wedding which was and the one which was not. When there have been other troubles, we have talked, we have shared.

And now, this: reduced to being in terror about a simple statement of my life, reduced to living a lie that goes so far beyond the gay. Is my sex life anyone’s business? We all know the answer to that – it is my personal affair. But to be fostering a false world, a marriage with the reality of cutout figures. No.

The thing is that there is no way to really explain the state of the marriage, the continued sharing of the house, the obvious fondness for my wife, without addressing the underlying cause – the gayness.

It is clear that over the next few months, it is time to sit with my friends – quietly, away from the office – and softly tell the truth instead of just waiting for the inevitable slip.

I am not ready for that moment but as with so much else of late, it is no longer a question of when I am ready.

Yes indeed, the times they are a' changing.

Fallen

2007-03-05T21:16:00.000-05:00

It is late, I am tired, tired to the core. Carrie and I battle fatigue, illness aided and abetted by emotional issues. So I will take the liberty of using pieces of some e-mails with various friends to share my weekend. Friday was meant to be my night out – dinner with a gay friend and the Dad’s group. Carrie was ill so without hesitation I cancelled dinner and came home.

Saturday afternoon I wrote to a friend, one who has been banging their head against the wall with my antics:

You can put the helmet back in the garage now. I came home from work and found a three page letter by my monitor. It is strange how few tears there have been - I cried on July 15th, the day after, after Jane's wedding. I suppose a tear has graced my cheek since then. But today I read the letter and I wept. I will no doubt weep some more.

It is clear to me now that it is over. This dream I have of going back, of resurrecting what was, is just that - only a dream. And she is right; would we both really want the last decade back? But most of all it is time to abide by Carrie’s wishes. I look at any positive sign and say - see, she really does want me back. It is a nice delusion, a strong ego indeed to believe it so totally. But you are right; my selfish desires are killing her.

My daughter is progressing on the piano and as I re-read the letter through my tears she was learning Unchained Melody, more commonly known as the theme from Ghost. Oh, those Gods of Music.

Its funny how having spent much of the weekend with the twins, tomorrow I can have some time. My new friend had suggested that if I was around to give him a call - just hang out for a while. And now that I can do exactly that I am terrified to. Not sure of what, though I suspect a fear of not being good company, of not holding it all together.

Yes, time for you to put the helmet away and time for me to accept not only who I might be but more importantly to accept, as I have written, that actions have consequences. The consequences may well be for the best, but I think what you have been trying to tell me is that even if not for the best, they are the legitimate results of what I have done, wrote, said, thought: as such I need to live with them and to let Carrie move on with her life just as I must move on with mine.

Carrie read some of my blog last weekend while I was in the country with my children and with my sisters. Carrie suggested I should do the same, that my writings are the true picture. I suppose she is right. I started to re-read my blog recently and quickly stopped. I suspect I know the words well enough to know what it says, where it points: I just did not want to read an answer that I was not looking for.

Suppose it is time to dry some tears, and start the rest of my life.

So today I did go visit my new friend – we can call him Doug, we talked for a while and then did more. Afterward I e-mailed my friend, wrote of my day and they replied:

I suppose if I were honest about it, I’m a little disappointed. Given what’s been going on, it seems more like a desperate attempt to numb the pain than something positive and healthy. It’s not that I’m against you and Doug having sex, per se. Just that I suppose I would have suggested that perhaps today was not the best day for your first time. You know what I mean?

Now my friend has an impeccable track record, a polar opposite to my tin ear. But I responded:

It is a rare day indeed that I read what you write, think about it a bit, and don't agree. A rare day indeed: the thing is that I do not think it was to numb the pain - it will take more than a quick roll in the hay for that. I think it was in some strange way a form of acceptance - a white flag if you would. I have not been with a man since the first week in January. As Carrie would be happy to tell you, I would like sex every day - not every two months.

So why today - sure, a little numbing, but more to say I hear everyone, not that ultimately more than two of us count in this, and the fact is that I have not been with a man in no small part because than I could say to Carrie - See, we can go back. I did not confess or deny to having sex today - I would think she assumes it. And we have had a wonderful evening. Nice family dinner, she made a pitcher of Manhattans, we talked and we ended up watching a TV show on the DVR. And we were comfortable in this place, comfortable in the presumed honesty.

Am I jumping for joy? No. We listen to music a lot and had the soft mix on in the background. When the kids were gone, we finished our Manhattans, and discussed seeing my therapist tomorrow and issues of coming out to my son this week. A song came on - it took a moment to recognize, not one of our regulars, but the lyric cut through both our consciousness. "And the cost was so much more than I could bear" And we glanced at each other, then another line: "It's the bitter taste of losing everything That I have held so dear." I am not ashamed to tell you I was fighting back tears. It is bitter indeed, maybe right, maybe inevitable, but bitter indeed.

So I am sorry to have disappointed because I treasure your opinions, but do not be too harsh on this one. If at this moment of acceptance I spent a few minutes in someone's arms, in someone's bed, it does not seem that bad in the grand scheme of what has gone down.

Epilogue:

The above was written last night. I have thought much of what my friend wrote and confess they are more right than not. In the middle of this weekend, this emotional crescendo, I sought out a man, a new friend, and discussed the world, our children, our general lives, but nary a word of my personal hell. It should have been a topic and if that was a downer, time to head home. If not, maybe it would have been an afternoon of greater import.

I saw Bob today after a three week absence from therapy – the vagaries of our schedules. I talked and talked, it all poured out. Towards the end I stopped and breathed; I asked for his impressions. He thought for a moment and pointed out that he was very sad. Yes, sad indeed.

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
The lonely light of morning
The wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I have held so dear.

Fallen
Sarah McLachlan

Thanks Flip for the song.

Sybil

2007-02-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

Of late there are appears to be three Nate’s. There is the daytime Nate, the evening Nate and the late night Nate. The problem is that three Nate’s are exhibiting more personalities than Sybil herself. I suspect this is distressing to Carrie and undoubtedly is taking a toll on me.

During the days I suit up, literally, and am off to work, a veritable pillar of the community. There I have regular e-mail flurries with some of my new friends. These are intelligent, intellectual – sometimes playful, but of late never overtly sexual. These are “dates”, not mere hookups. And they are good, they are validating, they are a reminder of starting a new life, a healthy life.

Then time to go home, home to the land of separation and togetherness, the land of confusion. Dinner with the family, chatting with Carrie while kids do their homework (albeit grudgingly). Sometimes a TV show together and sometimes opposite stair cases. If one needed to pick a phrase for those evenings, comfortable companionship would do just fine. The talk varies – children, our days, and of course TGT.

But sooner or later, it is time to part, the kids tucked in and each of us to our separate bedrooms – well, Carrie to her bedroom and me to my basement fiefdom. In the past we would have been crawling into bed, bone tired and lights out in short order: lights out and eye lids lowered.

But now I find myself in my new home, not quite ready to get into bed, looking for any excuse to extend the day. Ah, the computer. Check the e-mails. Shocker, no new ones in the last few hours, but then the fingers start their magic. But first, time to digress. My history with pornography, particularly porn at home, pales next to the stories I hear. Maybe fear of being caught, maybe cheapness, maybe a sex life laden with homo-erotic fantasies: not much to read or watch. And what I did have – well should I watch them while Carrie is trying to sleep or maybe in the den where the children can wander in.

But that was then. I have my space, I have a computer, and this is the age of the internet. So I have found a few places to wander, familiar haunts at this point. Places where I can just view those video trailers or other eye candy and places where there is opportunity, though I am not nearly bold enough to avail myself of such things – not yet. So I look, look at men, look at gay porn, and I touch myself. And I am successful – every time.

So I wonder which is the real me – the one who engages men in such a healthy fashion, the one who still longs for the quiet companionship of my best friend or the one who throws himself into the blue monitor glow of the nights.

It is strange how I need to write these missives in order to see such simple truths. They are all me and the real goal is to integrate these pieces. To find a place where I can be comfortable with Carrie without ….

As I wrote the last sentence, I stopped typing midstream. I stopped because my thoughts had run ahead and when I looked up and saw where they were going, I was taken aback. It was not where I planned, it was not back to the home and hearth I so desire. But it is real, so back to the paragraph.

To find a place where I can be comfortable with Carrie without constantly torturing her on being back together as once was. To find a relationship where my emotional and sexual desires, my need for friendship and my need for lust can be satisfied in the way that once existed so totally in my life.

Terror

2007-02-25T10:59:00.000-05:00

The other night I had a dream, so simple that a blind man could see where it was going.

I am in my car in New Jersey and while the details are scarce, clearly I am on my way to meet a man – a gay man. I turn onto a small street – more an alleyway and I come upon some debris illuminated by the headlights. I throw the car into reverse and back out at high speed, straighter than I could ever drive in real life. I make it to the main road, back out at an angle and throw the car into drive and head into the Lincoln Tunnel, head back to New York, back home.

Clearly my sub-conscious is continuing to battle the obvious – I have crossed the river, there is no going back. It was a manageable dream – no surprises, no massive depth. Eventually I fall back to sleep – not easily, not soon, but the fatigue eventually overcomes all.

Then from my deep sleep I hear a man talking loudly, an altercation maybe. It is coming from the window, from the back yard. I am in terror, paralyzed. I try fighting to sit up; hell I am just trying to move my limbs. They are not cooperating. Finally I struggle to a sitting position and then it strikes me – the dogs are quiet. Three dogs, an intruder out there and no barking: at that moment I realize it was a dream, what other explanation could there be. I get up, go upstairs and all is quiet.

I am hard pressed to remember a moment of such paralysis, such abject terror. Carrie asks was the scream me or my father. I neither know nor care: what matters is the degree of the terror and from whence it came.

This week for the first time there is the realization, the clear knowledge, that there is no going back, there is only going forward. And going forward means I will have to confront my demons, I will have to come out from behind the skirt; I will have to leave the closet behind. Last night at dinner my friends tell me: true friends will be there for me and the hell with the rest. They are of course right, but there are still so many emotions.

Shame – not warranted, but there all the same: shame for being gay, shame for a second failed marriage.

Fear of the whispers, the comments not meant to be heard. Yes, to hell with them, but that is an intellectual statement: those moments will still have an emotional effect – maybe hurt, maybe anger, probably both.

Concern for my children, girls starting middle school, a difficult time at best: we do not live in Chelsea or the like. Statistically I suppose I am not the only gay dad in our school district. I will just be the only one who is out. What might be said to them by the “mean girls”?

Hurt – hurt over what I have wrought on Carrie, hurt for hurting her and hurt from the knowledge that I am typing away in the basement and not lying next to her.

There is much good in my life – a loving and supportive family – immediate and extended, friends who are there for me, for us. New friends – gay men who I can talk to, have a drink with and yes, get hugs from: the base for building a new life. There is a career and colleagues who will support me when they learn of the struggles. There is Carrie – still best friends, still a mutual support system as we start our new lives. And of course Sis who manages to “bitch slap” without ever leaving a bruise.

Most importantly is the thing I tend most to ignore. I am healthier now than I have ever been in my life. I am more confident at work and at home. The rages are less frequent, more controlled. My children refer to the new Daddy – they like him so much better than the old model. (And the older children tell me the model they knew a decade ago makes the “old” model look downright mellow.) Somehow I try to convince myself that the honesty and self-acceptance that made this possible is not necessary to continue the trend. How ridiculous a thought is that?

It’s funny – as I started this post I was in “wallowing” mode. As I finish it, as I think of the good, I realize that ultimately the good will win out. I am where I need to be. And someday, hopefully sooner than later, I will internalize that reality.

Comfort

2007-02-23T22:27:00.000-05:00

Monday night I started a post but did not finish it: a combination of exhaustion and not knowing how to end it. I have finally figured out the ending, but first the post, not completed and not “finished”:

Bi
Of late I have oft-times considered labels. I know: asked and answered, sexuality is a continuum, be who you are – it does not need a name. All of which is true but is not an excuse to bury ones head in the sand. My blog title remains unchanged while the underlying life - my life - swirls in confusion. Tales of a Bi “MWM”: I can assure you that I am and will continue to be male and while irrelevant, I am not of color. After that, things get sketchy: Bi – we’ll get back to that – and married – absolutely if one considers sleeping two floors apart a traditional part of that definition.

I do not write here to be cute. This is a subject that is way too important to me and I suspect even more important to others. When describing myself of late, the word is “gay”. It is simple and to the lay person direct. I go out with men, I give head, I get fucked. The guys at the proverbial water cooler would not have trouble supplying descriptive terms of various origins and bi would not be among them. My behaviour, my choices of late – gay.

Yet when I sat in my married bi/gay group last Friday listening to my friends I heard a different definition of gay: men who had not had sex, at least willingly, with their wives for years, men who did not miss it at all, men who did not dream of becoming a fuckbuddy for their wives. Beyond that men who walking down the street would not feel their eyes drawn to a pair, and I do not mean balls, or would not notice a pair of legs that seem to rise forever, men who would not imagine the joys that cleavage can bring.

I no longer doubt that I am one of these men in oh so many ways – the base sexual desires and the quiet conversations and glancing brushes of a hand or arm. And yes, the hugs. When I say I am bi, I feel like I am distancing myself: “I am bi so I am not really gay.” I have used that ploy for much of the last year and cannot continue to use it. So to avoid a lecture to everyone I come out to, I now come out as gay. I do it with comfort and do it with pride.

But there are some troubling aspects. I would gladly make love with my wife right now if she granted me the opportunity. My head will swivel while walking the streets of New York – swivel involuntarily. There is that hetero side, not nearly as strong as the homo side, but both still alive and well. So clearly I am bi. Hell, even my therapist is willing to concede the point – “polymorphous perverse” in his lingo.

That is what I wrote on Monday and I have given it much thought. Last night I had dinner with Carrie – simple Irish basics in a pub which serves the ale in pints, a few pints indeed. I explained this to her, my mixed emotions, my willingness to give up the men, to give us another try. She knew this was coming – I am not a stealth kind of guy. She had given it much thought.

We all know by now she is smarter than me and she realizes that my intentions are honorable but also a formula for disaster. Forty years of waiting, gone in an instant: I don’t think so. She has been catching up on my blog, she understands that I may not be having sex, but those bar room hugs, kisses in the corners, quiet conversations deep into the night – one does not need sex to be gay, to live gay, to find comfort in gay. She points out that hetero’s will never accept my being bi but that gays, particularly of my age will accept me in all gradations – many have been married and some have known these strange mixed emotions.

So while I may meet the technical definition of bi, it is time to leave the fine print behind. I have no illusions of my own ability to backtrack and deny. And I realize that there will be much joy and more pain ahead, but it is time to stop torturing Carrie, teasing with the men in my life, toying with reality.

The strange thing is that I expected Carrie’s reaction and while there is some sadness in me, there is more comfort, comfort in honesty, comfort in direction, comfort in acceptance.

Reflections

2007-02-21T22:21:00.000-05:00

In Blogland there are posts and comments, but recently there was a comment and my response which to me form a post all its own.

Spider wrote:
I was looking tonight at your profile picture as I was reading your entry Nate. That is one of my favorite Monet's in that series and that is my favorite series of his.

Then it struck me - your profile picture is an impressionist painting. Impressionism - the artistic school of thought that most leaves open description and explanation to the view. The content and the mood can change based on the lighting or the direction from which you view the piece; and the artist, in this case Monet, can paint the same exact scene 5 times and come away with a different view each time - depending on observation and conditions.

This is where you are Nate - you are a Monet - being viewed by yourself and others differently depending on mood and situation and lighting and which painting we are viewing. And I think this is comfortable for you right now.

I will be interested to see when you change that picture...

Nate (that’s me:) responded:
When I looked for a picture, I gravitated to Monet, but was not very aware of this series - I have always been a fan of the Cathedral at Rouen (which I once was blessed to visit).

When I saw my profile picture I was struck almost as much by the title as I was by the picture: "House of Parliament, Effect of Sunlight In The Fog."

I have thought of changing it, updating the picture, updating me, but I keep getting back to the juxtaposition of sunlight and fog because it feels so representative of the place I am in.

Whatever happens with this process, with my life, during the past year the sunlight has started to cut through my fog, the fog of lack of self awareness,the fog of denial, and it is only in that sunlight that there can be decisions, hopefully right decisions, albeit none will be easy.

Thanks Spider - I chose that painting a long time ago and it is good to finally talk about it.

Emotional Orphan

2007-02-20T21:15:00.000-05:00

Ten years ago we buried my father and two years later my mom. I remember standing with my sister after my mother’s funeral and her saying both parents gone: we are orphans. It troubled me – an orphan is a child, it is one of life’s sadness’s. Who are we – adults in our forty’s - to make such a comparison, to make light of the true orphan’s pain.

Over the ensuing years, this has not been an area which has commanded much of my attention. But recently through the discipline of therapy, I have been forced to revisit my childhood – a Freudian tilt to it all. Now I have had a simple enough view – life began around age 14, a time my friends and I called the Renaissance, the beginning of sex and drugs and rock and roll, even if there was not much of the sex. As a late in life child, my parents were older and my mother was beginning down the road of depression blurring into Alzheimer’s. She was simply put, not a presence.

Now therapy – looking inward is good, but there is something to be said for an outside reality and I am the baby of the family. I share some of these thoughts with my sisters – my older sisters – and they add a new layer of reality. It seems that there were some family problems, problems not involving me, problems involving my siblings. And these issues – these issues and my father - took a toll on my mom. An already meek woman, she was jump started into a depression that would color the rest of her life.

I was four at the time. Four.

Now, you may be wondering about the other half of the equation – my father. He was in many ways a dominant figure and in so being he was the one who helped push my mom into the dark alley of depression. He was there in the overview, in the myth, but he was not a day to day dad, he was an off to work dad, he was, as Bob my therapist phrases it, an emotionally absent dad. He was a fifties dad, living in the sixties, but a fifties dad. Fifties by generation and for much of my formative years fifties by age.

So a lifetime of wondering why I had blocked my childhood, a lifetime of thinking my memory was poor – me who has developed a steel trap memory. It was not my memory after all. The reason I do not remember my childhood is that in many ways I did not have one. I have written of Carrie’s childhood, a singularly abusive background, and I tell Bob that I am not comfortable in making issue of my childhood, not when those around me have known worse. But as I say these words, I realize the silliness of engaging in comparative angst – she can have hers and I can still have mine, albeit meager by comparison.

Bob does not agree with comparing childhoods, but he still jumps in. Not meaning to make light of an abusive parent, he asks is not an abusive parent in some ways better than an absent one, a non-existent one. Abuse has an inherent aspect of caring – very twisted, very misplaced, but caring, of existing all the same.

Over the course of the last year, Carrie has coined an expression to describe my behavior – Never Enough. I have not denied this; it has been self evident in too many ways. And I have explained this as a by-product of a life of denial, that first hint of self awareness dating back forty plus years. If I waited that long for anything, would I not be insatiable, at least for a while. While the emotional truth of this is clear to me, with gentle prodding the intellect can see the more nuanced version: looking to fill in that missing childhood, looking for affirmation.

Part of me wants to keep on writing – a good post should have a conclusion, but I fear this one must dangle as I continue to examine intellectually which is ultimately only a prelude to exploring emotionally. I am not ready for the emotions, not today.

Pastoral

2007-02-19T18:02:00.000-05:00

Normally my writing feels timeless – I can write on a Monday, post a little later, barely poetic license. But somehow the where and when weighs on me tonight: it is Sunday of the holiday weekend, 9:30 at night, a quiet bedroom tucked away in the Berkshires. I am visiting family, my family, traveling with my little ones but not with Carrie. The young ones, exhausted from the fresh air and the outdoor activities are tucked in, my sister and brother-in-law are in their room reading and surely reviewing the day and I am quietly pecking away, alone in my room. alone with my thoughts.

By any measure it has been a good weekend, love of children and love of family abound, activity and quiet moments in equal measure. But today as we played games, music in the background, I realized my sister had “raided” my iPod – I am the family music man. One of the playlists caught her attention, one named Nate. She loved it and complimented me but I had to demur; Carrie had made the mix, made the mix as a gift to me and it contained the songs of our year, beautiful songs, but bittersweet songs.

And as I sit here tonight I am overcome with the reality of it all, the reality that what I had, what I cherished, will at best never be the same and at worse will lie in tatters at my feet. Yet I feel unable to change the direction, unsure that I would even want to. When I have moments of self doubt, of wanting to undo, I am accused of fear, fear of being alone, fear of the monetary toll, fear of facing myself. There is truth to elements of these, but I do not see these fears as driving the bus as I once did.

Last night I started a post, but was interrupted and stopped. The working title was dance card, a tale of a dance card unexpectedly full. Somehow that post feels empty today, but I mention it because I do not labor under an immediate fear of loneliness – my problem is varying relationships and opportunities with a number of men. So it is not the fear that brings on the melancholy. It is the impossibility of balancing it all.

I do not sit here, laptop warming me, thinking of the men in my life. My thoughts turn to Carrie. But there is a disingenuous element in it all: I will as the night goes on, enveloped in the darkness, find myself thinking of men. I will go home tomorrow and have my e-mail back. Sam is away until Friday, no need to e-mail him. Another friend from my group has e-mailed me – getting together to talk is in my court, he is respectful of my confusion: I will make time - willingly and happily - for a drink and conversation. And yes, the man whose phone number I brazenly asked for in a bar a week back – we are having dinner on Wednesday, I suppose my first real date of this new world.

Yes, disingenuous indeed: thoughts of my love for Carrie being crowded out by my social calendar. I spoke with my brother in law last night, a quiet personal moment. I told him that I thought my marriage could still, even at this late date, be resurrected if I would just pull back from the precipice. He listened and then cut to the chase, asked the question, the one that is always there. He said “What do I want?” And as painful as the answer is, I am enjoying my new life, the attention, the flirting, the brushes and the kisses. It is easy to overanalyze: Freudian interpretations of looking for male power, or simple imagery of the dam finally bursting, or just plain sexual greed.

But one can strip away the explanations, the presumed motivations, the doubling back and missing of Carrie. At the end of the day, I want to continue going forward down this road. The pull may not be easily explained in all its aspects but the pull can surely not be denied. It is the reality of my life.

Valentines - Redux

2007-02-14T17:44:00.000-05:00

A year ago today was also Valentines Day, a day two weeks after coming out to Carrie. I have been trying to remember that day – more likely that night, and I cannot. I could ask Carrie – I suspect she remembers, but even I am not that cruel. I do remember writing a post; I go back and read it: no help as to that day, but oh what sweet memories.

Back then my blog was new, not too many people wandering my way. So tonight will be a first, and likely a last: an encore presentation. Before we get to that post I need to add a word about tonight. We are about to have a nice dinner, a family dinner surrounded by loved ones. There had been other thoughts – I found a babysitter, had a reservation – the proverbial table for two. When I told Carrie of this she was appreciative, but was unwilling to do it. She pointed out that eighteen years ago we sat in the bar at the World Trade Center gazing out at endless opportunity. She pointed out that like the World Trade Center, the structure was gone. And she pointed out that something new, something good will be built on that site – on our site, but it is still too fresh.

Which seems to bring me to last years post…

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentines Day - 1989
It was our first valentine’s day together and we celebrated in one of New York’s unsung gems – the Hors d'ouverie. When people think of the World Trade Center in happier times they talk of Windows On The World, but next to it was a place for the average man. Before 1991, you could drive into the garage – have your ticket validated so it was free – take a short ride to the main lobby with its narrow windows evoking a cathedral more than an office tower and be whisked up to the top in those massive elevator cabs. You would take a quick left and down the end of the long passageway you could see the dark windows. It was a room built for the night – dark ceilings blending with the windows to be almost seamless with the night, tiered rounded banquettes so two could be alone and one, and the piano player – always there but never dominating.

I don’t think I ever had other than a Bombay martini there – straight up, very dry, very cold – and yes, an olive. I rarely drink gin anymore but when I do I always silently toast that room. Where else for the price of two rounds and a couple of hors d’ouveres could one be with the angels for a few moments looking out as far as the night would allow.

A New World

2007-02-11T21:59:00.000-05:00

I was going to write an “important” post – revelations as I go forward. It is well formed in my head and only awaits my fingers. But I realize that I want to talk about my life, my new life as it forms. I have tried to avoid the “what I did today” style, but I realize that what I do is the true story of the journey. I have threatened to blog less and live more and so I have.

I find myself going out one night each weekend – some with structure and some without. There are two Friday night support groups each month – married gay and gay dads. I have been to each once and will be going back to both of them. It was interesting going first to the married group and then to the gay dads. I was shocked at the dad’s group by the age range – many younger than me, but more than a few my age or older. It seems that the issues of coming out in a family are not limited to school age kids.

I walked away from the dad’s group a bit saddened and did not know why. A well run meeting, twenty interesting men, knowledge to gain and, not being nearly as shy as I once was: knowledge to share. All in all, everything I could ask for. But still some sadness: It took a day, but I came to realize the issue: all these men, mostly separated or divorced, and all seemingly happy with their new lives. Simply put, I was terrified of one more sign of where this could end up – not Will and Grace sharing the house, cooking together, lots of laughter with the wine. Yes, it could still end up there but it can also end up with separate lives and maybe I will find a different level of happiness, but with my happiness, seemingly comes sadness to Carrie.

The groups are the first and third Fridays: that still leaves every other weekend. One was a Saturday night out with one of my new friends from a group – I have already blogged about that. Then last night – another Saturday night – dinner and drinks with Jerry, another guy from the group. Yet another obscenely late meeting time – 9:30 for a bite and then next door to a bar, a piano bar, nice age mix, but clearly on the older side, on my age side.

Now 9:30 is late and hanging out around the house – hi honey, let’s have a glass of wine, I have time before I head to Gay land: I don't think so. So I catch an earlier train knowing I will have an hour to kill, knowing exactly how I will kill it. Now it is one thing to go to a bar – gay or straight – with a friend, a crutch if you would. It is quite different to go it alone, a high wire act without the net.

For a half hour, maybe more, I nurse my drink, fight the impulse to throw a few back, and I do the “walk”, my eyes wander. I am alone. I am lost. I am glimpsing into that lonely future of my fears. And then I find myself next to a man, a man my age, a very fit, very cute man, and somehow there is conversation. It just flows – the details do not matter except to say that I was as always honest. I am separating, I do have children, I will not create a new reality to get picked up. Well, he is divorced – a while now, he has kids. Honesty is pretty cool.

We chat for fifteen minutes and then I have to excuse myself – go around the corner to the diner, go meet Jerry. We part with a smile, but not even an exchange of names. I eat my omelet, have some nice conversation with my friend, but in the back of my mind I wonder will I ever see this man again. A little while later, dinner done, it’s back to the bar. The evening is going well; Jerry and I both came to the evening with no expectations, barely acquaintances from our two hours in a group setting. But we really like each other, we have much in common.

And then, looking up from our settee, there is the other man, talking and laughing in a small group. I catch his eye, he mine and I stand up to say hello. We are each with our own friends, this is just a quick hi. I am insecure, I fear rejection. I will probably never see him again.

But a voice inside me rises – a voice that could not have been found a number of months ago. Without thinking, without letting the fear take over, I tell him I enjoyed talking with him, would like to talk again. He reaches into his wallet and pulls out his card – his cell number, his e-mail. The cell is good and he checks his e-mails. We shake hands, exchange names and part company.

I will e-mail him tomorrow – figure allow a day to go by, allow me to absorb. We may never meet, or maybe have a drink and that will be that. It does not matter. I met him, I conversed as an equal – a fellow gay man with much in common – and I asked for his number. Anything else is gravy.

There was still Jerry who was rooting for me and we still had many hours to talk, to hug, to kiss, to discover what had started as a night of convenience was a night of real friendship. If circumstances were different, if one of us had had a room for the night, there would be more, just not to write.

As the evening started, I was walking up a long, long staircase from the subway and at the top, a penny. I am not proud; I will still pick up a penny. It was heads up and as I picked it up I felt that the evening would be okay.

And so it was.

Nighty Night

2007-02-06T13:06:00.000-05:00

As I transition to the basement, an interesting phenomenon has struck me: my bedtime routine. It used to be simple enough – 10 PM, kids in their beds, Carrie and I in our bed: twenty minutes of the 10 O’clock news culminating in the five day forecast (Paul Simon did once write “I get all the news I need on the weather report”) and lights out. There were of course variations but those pale next to the regularity of the routine.

Now I find myself in the basement, frequently before 10 PM. I may have already said my good nights or maybe a brief climb up the steps for the children, but always back to the basement, back to the bed that looks so big for one. And I hesitate – one more e-mail, one more anything. Now I would like to say that my g-mail box is bursting at the seams, a proverbial full dance card. It is not. So it is shortly after 10, the e-mails are answered, the eyelids are drooping, but oh that empty bed.

My fingers dance on the keyboard – there are so many places to go: the standards, Gay.com or Craig’s List and the new ones: Queerclick.com or Squirt.org. Pictures to see, free video trailers to tease and IM’ing – a tough one for this old guy. There are people looking to do things – “bad” enticing things. But it is late, I am in the basement, there is a front door which is still “ours”, not “mine”. So I read and gaze, my hands may dance on more than the keyboard and eventually there is bed, the comfort of sleep.

But I wonder, what if? What if I was in an apartment, what if there was the chance to hook-up one of those nights. Would I leave it as a tease or would I venture out? And if I did venture out how would I feel afterwards? Excited, gratified, sated or would it just be a further reminder of the strange land of being alone, a place I am just not used to.

The basement is an anchor and an anchor can be a stabilizing force, one that keeps us grounded, one that keeps us from drifting aimlessly with each passing current. But an anchor can also be a weight, one that keeps us from exploring, from continuing a journey.

For me, I see it as the former, a steadying force, one that will force me to continue to explore my gayness in healthy outlets, not the semi-anonymous hookups I have been leaving behind. But when I look at my bed at 10 PM tonight, my empty bed, when I bask in the soft blue glow of my computer screen, when I find myself on those websites....

Affirmation

2007-02-05T21:47:00.000-05:00

While I frolicked in Chicago a month ago, Carrie spoke to Jane, our daughter whose wedding this summer triggered so many emotions, my daughter who a year ago accompanied me to Brokeback Mountain, a daughter who used to pride herself on her gaydar. Carrie spoke to Jane, spoke of my being gay, of the basement where I today live and write, spoke of my marriage gone bad. I had hoped to speak to her myself, to do my own “dirty” work.

Jane is loyal, particularly to her Mom and Jane was not at all pleased. She was not ready to speak to me – a message conveyed by Carrie. I waited a few days, I e-mailed, and I suggested dinner. A week later she responded, we could meet, and meet we did. A wonderful dinner, talk of jobs, talk of life and talk of our family – her fears for her mother, her worries of global abandonment: we spoke and the fears were allayed.

I have already written of this and tonight it is not senility that brings me back here – it is a sense of love and awe. Anna and Bill moved out Friday morning and Friday night as I wandered back from the gay dads group (yes, I will write of that also) there in the driveway was Jane and Jack, arriving for a weekend of home improvements. Jane may not have married for money and truly only looked for love but she also ended up with Mr. Handyman – the real deal.

As I went to the office on Saturday, the basement improvements began – tiling, wall repair, design considerations, new paint colors for my basement den – a family project with Carrie leading the charge. By the time I arrived home, things were falling into place and I joined the fray.

Now a word about Jack: he was raised to be homophobic – small town, homophobic dad, it was all he knew. But this summer he, with great trepidation, attended my nephew’s gay wedding and he came back changed. Amazing what putting a human face on these things will do. His homophobia was forever cured.

So this weekend a daughter who could not even speak to me for a week after hearing the news, a son-in-law who until four months ago would trade anti-gay jokes with his dad, came together and created an incredible living space for me. Yes, they were motivated with a desire to support Carrie, help her in many ways. But still, this was my new space and they spoke – not with words or platitudes, but with their hands and with their hearts.

And for that my heart leaps with a strange combination of pride, humility and most of all gratitude.

Comments

2007-02-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

It is with great sadness that I bow to the devils of the internet - nameless, faceless computer generated devils that feel the need to put comments on my blog.

I confess to being a comment junkie - are not we all - but to have the excitement of the comment dissolve into the disappointment of junk mail, is just downright annoying.

So as of a few minutes ago I have turned on word verification for comments. I hate it on other blogs and am saddened to add it here. Hopefully I will someday turn it off after the little buggers give up on me.

Dream On...

2007-02-02T13:13:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night, a minor dream: one that did not even begin to imply revelations. However it was sexually exciting and I awoke aroused and as the dream started to come back to me there was the sense of almost elation – the dream had three women in it, three women who met at the gas station (ask Sigmund, not me) and soon were in a sexual entanglement. And I thought: see there is a bi-side, hiding of late, but still there after all.

Then I started to remember more of the dream and I started to remember the nature of their sexual activity. Two women there together – buying gas, then on the other side of the pump another woman, alone, pulls up. Then the scene changes, not sure where it moved to but the new arrival is on her back and flanked by the friends. And the activities center around some form of oral gratification – they are feeding the woman in the center a liquid, dripping into her mouth. And while there are no men in the dream I realize that even this dream populated with women – pretty, desirable women – is yet another homo-erotic fantasy, though one I cannot accurately define.

I am not one to remember dreams but there have been others in this series, others with women but not my fucking them, dreams of women, but not of pussies. It seems that even my dreams share in the struggle of denial. But there is really no surprise there – what are dreams if not windows into the soul.

The dream is not really striking, not all that much to write about. What the dream represents – homo-erotic longing hiding under the guise of heterosexuality – is surely no surprise. But my initial reaction, joy of having these women visit my dreams, relief that they could still pay a visit… well the balm of that denial was not very long lasting. And maybe that is the measure – not my continuing ability to try to deny: my inability to maintain the denial.

I recently read the significance is never the dream but the interpretation. I suppose we can tweak that to include one’s reaction.

The moving van pulled up this morning and a few hours later Bill and Anna were moved to their new home. Tonight I finally truly take up residence in my basement and yet another phase begins.