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

life

Ok,

So I have hit that post midterm point of not giving a damn and just wanting to be done with classes, homework, and papers for a little while. I always find this to be worse during the fall semester after midterms, because it’s getting, darker, colder, and everything around is dying. Not that I am a big fan of summer or anything, but at least it’s not as dreary. So what have I been doing instead of homework? Well I have been remodeling a bedroom, I will post some pictures of that soon, as well as the final product of the two room renovation I have been doing. I have also been surfing the internet a lot. I guess sooner or later I need to get my ass moving, I have a lot of stuff I have to catch up on right now, it seems like I went from being a head to being behind overnight. Oh, well I will get around to a bigger post on something important later. But in other news. I have kinda/sorta met a guy, problem is guy don’t know it yet, so here is a set up of this, feel free to tell me if you think I am being a stalker here. There is a guy that comes into the bank I work at to cash his paychecks, well I had noticed certain things that set off the gayday, well one night I was looking at one of my friends myspace profiles, and looked at his friends list to see if he had any of our old friends listed that I didn’t. Well while going through his list I found the guy from work who ill call paycheck guy. Well I checked out paycheck guys profile and it confirmed my observations. So I added him as a friend. Paycheck guy face me a weird look the last time he was in but I didn’t wait on him, and couldn’t bring myself to really say anything to him. I mean he is attractive and seems to have a nice personality. I just have never been comfortable talking to guys I am interested in. I can talk in front of large rooms, talk with elected officials and be perfectly comfortable put a guy in front of me I want to get to know better and I become uber shy and wont speak. So feel free to tell me if I am a myspace stalker of tell me what my hang up here is and any helpful advice anyone might have on this.


BW

A Blog About Nothing

Well so much for my attempts to post something everyday huh? Oh well, I do what I can, its not like I have a mass readership who misses me anyway. The main reason I do this isn’t to provide entertaining readings, or insightfulness to others, but to provide an outlet for myself, no matter what the topic may be, I just want to be able to throw a rant if I want, or to put into written form some type on introspection on myself and my motives at times. So whatever. And for those paying attention, if I seem a bit out of it or in a mood, I kind of am. I sat up all night thinking about stuff. Recently I have had several people tell me they like talking to me because I seem to have it all together and figured out, and that’s what got me thinking, do I really have things figured out. For almost 3 years I spent it being cold, a distanced from a lot of things, as a result I don’t really feel comfortable at times when it comes to relationships. Don’t get me wrong I have several friends that I like being around and hanging out with, but when it comes to looking for a boyfriend, I kinda suck at it, if I manage to meet someone I can usually fuck it up because I get nervous or don’t know what to say or how to act and the person gets away. Let me explain here also that I am able to relax around my friends, people I know and who know me and I feel I can let my guard down around. Honestly I don’t what to do sometimes, its like there are two sides to me, the one that can go out with his friends be relaxed and comfortable, and the one who still looks at what cars are in the parking lot and who’s inside of a bar or restaurant before I will go in. And for those who think I am exaggerating, during the campaigns that’s how it was, anytime it was a group of us from the campaign we would have to look at who was around and determine if we would stay if we did, how would we act, what would we say, what topics would be off limits, who might overhear something, that the thought process we had to use a lot and I half wonder am I still in that frame of mind. Add on top of that at the time trying to keep up enough defenses to not let anyone in on my hidden secrets. I know I have been out for almost a year, and I know I can’t expect changes overnight, but I thought I might be able to shed some more of these thing by now. At least by most accounts I’m not the complete cold heartless prick I was 18 months ago.

What do you want?

That seems like a simple question doesn’t it. From childhood most of spend our time doing what other want us to do, clean your room, do your chores, do your homework, go to bed, we do what we are told at work, in some cases we do what our partners tell us to do. My point here is at what point is it ok to be selfish, at what point can you step back from everyone else telling you what to do, what they expect and say this is what I want, this is what I want to do, to be, to think.

In some cases, in my case, I spent so much time trying to be what everyone else expected of me that I kept burying more and more the parts of me that did not live up to those expectations. And where did it get me in the end, a breakdown, damn near pushing away the few people left that actually gave a damn?

So again, what do I want?
I want to be able to be who I am and not give a damn what other think or expect of me. I want to finish my degree and start doing what I enjoyed again, politics, except this time on my own terms, in my own way. I want to live in a world that doesn’t care or discriminate based on who I love or what I do in my personal time.

Unfortunately this is the real world, and on some level there will always be someone to tell you what to do, and ultimately if you like it or not you have to do it. But every now and then its ok to be selfish, tell someone no once in a while if you don’t want to do something that person wants you to do. Oh well this isn’t as deep as the last one of these posts I put on ( see who are you) but it says what I want it to. Part 3 will becoming when I get motivated to write it.

BW