Arizona or Bust

Well, it was an interesting year...the one I spent in Sugarhouse, UT. The relationship with the guy I was dating didn't work out and life in that house turned horribly sour. Things got especially difficult toward the later part of 2011 and I only made it through by staying busy at work and with the love and encouragement of some very special friends. 

Foremost among them was my biker friend. He and I met and became friends years ago but our friendship took off last summer as we ventured out every Saturday morning to ride up East Canyon and shoot pistols and swim off the shores of East Canyon Reservoir. We'd often stop at a bar and grill somewhere and eat and chat for hours. I also ended up joining a flag football league with him and played football twice every week for the whole of the summer. What a life-saver that all was. So much fun and at such a needed time. 

I ended up spending most of 2011 working for a really nice Italian restaurant right nearby my house. I worked six days a week and double shifts most days so that I wouldn't have to go home. At work, I had dear friends and I made wonderful acquaintances with the restaurant's patrons. It was so good there that it seemed as though we might have been one big quirky family. I ate, drank, and sometimes even slept there. Most importantly,  it was at work that I had peace. I'll be forever grateful for that place and the people that loved me there. And I loved them too.

Toward the end of the year, the home situation got bad enough that I just had to get out of there. I had to get out of Salt Lake. I had to remember and then reacquaint myself with the person I had once been. I'd lost my energy, my drive, my passion, and my desire to try. I knew I was more that what I had become and that if I didn't do something to recover my real self, I'd waste away till I was done - which at the rate I was going wouldn't have taken too long. 

So I kinda tricked myself - tricked myself into moving away and getting back into school and doing the things that made me me. I started spreading a rumor that I had already made plans to move to Arizona at the beginning of the new year and go back to school. I told people I was excited to do it - that I was sure that this was going to work and that it was what I was meant to do. In truth, I had made no such plans and I was afraid - truly afraid - to change up my whole life when there was no assurance that it would even work...afraid that I couldn't do it. But, after starting the rumors and receiving loads of approval and encouragement from people I trusted, I began to think that maybe it could work. So, I started to make inquiries in Arizona. I thought about going to motorcycle mechanics school till hopefully starting my MSW program in the fall. I talked to old employers and friends. I wasn't too sure what to do. Then, out of the blue, I received a message from an old friend that was working at and equine boys ranch. After a few messages and phone calls, I found myself on my motorcycle riding through Utah's snow and rain to eventually make it down to a ranch just north of the Mexico border. 

Life immediately changed for the better. The healing and learning is going pretty well here. I ride and train with horses most every day; I work with fun boys and great staff while sharing and talking about good life principles; and my work comes complimentary with room, board, and three squares a day. 

Yet Another Chapter

A year later, and I feel the urge to write. Nothing more nor less than the innate desire to express my life and thoughts in words - and the audience? myself, you...the unknown reader, and maybe to a few that will see a fresh post after more than a year's absence.

So, so, so much has changed. I've lived in Arizona, New York, Montana, and Utah in the last two years. But I think I've found home. I have someone now...leastwise, I think I have him. Lol. As many will willingly admit, relationships take work and I would venture to say that this is especially true for gay relationships. Both of us were raised LDS, so we've got our families and backgrounds to work with; but I think that we're doing well. We definitely have our disagreements and arguments, but we refuse to let them last for more than a few hours at most. We've found that it's most important to remember our love and care for each other and whatever the hell was causing us to be so angry...it can't possibly be more important than the way we furiously care for each other.

I've had four jobs in that same time span. Oi vey. I left one for school...got fired from the second cause the LDS owners found out I was gay (my suspicions)...got laid-off in a company downsizing...started serving tables...and then was offered a career position to sell and manage the distribution of crystal singing bowls. Go figure, but I'm back into a community that values energy, meditation, and non-dogmatic spirituality...I'm home. I even - at the behest of my employer - prayed for the first time in years last night. No incredible story, but it's a start. 

Now-a-days, I wake up at 7:30, take a late lunch, lock up and head home. Am happy, and still right here. 

True Colors

I see your true colors shining through, I see your true colors and that's why I love you. So don't be afraid to let them show, your true colors, your true colors are beautiful...like a rainbow.

Damnit, it's true! Why can't we believe this?

This song came on my ipod as I was driving home late this evening...and in the quiet of my car as I was cruising through Sardine Canyon, it really struck me that there are some quite amazing people that love me and believe in me...I'm convinced that they see my true colors, and that's why they love me.

About a month ago, my mom called and shared with me a Sunday School lesson that she had in church. The lesson was about not judging yourself but instead making simple observations. The teacher shared the idea that we are often too clouded in regards to our own lives and that the judgments that we make are consequentially too harsh and unrealistic. As a simple example, when we mess up on a new goal, we judge that all our efforts to that point have just been rendered as vain and that we have just thrown ourselves back to the beginning to start over from nothing. While we judge our actions as thus, others would see the learning and building that we had done to make it as far as we did. They would point out that we are not left to start over from nothing, rather that we've gained the lessons and experience from coming as far as we have...and that these will help us in trying again to succeed in attaining our goal. The point is that we fail to be reasonable and/or rational in the judgments that we pronounce upon ourselves.

I consistently fail to believe that God still loves me and isn't ashamed of who I've become. I do this because I judge myself as a sinner, a deliberately lost sheep, and an unrepentant son. Friends who know me well seem to recognize different qualities in me - good qualities that draw their attention, qualities that make them proud of me. Often, I dismiss their observations and compliments by saying that they just don't know me as well as I know myself...or that they don't spend as much time with me as I do. Well, while I may know some things about me that they don't know, I bet that their evaluation of my person and character are more accurate than mine. I dwell excessively on things I haven't done right, on things I really should have done better, on things I haven't done yet, and on things I should do but am afraid to fail at. With all this attention spent disproportionately on negative observations, it's no wonder I might struggle to like the person I've become. It's no wonder I judge myself the way I do.

So, what to do about it? Well, if someone is engaging in a behavior that is destructive, you'd tell them to stop...right? Maybe you'd tell them to go about it in a different way. So, I'm going to try to stop judging. I'll make observations and simply decide if the choices I'm making are helping me to be a healthy person or if they are hindering me in becoming a healthy person. No more condemning myself. Just observations...and then slowly pruning my behaviors and choices so that I grow healthier and happier. No more applying these abstract, universal, superstitious, and often indescribable laws of good and evil...rather, just using these small observations to separate the helpful from the damaging. Maybe after a time of doing this, I'll be able to see some of my true colors.

It's quite easy for me to see the incredible value and greatness in my friends and loved ones. Without having to search at all, I could list pages of evidence in support of their goodness and value to this world. I've thought quite a bit about it...and if you're reading this and I know you, you fall into this category. Don't question my sanity, but believe my words. Maybe if we stop judging ourselves, it'll get easier to be convinced of our worth. I really do think that our true colors are beautiful. We just need to believe it and stop damning ourselves like we do.


P.S. The pics are from my recent shoulder surgery from which I'm one week in recovery. I got too brave off a really big jump while skiing on Powder Mountain and separated my collar bone from my shoulder. The doctor stitched back together three ligaments and bolted down my clavicle. Oops.

Plan B

“The most successful people are those who are good at Plan B.”   - James Yorke (1941)

Plan A took a dive and is out. What was it? Plan A required things like going back to church, no drinking or drugs, no dating guys, and doing all the things I'm supposed to do (like praying, scripture study, and the likes). Yeah, plan A is out. Plan B is what we called the alternative (whatever it looked like) to plan A. For now, plan B has three guiding ideals: (1) at any given point, I hope to be able to say that I truly am happy to be the person that I've become - that given the chance, I would really choose to be nobody else; (2) where I'm at, the actual place where I'm living and the city, it needs to be the place that I feel is right - I believe that location is important and that I need to be living in the right places as time moves on; and (3) what I'm engaged in, the purpose for which I'm laboring, is something that I really believe in - it's what I need to do if I am to pursue my personal legend (see The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho). Plan B is really all I want and it's what I can do.

Plan A is out because I'm sick of it - I got sick from it.

After the novelty of returning to church wore off, it became empty, hollow, and painful. I heard shallow words and echoes. Commandments and standards that seemed more subject to culture than love and God. The main reason I'm done with it is because while I can choose to be LDS, I can't choose to be gay. Sure, I don't have to "give in" to my feelings, but tell that to my feelings. If I don't give in to the desire and hope for love, then the venom of fear and depression will end me. Since homosexuality isn't allowed in the church, I'm out. I'm still searching for spirituality and I believe in so many things still...but I'm out of the organization.

Substances? Well, drugs are out. The occasional drinking? Eh, I'll just make sure to be safe. In the last eight months, I drank 3 times. No drinking-to-cope and no drugs and I won't find any problems with it.

Dating guys? Well, my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. Haha. I've dated only one guy since returning to UT and being with him brought me the greatest happiness I've known in years. Walking arm in arm, smiling just because you're together, feeling vulnerable and safe because of him, sitting silently in one another's arms complete and content - why would I ever cut that kind of love out of life? It is real and virtuous.

What brought on the change? Oddly enough, it was church and family. You'd think that under their influence, I'd have stuck with plan A all the way. Ha! After being blacklisted and thrown out...yeah, I'm bitter. I'll admit it. Some of them say that they still love me...they just need space, I say whatever. I'll take a raincheck on this thing you're calling love. Some of my dearest family told me to stay away - to not even call. Some others are upset with me for "leaving the church." Do they think I wanted to? Do they think it was a quick or easy decision? Do they realize that it scares me to death? I thank God for the ones that love and support me in my journey to find peace. As far as church's influence in ditching plan A, it's pretty well explained above. Simply put, I just couldn't bring these two things (homosexuality and traditional religion) into harmony with one another. I could stand the dissonance for only so long before I fell ill from it. I'll have to try to find God in other ways.

Until next time.