I hate winter. Just thought that I'd bring that up before I get into anything heavy here. I will probably mention before I get too far into this piece that I've been sitting here on my own for far too long and I'm sharing this only because I feel that my friends have a right to know when something affects me as deeply as I have been affected this morning.
This is going to be mildly controversial, and I don't want anyone who actively reads this flowing to me with pity or even support. This is an affirmation piece. This is me working through my thoughts, hopes and dreams. This is me. I'm sorry if I hurt anyone with this, I really am, but my intention with this is to educate and illuminate. It is never to hurt.
I've never felt love. It's not as uncommon at this age as one might think, but to be honest, I've never been in a true, defined relationship to even give myself a chance of this happening. Whether this is the weather playing tricks with my head or not, I'm not sure. I'm not depressed. I know that much. I've been down that road before, more than once, and it had a certain feel to it each time it happened. Where I am at 6:30am on a Thursday morning is not depression, it's just a sad, cold realisation.
I will never let labels define who and what I am. However, in hindsight, failing to conform to labels in a general sense leaves me feeling fuzzy, vague and unspecific at this time.
As far as labels are concerned, I am gay. Stephanie and later Lynelle were exceptions, rather than the rule. I am not closed to women in a general sense, but both of these girls were special cases who broke that rule for me in specific ways for specific reasons. As all astute readers might point out, neither really worked for me relationship wise, though that had nothing to do with my preferences at the time.
My two closest friends are both moving on with thier lives, starting relationships and forming bonds with people outside our circle. Now, let me be the first to affirm my happiness for all of the involved parties. I think it was inevitable for us to part ways in this way eventually, and I am honestly and truly very happy for both Ned and Lynelle on thier relationships, budding or otherwise.
However, being around couples all the time, and in fact having the idea of couples so omnipresent all the time can leave one quite bitter at night. I have found myself thinking hurtful and angry thoughts about both Ned and Lynelle purely because they have something I do not. It's only envy speaking, of that I am sure, and I often have to control what I want to say to avoid playing the bitter old fag that I feel I am.
This goes deeper than Ned and Lynelle though. Jarrod is with someone who lights him up inside, a girl who makes him laugh and gives him strength. Seeing the two of them together really hit home for me. I have never had that connection with anyone in my life, and unless I start working to change things, I may never.
I am a strong, creative and passionate person. My will alone can give me strength and help me to fight any conflict or complication which happens to stand in my way. Even now, at one of my lower points, I know that tomorrow, I will wake up, shake my head, and get on with the things that need to be done. I am probably even strong enough to go through this life without the love of another person. I'm not one hundred percent sure about that part, but I think if life plays out that way, I could deal.
But I don't want to. I live for my friends. I live to be the person that helps, that cares and that comforts them in times of need. I live to be the one that people go to when they are hurt, sad or tired, to just hang with and be supportive.
Recently, however, I find myself wishing there was somewhere I could go at the end of a day and just curl up and feel safe. Constantly feeling like you are at war with the world for your very survival is tiring, and even more so when you have to shoulder the burden yourself. I don't want to have to be strong all the time. I want to be able to let down my guard with someone, to take them in and to feel safe with them.
I want to need someone. I want to feel the beautiful, desperate vulnerability of requited love.
Even now, I look over to my bed and see it cold and empty. But this is about so much more than sex. It isn't all about that orgasm at the end of a great night of sex anymore. I don't think it ever was. I have inherited a potent sex drive from my mother, for sure, and I think for a very long time I was confusing sex and love. I felt that the only way to really love someone was to show that to them physically.
Yet my complete emotional repression got me thinking. When Ned, Nell and I first started to get close, I remember having a conversation with them about how physical affection was awkward for me. Things like hugging and kissing and any sort of physically comfortable situations were foreign to me and in truth used to make me extremely uncomfortable.
Yet, despite that, I was completely fine with sex as a means of affection. I was confident, and even slightly dominant in the bedroom. I was in control and was at complete ease.
So why the discrepancy? Simple. I guess I used sex and sexual acts to compensate for a lack of actual feeling, and saw hugging and kissing as almost taboo.
The truth. Lynelle was the first person I ever kissed... Girlie, that's why I flipped out so much in my loungeroom down in the flat. That was the first time I had ever been kissed by anyone in my life for real. Can you remember how it nearly overwhelmed me?
I have only ever been kissed by two people in my entire life, yet I have slept with dozens. It tells me that my motives, goals and values were more than a little skewed and I got a lot of things wrong growing up, but we all make mistakes growing up and I have too solid a head on my shoulders for that alone to get me down.
I feel like this has just been an open discussion about my sex life, and that was not it's intention. I really hope that what I was trying to convey in this piece is not entirely lost to the scandal I have painted for you all.
I am so proud of myself. I am going to realise my dream and bring Questing to the world. I am a strong and vibrant person, I am a good friend and a kind, creative and compassionate soul. I know this, and yet...
I don't want to have to weather this alone.
I don't think it's the fear of being alone specifically which is the inspiration for this post. I know it contributed, but I think it's more than that.
In a reference that will only truly be grasped by a single reader of this journal, I have this to say: I want for someone to one day be able to complete the entire puzzle, and while I have given each and every one of you many pieces on this day, there is one piece that I cannot give to anyone who reads this. It will remain incomplete.
By the gods above, I pray with every fibre of my being that it will not be forever...
"Are you ready to cut off your head and place your foot on it? If so, come; Love awaits you! Love is not grown in a garden, nor sold in the marketplace; whether you are a king or a servant, the price is your head, and nothing less. Yes, the cost of the elixir of love is your head! Do you hesitate? O miser, It is cheap at that price!"
-Abu Hamid Al-Ghazzali
FallenPhoenix
