A Year in Review, 2007 - Bringing Light into the Darkness

“I realized that I always defined myself in terms of what I wasn’t. Always what I wasn’t, never what I was. And when you do that you miss the moments. And the moments are all we’ve got. Even when I thought I was going to die, even after everything that’s happened, I realized I didn’t want to let go. I was willing to do it all over again, and this time I could appreciate the moments. I can’t go back, but I cant appreciate what I have right now. And I can define myself by what I am instead of what I am not, Alive, and everything else is negotiable.” Babylon 5.

So this is my end of year post. That time where I reflect over the last year and ask myself, what have I accomplished and what I did not. The quote at the top of the page comes from one of my favorite shows, Babylon 5, the lines where spoken by the doctor in the series, who was recovering from a drug addiction, and had almost been killed while helping someone else. After recovering, the doctor said he had found what he was looking for, and this was what he found. As I have eluded too before, it was a little over a year ago I was enjoying the mix of painkiller and vodka, to the point of taking a handful of pills one night with a bottle of Smirnoff. That was the event I credit with giving me the kick in the ass I needed to get my life back onto track and heading in the direction it’s currently headed.

Starting with the spring 2007 semester I returned to school, my first semester was just getting my feet wet, I took two night classes and continued to work both a full and a part time job. I ended the semester with a B average. After that I decided it was now or never. So I turned in notice to my full time job with the County (we will get to this subject more later) that I would be quitting at the start of the fall semester, I did take the summer off from classes. Well at the start of the fall semester, I left my full time job at the county, switched part time jobs from circuit city to a bank, and began 16 credit hours to finish my Associates Degree. Well I ended with a B average overall, a B average on my cumulative GPA and will be heading to University of Illinois – Springfield for the spring of 2008 to work on my BA and MA in political studies. I should be finished in 3 years and ready to see where the world will take me.

Despite everything going rather well with school, and for the most part the job situation going ok (again more on that later), my personal life still seems to be lacking in some way. I have had two random hook-ups over the last year, one was with the cousin of my friend’s former roommate at a party, USA Guy, and the other was the waiter from the restaurant I ate at in St. Louis. I mean several of my friends know about USA Guy, since they were at the party we started making out at. Nevertheless, my family is still kind of an issue, I won’t get into the whole thing over again, but needless to say dad and I don’t always get along, and mom has her head in the sand most of the time, and I honestly think that if she knew I had randomly hooked up not one but two guys she might try locking me up in my room and never letting me out again. It’s like my mom’s idea of being gay is living the life of the perpetual bachelor, she can’t seem to grasp the idea that being gay means falling in love with, living with, being intimate, with another man. The other problem with my social life is living in central Illinois; this isn’t exactly the homo capitol of the world here. We have one gay bar in a town of over 200,000 people, and the next closest one is over an hour away. And part of it is I still have a hard time in social situations, I have never really dated before, so now I am 24 and its like I am going through that awkward teenage stage where you’re not really sure how to even begin. I want to date people, I want to meet someone, but I don’t really know where to even start looking. I am hoping to have enough time in the spring to get involved with the UIS gay and lesbian student group, not so much to look for dates (for those of you who asked) but to try and build a group of friends I can relate with, not that my current friends are not fantastic, but I think I really need to try making some other gay friends before I can expect to move on into a relationship.

Now, for the work situation, for the last two years I worked for the County Circuit Clerks Office. There were many reasons for my leaving. One was tension between co-workers and myself. Some of it was my being gay, but mostly it was that I rocked to boat. I was given a position that the previous person had seriously fucked up, and the way the change went down was a little dirty I will admit, but it was what was needed. While the person who held the position was out on medical leave, the manager demoted her to my job and promoted me to her job, a position I held for almost 18 months. In that time I completely changed the way the position operated, took back responsibilities that she had lost. A lot of people felt the way I got the position was underhanded, and as a result I got constant opposition from people when I would make changes, I will say the managers never stopped me, they wanted me to make the changes. Hell, I swear most people threw a party the day I left, they just could wait for me to be out of there, even as I trained my replacement I could hear the whispers about me leaving. Well now 5 months later those same people have apologized to me, they have begged me to return, and In much the same way I got the position in the first place, another dirty deal has been made and sometime after the first of the year I will be returning to my old job at the county. I guess it’s true that your never really appreciated until your gone.

So what’s in store for 2008, I don’t know. I do know over the last year I have learned to stop defining myself as what I wasn’t, but to live my life defined by what/who I am. I am alive, and everything else is negotiable. I am who I am, It’s a constant struggle, walking a line between expectations of who you are and actually being who you are, it’s easy for people to talk about not compromising who they are, but in practice it’s not always that simple, that easy. For 2008 I intend on continuing with school, even with working more. I am also hoping in 2008 to open up more socially. For too long I let other expectations dictate to me what I would do, and I am starting to overcome it, but it is a slow process. Well, this will probably be my last post before the New Year, so to all my readers. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

Closing out 2007, good night and good luck
BW