It's after midnight, now early on Tuesday morning. My mind won't rest. My heart just aches. Somehow, I've managed to not shed a single tear. Still, I've felt them well from within several times. I feel as though they could begin at any moment. I'm afraid they may not stop.
Sunday, it happened yet again. This time, worse than any other. The worse mass shooting in American history. We just lived through it. There are 49 people that can't say that. We cannot allow those lives to not have a purpose. This needs to be a turning point. We have allowed the continued mass shootings to happen for far too long. We need to come together and say enough is enough. This was a crime of hate. The first large scale attack on the LGBT community since I have been out. And, for the first time since coming out, I am scared. Walking from the White House to the Metro last evening, I heard loud screaming coming from half a block away and I felt my heart race for a few moments because I thought it might be directed at the four young gay men walking up the street. I am anxious. I'm not big in the club scene, but I do go out for drinks, I like to dance, and many of my friends do. I am unable to look away. I can't stop reading articles about the victims, the survivors, the responses. I am grieving. The gay community is far from perfect. To those on the outside, you can never fully understand. Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender-we are a family. We look out for one another. We care for one another. An event like Orlando challenges our safety in the safest and most cherished environments. For the vast majority of the LGBT community, the gay bar is the first place you let down your guard and truly begin to express yourself as a gay person. It's where you go to be with other people that understand you, don't question you. The gay bar is where you meet people and realize you are normal, there's nothing wrong with you. It's where you accept yourself. For an attack to happen there, it is as if someone has attacked the core of who you are, from within. That is why shockwaves are being echoed by gays across the country and around the world. We are saddened for the loss of 50 of our own and our resolve is weakened because we know it could have been any of us.
"Everyone is someone's everything" I can't get passed this today. Reading the stories of the lives lost and those that made it out. The ripple effect of lives this tragedy touches is unfathomable to me. I've felt helpless. I want to make a difference. I want to stand up, live loud, live proud and say FUCK YOU, to those that stand in my way. Rather, I've decided I will be the bigger person. I will not allow this attack or those that spew hate with their mouths to change me. I will show love. Love always conquers hate. Love has already won across this nation. And it will win again.
I still have much to process but I know what I want to do to take action. And I'm hoping that you will help me. My goal is to start an initiative that focuses on spreading love, kindness, compassion and service by organizing the LGBT community and its allies through volunteerism. I think there's no better name than LOVE-Love Others, Volunteer Everywhere. Together, we can show our neighbors, our communities, and our world that we are bigger than hate. We are committed to making our world a better place.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Control
Over the past few years, life has seemingly spun out of control. Not the out of control you may be thinking of. I'm not strung out in the bathroom at the club high on drugs and $10 drinks. I'm not a loose canon making poor life choices and regretting my decisions. Nothing as sexy as fucking a bassist for a third rate rock band after their show in a dive bar late on a Wednesday and then heading to work early the next morning. No, nothing like that. My life has spun out of control in the way that I no longer seem to have a grasp of my time, my energy, or my thoughts.
Let me take a deep breath and help you understand what I mean. If I let my mind drift back to the Winter of 2009 - my breaking point. I had just moved beyond my first failed relationship. I was still in the closet and had been dating a girl for two years. It ended abruptly and it left me devastated, not because we would have had a real future together or because I truly felt that I belonged with her, but instead because it left me very vulnerable. And more so, it meant that I would potentially be exposed for what I inevitably am - gay. The tumultuous and uncomfortable fall of 2008, led to that eventual breaking point in the Winter of 2009. I remember it distinctly. I was bored at work, desperate for the affection of someone who wanted me, and overall feeling very stuck to be 23 and still living with my parents in the house where I grew up in no where Pennsylvania. There was one particular night, I was home alone. I paced the house shouting aloud how unhappy I was with my life. I felt unsuccessful in every possible way. I wanted more out of life. I wanted someone to love and someone to love me. I wanted to be challenged at work. I wanted to move on. I wanted change.
It was during that colorful discussion with myself that I came to a very clear realization. None of what was making me unhappy was out of my control. Happiness is something you define for yourself. Happiness is something you make for yourself. So I chose to suck it up and make my own destiny. Not all my of my decisions in the immediate future were the right ones, but every decision since has led me to something to bigger and better. My first choices were to stop sitting still. I had done it for most of my life. I had prepared myself for a life in York County. I had fenced myself in -- I tossed out that notion. I planned a trip to New England, alone. I refused to let others determine my future. Next, I decided to go back to school.
That fall, when I again set foot on campus at York College, it felt nothing like it had in 2007 when I graduated. This time I actually felt like I was here for a purpose. This time I felt like I belonged here. I wasn't a kid afraid to make connections and expose who I was to my classmates. I was there to learn, to grow, to succeed. In one year on campus as a non-traditional student I built relationships with students and professors then I had in my 4 years of undergrad. But there was also a vast amount of self-discovery in that year that I had missed during my prior time there. I found a passion which I still believe to be one of my callings in life. I fell in love with the written word. I read. I wrote. Still, I am most content when lost in the story of an enthralling book. And when I'm writing, my stress disappears. Stories poor out of me and simply put, I feel fulfilled.
Over time, a lot has happened in my life. I've taken a walk down many new roads and the journey has never been dull. But during that time, I've lost control. I haven't been true to myself and I haven't taken time for my health my mental health. I stopped running. I stopped sitting still alone with my thoughts. Worse, I stopped writing.
2009 was a landmark year for me because I took the time to find out who I was, what I wanted and I made the choice to make a change. 2016 will again be a landmark year, because I will not let my life take control of me. I'm recommitting myself to fulfills me. I will run (and I will complete the commitment I made in 2011 to run the Cowtown Marathon). I will write. I will listen. And along the way, there is sure to be even more to discover.
Let me take a deep breath and help you understand what I mean. If I let my mind drift back to the Winter of 2009 - my breaking point. I had just moved beyond my first failed relationship. I was still in the closet and had been dating a girl for two years. It ended abruptly and it left me devastated, not because we would have had a real future together or because I truly felt that I belonged with her, but instead because it left me very vulnerable. And more so, it meant that I would potentially be exposed for what I inevitably am - gay. The tumultuous and uncomfortable fall of 2008, led to that eventual breaking point in the Winter of 2009. I remember it distinctly. I was bored at work, desperate for the affection of someone who wanted me, and overall feeling very stuck to be 23 and still living with my parents in the house where I grew up in no where Pennsylvania. There was one particular night, I was home alone. I paced the house shouting aloud how unhappy I was with my life. I felt unsuccessful in every possible way. I wanted more out of life. I wanted someone to love and someone to love me. I wanted to be challenged at work. I wanted to move on. I wanted change.
It was during that colorful discussion with myself that I came to a very clear realization. None of what was making me unhappy was out of my control. Happiness is something you define for yourself. Happiness is something you make for yourself. So I chose to suck it up and make my own destiny. Not all my of my decisions in the immediate future were the right ones, but every decision since has led me to something to bigger and better. My first choices were to stop sitting still. I had done it for most of my life. I had prepared myself for a life in York County. I had fenced myself in -- I tossed out that notion. I planned a trip to New England, alone. I refused to let others determine my future. Next, I decided to go back to school.
That fall, when I again set foot on campus at York College, it felt nothing like it had in 2007 when I graduated. This time I actually felt like I was here for a purpose. This time I felt like I belonged here. I wasn't a kid afraid to make connections and expose who I was to my classmates. I was there to learn, to grow, to succeed. In one year on campus as a non-traditional student I built relationships with students and professors then I had in my 4 years of undergrad. But there was also a vast amount of self-discovery in that year that I had missed during my prior time there. I found a passion which I still believe to be one of my callings in life. I fell in love with the written word. I read. I wrote. Still, I am most content when lost in the story of an enthralling book. And when I'm writing, my stress disappears. Stories poor out of me and simply put, I feel fulfilled.
Over time, a lot has happened in my life. I've taken a walk down many new roads and the journey has never been dull. But during that time, I've lost control. I haven't been true to myself and I haven't taken time for my health my mental health. I stopped running. I stopped sitting still alone with my thoughts. Worse, I stopped writing.
2009 was a landmark year for me because I took the time to find out who I was, what I wanted and I made the choice to make a change. 2016 will again be a landmark year, because I will not let my life take control of me. I'm recommitting myself to fulfills me. I will run (and I will complete the commitment I made in 2011 to run the Cowtown Marathon). I will write. I will listen. And along the way, there is sure to be even more to discover.
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