Again I have exceeded the character limit.
I ran into an old classmate who read the beginnings of my memoir on my blog. I was embarrassed initially but then inspired. It has occurred to me, sadly but necessarily, that there will likely never be a magical time in my life when I can "sit down and do all the writing I want to do." Still, I am making an effort to cobble things together and continually thinking and exploring.
Incidentally, this weekend was monumental. Reunion with Mom after three months was highly emotionally satisfying but not particularly noteworthy in of itself. I am also highly grateful for the compatibility she and Marshall, the man I'm seeing, seem to share.
I had my five year high school reunion on Friday night. I didn't want to go. I was afraid people would ask about my disappearing midway through senior year on account of my mental health, or about what I was doing with my life now and judge me accordingly, forgetting in the process of course that I am not in fact the center of the universe. Ultimately I decided that going would be a great way to face fear in the eye and overcome it. I arrived about twenty minutes late to a party of five, two of whom were talking to each other and the other two were girls from remedial classes that I knew of but really had no working relationship with. We made efforts at small talk, mostly centered on where the fuck is everyone? I started catastrophizing that it was a cruel practical joke, that the reunion was really somewhere else and was preparing to leave. My friend Gigi came, along with some others, and we made more (albeit more pleasant) small talk. I pushed myself to talk to people that I didn't know as well and ultimately ventured outside to reconnect with Steph. Steph ran in more popular crowd than I did and it felt as though little had changed in the five years leading up to this, a cool distance acting as a barrier between myself and my classmates huddled together. Adam, a hockey player I had class with in sixth grade but hadn't talked to since, broke the ice against all odds and we carried on like the friends we used to be. Marshall came to whisk me away and we had fun telling people that he was a long-forgotten classmate, but not before I turned my life and legal rights over to the mechanical bull. I rode three times, each time progressively harder, before at last deciding that I better not push my luck or the operator's hospitality. The rest of the night was spent laughing at drag queens and gyrating against poles and each other to hair metal and 80s pop.
Saturday night I went to my first ever gay wedding, excitement prevailing among a melange of less intense emotions. Watching Daniel and Brian watch each other and dance together brought tears to my eyes and everything was selected and executed so exquisitely. I ended up making nice with my table neighbor who I mistakenly and narcissistically assumed had a vendetta against me in allegiance to Frank. Dancing was a (literally) hot mess and hard to leave.
Sunday marked my worst day of work to date and was largely unremarkable. I listened earnestly to a litany of Marshall's concerns and fears, said what I could with hopes of placation, and realized both my own powerlessness and the fragility of the push and pull that defines relationships. When I got home, I logged on to facebook to commemorate my first year of sobriety. While I do get validation in doing this, the primary objective is to encourage others in recovery. The server was automatically logged in to my new roommate's account. One announcement from the newsfeed was particularly salient: Frank M. Harrell is now engaged to Aaron Jaccard. It was almost an afterthought. Almost. Jesus, I mean you go to one wedding and it's like every queer has to marry. Intellectually I was able to convince myself that I don't want that to be me, that I'd be isolated, certainly uncertain, that I don't want to be engaged at this point in my life. I feel as though I'm on that trajectory, but I can't make that step today. (And don't think that I would be ready after six months of being back together). But obviously it is a bigger issue than that. I haven't seen the bastard in four months and haven't seen his new squeeze much more than that. I combed pages for details before my slow-ass server brought me back to some semblance of sanity. I began speculating that they'll wed or elope to Vermont next month. I glowered, seethed that they have the gall to marry without having lifted a goddamned finger in the campaign to secure gay marriage. Neither have Brian and Daniel, to my knowledge, but their integrity, commitment, and longevity absolves them of my wrath. I want to badly to let this go. It's not my battle, it's not my spoils. I want so much as for my peers to see, think, and feel as I do. I want to sleep and not think about this, to focus on the beauty that is my life and not hone on this minutia. I want more. I want absolution. I want closure and vindication.
—James C.
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