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I'm leaving this here just in case ANYONE needs it

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696 Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433 Eating Disorder Hotline: 1-847-831-3438 Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386 Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743

~please be a friend and reblog~

compare.

blogging FAIL.

no one but myself to blame!

well, there was also that trip to orlando.

and to san diego.

and...my outright laziness.

i feel like i started off the blog very quickly, at the very cusp of summer, with the renewed energy that comes with staying up until the early morning and waking up in the late afternoon. although i said that i'd blog about my preparation for australia, i've actually done the most of my preparing in the past few days, with only 2 days left to go before i board my flight.

i enjoyed the freedom to procrastinate. and that renewed energy only compelled me to seek other pleasures of summer, like finishing then we came to the end and watching vicky cristina barcelona. (both were excellent.)

but i just felt hesitation whenever i thought about my future travels, like figuring out what i wanted to do in australia would require tedious, almost scholarly, research, through the purchase of cumbersome travel guides and skimming of foreign websites. and now, everything feels rushed, and crammed together like the clothes in my bulging suitcase.

but i don't know that it's all bad. as much as i wanted to plan out every minute of the next six months, i'm reminded that traveling should be about adventure and spontaneity. and while i know better than to completely abandon making any plans, i'm sure that i'm going to have an amazing time.

it was a pretty great summer, after all.

a staying-in story.

the coming-out was quick. when it happened, there were a few breathless moments that seemed painfully extended, but once the words were said, it was pretty much over. both my friends and family respectfully and graciously acknowledged it, asked a few questions, and then i was free.

it was the staying-in that felt like it lasted forever.

the realization that i was gay came gradually; i didn’t just wake up one day and suddenly have homosexual urges. from perhaps the age of nine or ten, i would see handsome men in films or on the television and feel a little mesmerized, or i would coyly gaze at a cute boy for a little longer than i expected i would. these longing looks were quickly averted before they could be noticed. with time, the frequency and length of these stares would increase, and the intensity of the feelings in my chest would manifest itself in the clenching of my teeth.

i learned to mask these feelings. my parents and older siblings would tease me about my friends who were girls, asking if i were interested in any of them, and i would casually drop names of a few classmates who had pleasant features that i found reasonably, but not heart-thumpingly, attractive. my family’s hopes for my future; my brothers’ machismo; my mother’s religious beliefs—all of these were what i perceived as rational, if unfortunate, reasons for me to stay in the closet.

i came to realize that my family’s hopes were my own. they wished for me to grow up to marry a nice girl, and i desperately hoped and prayed for the same thing. it wasn’t so much that i grew up thinking being gay was wrong, but rather that being straight was right. it’s not that the fairytales and disney cartoons i worshipped show gays being violently punished for their misbehavior, but rather that straight people, the princes and their glowing maidens, are rewarded with happy endings in glorious palaces and castles. i felt powerless to rewrite those stories for myself.

so, to achieve my fairytale ending, it became necessary to lie. saying it that way makes it sound like i was on a mission, and in a way, i was. dating a girl was a goal for me, something to add to my list of to-dos on my road to a life acceptable by my standards and those of the people whom i cared for the most. i regrettably deceived girls into thinking i was interested in them, not out of malice, but because i wanted so badly to actually be interested  in them. eventually, the person  i lied to the most was myself. i consciously and foolishly told myself that these excruciating desires to be with men would cleanly resolve themselves once i found a girl that i could feel truly passionate about; that nothing else would matter once i found my own princess who would gladly inhabit a palace or a castle with me. thankfully, my attempts to build relationships with girls all failed—although back then, i was thoroughly ashamed and disappointed in myself for failing as a man, at least from my limited perspective. to this day, i still feel terrible about the girls to whom i swore such deep commitment, and yet failed to even feign interest in; about the indisputable fact that i lied to them so intimately and for so long.

it’s almost funny how relatively quickly i transitioned from thinking that i would have to hide my sexuality for the rest of my life to looking forward to living with it happily and publicly. within the span of sophomore and junior years of college, i decided that i wanted to come out, actually followed through with it, and went on my first date with a guy. surely, there were lots of cultural factors; the rise of queer eye for the straight guy, the release of brokeback mountain, the proud announcement of lance bass.  the film milk was particularly instrumental; it’s probably the reason why i’m writing this in the first place. admittedly, alcohol also made it a lot easier for me to finally verbalize that i was gay.

perhaps the most rewarding part of coming out—and i can’t really say if it was a cause, or the result—wasn’t that i could finally love men openly, but that i could finally, truly love myself for the person that i really was. when i think of the shame and the guilt or the fear and the sadness, i also reflect on how much happier and more confident and hopeful i feel than i ever did before. for me, peering deep into the closet has been just as valuable as the moment when i finally stepped out of it.

and i guess that’s where the fairytale begins.

“‘The unborn’ are a convenient group to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politcally correct; unlike widows, they do not ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all the racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn… You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”

— Dave Barnhart

‘Race and racism is a reality that so many of us grow up learning to just deal with. But if we ever hope to move past it, it can’t just be on people of color to deal with it. It’s up to all of us – Black, white, everyone – no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out. It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own. It ends with justice, compassion, and empathy that manifests in our lives and on our streets.’ — Michelle Obama

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.

Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)