Basecamp

Something happened to me on Election Day last year. And I have been sitting around ever since...angry and feeling like I got the wind knocked out of me. Far from my place of peaceful wanderings along a new path.

It had only been two months since my grandfather had passed and really, I was doing well. There was such a peace with his passing...even though there was family drama going on...I felt focused and centered. It had been a long time since I had found that blissful place of balance, but for a moment I was in that space and reveling in it.

Then Nov. 4th happened. There was some awkward fear early in the day as I silently contemplated the "what if." Every time it crept up I pushed it out of my head. Mo and I went to the polls together. The lines I anticipated were absent and that really worried me on some level. But I pushed thru the rest of that day until she had to go to work...enjoying our rhythm. It had been so long since we could just be "one" like we were on that particular day. I miss those years...they were so damn sweet with perfection and chemistry. None of this stuff hanging over our heads about the direction of the world or how others judge our relationship. No labels. Not defining my life as in the closet or out. When did that change?

That night I watched CNN as the polls closed and I laughed, cried and giggled when he cinched it. But then in the background there was the huge slap in my face as I witnessed Prop 8 pass. I knew it was going to happen, but that moment leveled me. I wasn't prepared for all the feelings I had in that single moment or the residual feelings that I have had every day since.

On some level it was illogical to feel so passionate and angered as I did. My 17 year relationship had just ended earlier that year. I had finally begun the process of letting go of the girl that I thought would be with me until one of us took our last breath. 17 years of being utterly in love every single day...every single one. Was that part of why I was so angered by this passing of hatred and judgement? Possibly.

And I can blame the holidays, the family duties and dramas that followed...whatever...but in the end it was a very distinct day when I suddenly just stopped caring for myself and my direction. Instead opting to wallow in this feeling of them against us. I just stopped right there. Why?

I haven't figured that out yet. It will hit me later on down the road. But tonight I was surfing the web and I walked into a mirror. For months I have been randomly dropping by this myspace page that is on Sam's and it always makes me think. The owner is this woman named Alison and right now she is travelling the US with her dog in a teardrop trailer...lol. That is a bittersweet lol, btw. She's doing what Mo and I talked about for years...doing it...and in a teardrop no less. Mo would have been fine with that, although I think we both would have preferred the mini-Airstream.

But here it is again...one of those moments when you are walking along the "wrong" path and you bump right into a mirror - a reflection of some part of you not being lived and yet being lived by another. And as you stand looking at yourself and beyond...you recognize feelings, both good and bad. You don't know this person, but you do in some odd way because its like your evolved self...standing right there waving at you, smiling and having a good old time, whispering to remind you that life is short and you need to get back to where you belong. Stop flirting with all this distraction.

I'm 40. I am gay. I am now single. I am now unemployed. Outside of two wiener dogs and a reef tank to care for...I have no ties to anyone or any one place. My life on some level is wrecked and yet, its not. I want more from myself, from my life and I no longer wish to do insignificant work. I no longer wish to sit and contemplate all the ills of this world...lashing out against them. I want instead to do the work which counteracts that...and if only to keep the balance in check. I want to find the girl who will be with me until one of us breathes her last breath. From here to there, I want to revel in that oneness again...in that pure chemistry before the days of voter judgements.

In some way, I want to walk away from all the old and head out toward the rest of life...two wiener dogs in a teardrop no less.