06/25/15

Me vs Mountains

Bea hasn't talked to me since Monday. I see her post on IG, I see her respond to comments but nothing towards me. She'll be back tomorrow. I know I sometimes seem like a pessimist. But I need to vent these nervous feelings somewhere, and Of course, I turn to You, here.

Bea has often threatened the thought of moving to Colorado. It makes me anxious and nervous but if she omitted the thoughts from me I feel ignorance would only make it worse.

I've told her I'd move with her. But as this week has progressed and I've felt this neglect I've been thinking a lot. Waiting for her to text back, waiting for her to call as she has promised but never did...

I would move for her, would she stay for me? I'd never ask that of her but the heart of the question remains. Would she live in a place she didn't want to in order to be with me?

Am I too far in to something that may not be evenly balanced?

The more conversations we have about the mountains the more I feel her desire for a change of address more than a desire for my company. If I moved with her would I ever really know?

I don't know maybe I've been thinking too much awake in bed. Maybe I've been burned in the past one too many times but this is starting to eat away at me.

I've been thinking about how many times she and I have broken up and how many tears the two of us have shed at our parting. I've seen her cry but never over the loss of me.

I see her having the time of her life out in the mountains. Me sitting here paranoid...the last thing she'd like to hear after one of the best weeks of her life is her insecure pessimistic boyfriend complaining about mountains over himself. A talk like that could be enough to drive a woman straight into the mountains and away from me.

She's been spending the week hiking long trails alone with guys I've never heard of before, yet she complains of my relationships with Krystal and Sealscott both of which are engaged to other guys.

The more I sit here missing and waiting for her and the more I see her enjoying her time hiking mountains posting pictures with other guys while she refuses to publish our relationship...the more nervous I get.

I've only wanted to be with her for the past three going on four years and she has always told me she's had feeling for her ex and now that she wants to move away from Ohio...

am I too invested in this thing? She says she loves me an awful lot and with strong consistency...

I gave her my virginity, I waiting while she went back to her ex...twice, Now I'm contemplating moving away from the state I love, from the people who know me to chase a woman who wants mountains... is this stupid? Am I going to get hurt? Would she be happier without me?

She talks a lot about marriage being oppressive and out dated...

I don't know God am I a blind romantic? Does she feel the same way? Am I going to get hurt again? What should I do? Am I just freaking out? I don't know...I'm glad I have a place to vent this stuff so she doesn't have to defend herself or know how insecure I feel.

I want her to be free. I always have but the more invested I get the more her freedom affects me. I don't want my pain to hinder her freedom. If she wants to be with me I want it to be what she wants and not out of guilt or duty.

We'll see what happens. This is my only life. And this is how I am living it.

Life - Sleeping At Last


it began with a whisper in my ear, "I think it's time."
suddenly all we held dear was on the line
as your heart, measured in mountains, fell and climbed.
“you're okay, you're okay, you're okay. we’re okay.”
amen.

06/21/15

"Why did you do all this for me?" Wilbur asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you."
“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”
—from Charlotte's Web by E. B. White

. “Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for?” Travis and Brian, I love you two. I can not attempt to put a value or appraise the worth of our friendship. Yet I feel the necessity to express that which the three of us take for granted every day of our lives. The two of you are woven deeply into the tapestry of my life. Our life is a breath, a shadow, how rare it is that we exist. I am not guaranteed time on Spaceship Earth with you two. I’m thankful I can express to you, however poorly, how much I care about you two. It’s weekends like this that help to take a moment and say all of the things I feel but never express. I’m proud of my two friends and their masters degrees and I’m honored to be a part of Brian’s ordination. When I look back on the sum of our friendship I see how much we have grown, yet how young we are. We will not know how much time the three of us will have together but I can say now I am inexpressibly joyful for the time we've had. God is love and I feel a taste of that love, that secret thread, within the two of you. “There is no language for what we've seen, Only the sweetness that bends us to our knees, And all of these fumbling words To explain what it means, But our hearts were buried deep in the sand”

A photo posted by Adam🌱 (@zmorris93) on Jun 20, 2015 at 8:57pm PDT

I love my friends. They prevent me from becoming homophobic, racists, transphobic, they show me the heart and love of God. They help me when I am down. They are there when I'm lonely. They add color to my life.

It's scary to think how quickly life can end. Or even how fragile mental health is. Each second with my friends is so amazing.

I've been thinking a lot since Friday night's masters party about this stuff. I have always known I have great friends but I don't think I've ever really understood how amazing it is.

For many, friendship is more meaningful than familial ties. And yet it is our least codified relationship, with no legal standing or bureaucratic definition.
-Gregory Jusdanis

What makes friendship so unique is what holds it together. There is no friendship license from the court house. We are not born in to our friendships. They bond is completely voluntary on both sides and remains and exists solely by the free choosing of both friends. Friends are the people we truly pick each and every day of our lives to love.

“Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo's face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiseling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: "I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

06/14/15

This past week I talked to Krystal about the LGBT stuff she's been learning in her counseling classes. It's just so new to the public. It will be interesting to see how our children respond to the subjects. I think about how different I am from my grandparents school of thought. I wonder how much different my children and grandchildren will be. I was born in 1987. My children will be shocked that gay people couldn't get married when I was in my twenties even. My children will be shocked pot was illegal.

I have to help Bea move today so that's all I can write.

06/07/15

Call me Caitlyn

This whole week I've been thinking about transgender people. I have so many questions, thoughts, and opinions but I am not allowed to express myself. If I openly express myself I will be labeled as 'transphobic'

Drake Bell tweeted "Sorry....still calling you Bruce." and the man received an extreme amount of hate. This confuses me so much. The main focus of all of these human rights movements is to eliminate hate, eliminate bullying, and embrace acceptance. But then I see when someone disagrees with their opinions and ideas the same hate they fight against coming from their mouths.

It's as if hate isn't being eliminated but rather it is changing form. In the past if you were anything but heterosexual you received bullying and hate. Now if you do not instantly embrace and accept anything and everything you receive the hate and bullying.

Is that better? Is it any different?

Shouldn't we always fight hate with love. No matter from which direction it is coming from? If you view what someone is saying as ignorant then the best way to help that person see or to help that person change their heart certainly isn't from hateful angry rebukes.

Whether it is an ignorant person hating an LGBT individual or an LGBT person hating an ignorant individual. The result is still the same. Hurt. and no change.

In the past sexuality and gender-related slurs use to be the hurtful thing you could say to someone now it seems as if being called homophobic or transphobic has replaced that. The point isn't which one is right or better. I guess my point is that both are hateful hurtful terms. By both sides treating each other this way I lost respect for both sides.

I know as a heterosexual white middle class man I can never understand what it is like to be in any minority group whether that be gender, race, culture, sexual orientation but as far as I can I can kinda wrap my mind around the gay community. But this trans community really confuses me.

The gay community says I am a man and I am attracted to men. I understand that. I actually respect that for the honesty amidst all of the social pressure against it. But the trans community says I am a woman..but they aren't.

This is my ignorant transphobic opinions speaking that if I expressed outside of this letter to God I would receive much hate and angry for but I feel the need to express myself and I know God that You are love and You accept me no matter my thoughts and feelings.

If you are born a man but you feel as if you are a woman then you are a man... If you want to act like what our cultural norms for a woman are at this time in history that is fine. If anything the issue isn't the physical body of the individual the issue is how restrictive and limiting our cultures ideas of gender roles are. Why can't a man wear a dress? Why can't a man be named Caitlyn? Now I don't know what it's like to feel like a woman but be a man so I understand these thoughts are ignorant. But they are my thoughts and I need to express them because I'm confused.

If a man decided to tell everyone he is a woman and makes everyone call him a woman's name that doesn't make him a her. That isn't what being a woman is. Even pumping chemicals into your body and having surgery. Is that all that being a gender is? The whole idea feels very delusional. If a man wants to cross dress I would say we should lose the term and simply say the man wants to dress. Why do we have to label certain type of clothes as for men and women? What are clothes but thread and fabric. Is one arrangement of the thread more masculine or feminine? No, it's all just thread its all meaningless we are the ones who give it meaning and we are the ones who can take that power away.

I think the strange thing for me is when Caitlyn came out we are all suppose to erase that person's past. That person is no longer Bruce. That person no longer has a past. We are all suppose to ignore and forget where they have been and where they are coming from. That feels delusional. And if feels like we are supposed to enable that delusion and if I refuse I am hated and called transphobic. The GLAAD website says:

For some transgender people, being associated with their birth name is a tremendous source of anxiety, or it is simply a part of their life they wish to leave behind. Respect the name a transgender person is currently using. If you happen to know a transgender person's birth name (the name given to them when they were born, but which they no longer use), don't share it without that person's explicit permission. Sharing a transgender person's birth name and/or photos of a transgender person before their transition is an invasion of privacy, unless they have given you permission to do so.

But that isn't how life works. We cannot erase our paths. It is how we became who we are. It is our story. It doesn't sound healthy. It isn't truthful. It isn't reality.

Perception is reality.

Is perception reality? Is that how we as a culture are suppose to live? We should treat people how ever they want us to treat them whether it is true or not? Putting on a dress, changing your name, and taking hormone treatments does not make you a woman. That is the reality. That is the truth of it. But the reality doesn't seem to matter. Caitlyn is Bruce. That is the reality. But that doesn't seem to matter.

I think this is the most difficult thing for me to come to terms with.

A gay man says he is a man and says he's attracted to men. I understand that. That doesn't seem to be delusional at all. In fact I respect that more than a gay man who tried to date women in order to fit in. That isn't the reality of the situation.

But people don't want to hear the word no. People don't want to be told you can't and you aren't.

Our country says you have the right to live however you want to live and be whoever you want to be. I guess I need to get in line with that. If a man wants me to call him a woman I guess I need to respect that no matter what the reality of the situation is.

But God, I feel like You want us to live in our limitations. I feel like You want us to come to terms with the reality of our lives. We worry about the effects our limitless cultural mentality is having on our planet like climate change, food scarcity, monocultures, pollution, cancer. These are all results of us humans not accepting the 'no' or the limitations of our reality.

I feel one day saying the word 'no' or 'can't' will be the worst thing you can say to another human. But boundaries and limitations are what makes us human. They are what makes life...life.

One day we will all die. This is a truth that no matter how much we don't like it or fight it, it will happen.

I think to wrap up all of this phobic ignorant close minded thoughts I have I will say this. We all have the right to our own opinions and we all have the right to disagree but in so doing we should always be loving and respectful. Humble and honest. Although I do not understand all of the ways people want to live in this country/this world I will always be respectful and humble in trying to understand and learn to live together in love. I will not hate those who disagree with me. I will not hate those who are disrespectful or hurtful. I will never treat someone with hate no matter how much I lack understanding for their lifestyle choices.

No matter if they are rapists, murderers, terrorists, people of different faiths, people of different races, people of different sexual orientation, people of different ages, I refuse to hate.

Elijah Aaron - Lover's Prayer