I Still Feel It Sometimes...

Today, I decided that I was going to clean my room (or start the process of...there's a lot to be done, both in my room and around the house...thank you roommate for the house part). As I was rummaging around the bookshelves, picking up clutter. Tossing things out here and there that had collected on the shelves out of my laziness to not just toss them where they should have gone in the first place (the garbage or the bill pile), I came across something that I had displaced from my mind for quite some time.

It wasn't anything major (at least nothing that most people would consider major) but to me, in a way, it's everything I ever wanted and everything I hoped I would never see again (despite the fact that I cannot make myself throw it away). A note. That's it; just a note. Most people would react that way had I told them I found a note and was now convinced the rest of my day would be miserable; however, to me it's not just a note. It's a part of my past (kinda recent past actually) that I can't and don't want to get rid of, hence the inability or lack of desire to actually get rid of it. It's the note that Kevin wrote me a couple months after we'd broken up.

In the note, he apologized for hurting me and told me all of these wonderful things that he thought of me. He tried to explain why he pushed away from me, and he tried to reconcile with me. At the end of the note, he even said he regretted his decision and understood if I didn't still want to be with him, but that he would leave that choice up to me. I pushed a little toward mending our relationship, and I messaged him a few times on Facebook, which brought promises of going out together to try and start things back off slowly. None of which ever happened. Today, we talk only occasionally, and for a while I'd thought my mind free of the feelings I felt for him (not that I'm dumb enough to think that they'd ever really go away, but I thought that they were at least tampered down enough to not be a mind wrecking gut wrencher throughout my day).

I was wrong. Finding and rereading the note was just as painful today as it was the first time I read it and found out they were just words. I'm not really sure why he wrote the note; it's fairly clear now that they were just words and nothing more than that. Maybe his apology was sincere, but that's not really the part that I'm bent out of shape about. When I read that note, I only see the part where he says "I leave that decision to you." The words that left some hope in mind at one point, thinking that I might still have a chance with him. A hope that was shattered fairly quickly by his lack of response to my attempts.

This is likely the most depressing thing I've written in a while, and for that I apologize; however, I'm hoping that by getting it out in writing, I might be able to go throughout the rest of my day without thinking on it too much, though I know that's not likely to happen. I need a getaway more than ever. Arkansas, for what it's worth, should help a little with that. I'll be too busy scrambling around to different things to think too much, I hope.

Nothing can beat the time spent with a friend, though, which needs to happen soon-ish. :)

Sorry for the overly not-so-happy blog post.

Love is...

*Begins sappy writing*

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.


I had to look that passage up on the internet. It's been so long since I've brought out my own Bible, that I've most likely forgotten where it is. My faith is blind. That's the terminology I use to refer to myself in regard to where I stand spiritually. I'm not an atheist, but I'm not sure I can call myself a Christian despite my upbringing. I believe there's a higher power out there. How can you look at the world around you and not believe in a higher power? Maybe it's God, or maybe it's another god. Who knows. Or maybe there really is nothing, and the universe is so mind-blowing on its own that it simply lends itself to crediting a higher power for its beauty. Not really the point of this post, so I'm moving on.


Despite my blind faith, the passage above has always been a favorite of mine. It's definition is so pure and so very unlike the definition that most Christians I know give to love. A couple days ago, Obama announced his support for gay marriage. Now, I've never really paid much attention to Obama or his agenda, but for him to openly express his support for a hot-topic struggle is incredibly humbling to me. 1 Corinthians offers a perfect definition of love. There's no gender bias in there. It doesn't say "Love is patient, love is kind. Love is between a man and a woman." 


With all of the debate going on right now on the issue of same-sex marriage, my mind starts to wander. It starts to worry that I might not ever have someone that I can legally call my husband. The struggle for equality in love is a seemingly unending battle. With the loss in North Carolina after so many losses already, it's a little disheartening. But no matter what happens, it's a fight to keep fighting. It's not a fair fight by any means. In my opinion, it's not for someone else to decide. Why is it even up on the chopping block? There was no vote on straight marriage, yet in order for gay couples to express their love in a legally binding commitment, there has to be this drawn out battle?


It doesn't really matter. My faith might be blind, but I still believe the part of the passage that says "love always perseveres. Love never fails." This battle will play out in our favor eventually. And, I'll keep waiting for the guy I'm meant to spend the rest of my life with. If there's faith worth having, then I'll have faith enough to believe that he's out there waiting for me too, and one day we will find each other. On that day, everything will fall into place, and I'll know that all of the waiting, all of the struggles, and all of the battles were worth it. 


To my future husband:
I'll love you until I find you and forever after that.
I'll dream of you at night, and on nights I can't sleep, I'll lie awake thinking of the day we'll meet.
When I find you, we'll both know it's right, regardless of what others may think.
I'll do my best never to hurt you, and I'll give my life to protect you.
I'll love you at your best and at your worst.
When you're hurting, I'll hold you in my arms, and I'll tell you it's ok.
When the world seems like it's falling down around you, I'll hold it up above your head.
When you go to sleep at night, you'll never have to worry whether I'll still be there in the morning.
I will always be there in the morning.
When you can't find the words, I'll sit with you in silence.
Until that day, I hope you'll keep fighting. Until that day, I hope you'll keep looking, because I'm looking for you too.


I needed to get that out there. Today has been a roller coaster of debates on Facebook. Going out to the Nature Center to walk the trails and take pictures was an escape, but this beats that by far. 


I don't know what direction my faith is heading. I'm not in a place right now to be comfortable with God, and I know that it has nothing to do with him. One thing I know for sure, though, is that my desire to express this kind of love to my future partner is what keeps my faith from being drowned out entirely. In a world of so much hate, I have to keep believing that there's someone out there that just as much in love with me as I am with him and that one day, faith will bring us together for eternity. 


*Ends sappy writing*

NOH8

I don't know who you are, and you don't know me. However, we have a mutual Facebook friend, and that's how I came across and was able to read the words you don't even realize have torn me down. You claim that you have never used hate, bigotry, or harassment to promote your beliefs, but your words tear at the very fiber of my being. You've thrust libel out onto to net in order to try and pull others into your thinking, and you don't even realize who you're hurting in the process. You claim to be a Christian, but my guess is that your God would chastise you for spreading such a hateful message.

To claim that gays have an "agenda" and that "the gay agenda" is the number one supporter of child pornography is ludicrous, and I would love to see your proof from "the FBI" as you claim. I would agree with you, however, that gays are connected to the highest percentage of violent crime, because that violent crime has partially been against us. Due to the hateful nature of so many people "Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers (Massachusetts Youth Risk Survey 2007)." 

Because people find it so hard to be truly accepting, "LGB youth who come from highly rejecting families are more than 8 times as likely to have attempted suicide than LGB peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection (Ryan C, Huebner D, et al - Peds 2009;123(1):346-352)." 

"Nine out of 10 LGBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school; three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation; and about one-third (32.7%) skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe (GLSEN National School Climate Survey 2009). Sexual minority youth, or teens that identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, are bullied two to three times more than heterosexuals. (Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH 2010)."

I offer you proof. Proof that the LGBT community stands a higher chance of being faced with hate crimes than members of the heterosexual community. 

You're fully entitled to your beliefs but to post such comments on Facebook just goes to show how hurtful you are to your own Christian foundations. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but people like you are the reason why Christians have such bad reputations. I know incredible people of faith who don't always believe my lifestyle is acceptable, but that doesn't keep them from accepting me as a person. To say that gays are a part of an agenda to promote violence and child pornography is just ridiculous and goes to show that you don't really even know who we are. 

Do you want to know our real agenda? Let me tell you. Our real agenda is to find love. To be able to live our lives with the person we love without ridicule or having to worry about what might happen to us if we walk down the road holding hands or if we kiss each other in public. We want to be able to start families and raise our children with the same kind of love that everyone else gets to experience. We are not the threat to the sanctity of marriage that so many would claim we are; if there's such an attack on the sanctity of marriage, it comes from divorce, not from same-sex marriage. 

The love I have to offer to my future partner is just as real as any other love. It's not tainted with lust, and it didn't originate from any kind of childhood trauma or abuse. It's the love I was born with. My dream is to one day be able to look into the eyes of my partner and be completely lost in something amazing. To be held and know that our love is real. 

Being gay is not the life I chose. In fact, it's the life I fought for years. I tried to be just like everyone else. Tried to pray away the feelings for men, tried to force myself into heterosexual relationships. What resulted from these attempts was unhappiness and depression. Thoughts of ending my life, because I was raised thinking that the love I had to offer was wrong and that somehow I made a choice to be the way I am. I didn't make a choice to be gay. One doesn't simply wake up one day and say "Today is a good day to start being gay. I think I'll leave girls behind and try out a lifestyle where I'll live in constant fear of what everyone else around me thinks. A lifestyle where it's not ok to spend the rest of my life with the person I love under commitment of marriage. A lifestyle where I'll have to constantly look over my shoulder when I'm with the person I love just to make sure I'm not going to be physically attacked for displaying my love in public." 

If you don't believe that same-sex love is right or that it actually exists, so be it. I'm not writing this to change your mind. I'm writing this to let you know that your claims of having never spread hate, bigotry, or harassment are false. If you don't believe in gay marriage, then by all means, please never marry a man. In your practice of being a preacher, you're even entitled to never marry a gay couple. But to write things like "gay agenda" and "number one supporter of child pornography" is an attack against the love that the LGBT community has to offer.  

Christianity is supposed to be a faith surrounded by spreading the unconditional love of your God and the same love that you're supposed to express to those around you, not the unrelenting hatred that stems from your lack of humanity. 

My faith is blind, and I'm not sure what kind of higher power (if any) is out there. But I don't need faith in a god to love people. I don't need faith in a god to desire an achievement of the same homes and dreams that others desire to have. My life has been surrounded by incredible people that love and support me, just as I've made it my mission to love and support others, no matter what their beliefs are. My mission is people plain and simple. I don't have a hidden agenda. My agenda is pretty clear: I want to find love, and I want that love to be recognized for what it is and not for what those with your views claim it to be.

If I Can Marry One, Why Not 3?!

To the argument posed in the subject line, which happens to come from a best friend's sister, I say, why not? Don't get me wrong. Polygamy is not for me, and I think in most circumstances, it's not for most people. I'll explain why in just a short little while. First, I want to talk about what I think love is. Please, keep in mind that this post is purely opinion. It's not meant to offend or bring on the war sirens. 

I've spend a lot of time growing up trying to figure out what love was. Most of this discovery stems from trying to "create" for myself what I thought love was supposed to be: that is, between one man and one woman. As I grew up, I started to discover that the love I had to offer wasn't like most others around me. I didn't feel the "one man, one woman" love that seemed to be an expected equation. My brain and body had other ideas swimming around; despite the efforts I put out to be "normal" and to create the "expected" love, I was unable to give myself over completely to the relationships and the women that I dated. Why? Because my attractions and feelings are for men. I'm gay. Duh. 

I literally tried everything. My first relationship with a female came in high school, and it lasted three years. What can I say about that relationship? Only that I'm sorry for the person whose life I wasted for three years. She felt it, I felt it. She wanted more out of me than I was ever willing to give her, and it was probably the worst three years of my life. So, why did I stay with her for so long? Because, I had it in my mind that this was how it was supposed to be. One man, one woman. Eventually, she cheated on me, and I used my opportunity for an out to end our relationship. I still regret never having the courage to tell her that it was not her fault but mine that our relationship wasn't what she always thought it would be. Today, she is with someone new, and from what I can tell, he makes her extremely happy. It doesn't alleviate the guilt I have for having stolen so much of her life as I tried to discover mine, but I'm still glad to know she found someone that can treat her like she should be treated.

Time carried on and I met a friend at work. This friend quickly became a close friend, and now I consider her a best friend. We became very close, and for a while I thought that this could be it. Maybe I had finally discovered where "love" comes from. So, when she asked me out, I accepted, and once again, things went spiraling downhill from there. I could tell how she felt about me, and I tried desperately to feel the same way about her; however, when I looked at her, I saw only a best friend, and it never amounted to more than that for me. So, after nine months of trying to "create" love again, I ended our relationship, and I feared, our friendship. 

After that, I decided I was finished. I knew what I felt, and I knew that anything else beyond that would be a lie to myself and a lie to the person I was trying to be with, so I told myself I'd never enter into another relationship unless it was genuine. I finally admitted to myself what I had been trying to avoid due to what I had learned growing up. I finally allowed myself to understand what love meant for me despite what the world tried to tell me it should be. Love isn't simply something that's felt between one man and one woman. Love, for me, is something between two people. <--Do not misinterpret that to mean I have something against polygamy. I'm getting there, keep reading.

To get a little more specific, love is a connection between two people. I've discovered through personal experience that it doesn't have to be one man and one woman. I've tried that twice, and it doesn't work for me. If you're straight and it's your thing, kudos to you; however, that doesn't mean that the rest of us should be hindered because yours is the dominant love. There is no dominant love. Want to know why? Because love has no idea what gender is. Love is its own thing, and it's not limited by gender like our minds are. 

My brain and body tell me that my love is for another man. BF's sister obviously feels her love is for a man. Although our brains and bodies are telling us that those are our only options, love says, "that's ok, I'll accept them both." Yes, I realize I'm referring to love as if it's a living being that thinks all on its own. But that's the easiest way to illustrate the fact that love isn't bound to one form or another. 

With all of that being said, do I believe that polygamy is wrong? For me? Yes. For others? Not necessarily. With love, you have to be willing to give yourself over completely to the person(s) that you're with. The key word there is "completely." I honestly believe that love is only felt when you can say that you're completely theirs. When you can say that you'd do anything and be anything that they needed. When you know in your heart that you would like more than anything to spend the rest of eternity with that person. I can't say that if I was in a polygamous relationship that I could ever give myself over completely to each person involved. I can't fathom how it's possible. If you've already given yourself completely to one person, what's left for everyone else? 

I'm not saying it's not possible. If there are people out there that are being real with themselves and still feel that they've found true love in a polygamous relationship, then I'm ok with that. For one, it's not my place to judge them regardless. It's not my place to decide that they should or shouldn't be together. As someone that is currently experiencing what it's like to be on the downhill side of being told who it's ok for me to marry, I understand how extremely frustrating that can be. How dare you try and tell me that it's not ok for me to express my love to someone by joining with them in marriage?! I never once tried to pass a vote for your marriage, so why the hell do you think it's ok to decide on mine?

Love doesn't know what gender is. I never decided to be gay, just as you never decided to be straight. I fought my feelings, and it almost killed me. At one point, I had decided that if I couldn't be true to myself, I shouldn't be at all. I'm done with that, because I am being true to myself. And one day when I find the person I'm meant to spend the rest of my life with, I will marry him, because your opinion has no part in the love I feel. Just as I cannot decide the outcome of a polygamous or straight relationship, no one can decide the outcome of my relationships.

So to the best friend's sister who posed the question: "If I can marry one woman, why not three?" I say, "Sure, why not?"