- Not The Only One!
- 21 Nov24
- Post #163
- ” ” Do We Not All Bleed The Same ? “
- Howdy!
- Thanks again for checking in. I honestly don’t know how this one is going to go or where it will end up, so I’m just going to put out the caution placards☺️☺️, not for young children . We as human beings, have a great abilities for many things. We have the ability to feel and to love. We have the compacity for a wide array of emotions, and sometimes they come upon us with great vigor and passion and yes sometimes out of control ☺️☺️. Oh how I wish that I could control it all, and that there would be no need for anything along the lines of crimes of passion. ☺️ There are just times when I don’t understand us. We can demonstrate such compassion and empathy for one another and that same drive can carry us to some of the most deepest and darkest of places and we can hate with such a zeal that we become something less than our best. Something more a long the lines of animalistic and demonic. It’s been some forty years now and I still remember this great line from a star Trek movie and it was ” From Hell’s Heart, I Stabbeth Thee”. Some how we can get excited about reciprocity and we think about revenge being a dish best served cold. It’s who we are , an eye for an eye, probably more so now than ever before .
- Turning the other cheek has never really been much of a thing for us as our hearts have grown cold and a little on the stony side☺️. Maybe, just maybe one of the biggest heart moves is being able to step into another’s shoes. It’s almost absolutely one of those things easier said than done, especially if we have no point of reference for that. It goes so much further than saying that I don’t know how to parent because I don’t have kids, because it’s something that you have thousand of reference points for just walking through life. It’s one of those things like crawling up inside of someone and being able to look out through their eyes and see the world the way that they do. Being able to feel all of the things that they do from sunshine on their face, to heart pain caused by being called a vicious name. Now !, this may read like some people’s relationship status and they say that ” It’s Complicated “☺️☺️. I want to say whatever!! , that means, but I’m fully aware of some of the messes that we find ourselves in with relationships, and honestly sometimes, Complicated, just doesn’t do it justice ☺️☺️
- I think that there use to be an old game show called ” Who’s line is it ” and maybe a twist of who’s life is it and who am I? I was born into some strange dynamic that seems to set me apart from most of the population and under the designation that has become to be known as “Gay”. I think it a little strange of a word, since it use to mean to be happy, and I’m just not to happy now days. I just think of myself as an ordinary person. I’m nothing special, I just have hopes and dreams like everyone else, but somehow and for some reason I’m seen differently and with some kind of stigmatism. I just want to belong just like everyone else and not be seen as some kind of social pariah or like the strange monster from the black lagoon☺️☺️. I look like other people, have all of the same needs and wants as other people, and I have the desires for comfort , but somehow since one of my desires for comfort are with someone who is not of the opposite sex ,I’m told that I’m some kind of freak.
- I didn’t have a coming out party, I didn’t see the need to advertise my sexual preferences, after all people hook up all the time and it’s really not a big deal and actually no one’s business but our own. I don’t go out of my way to rub my relationship in other people’s faces , we just want to be treated just like everyone else. If we are out in public and my boyfriend gives me a kiss, I don’t need some mom putting her hands over her kids face to block them from seeing us. That’s just rude and offensive. I don’t like to label people with the label of being homophobic, but it’s something that I have experienced more than you might think. Sometimes people are so uncomfortable around us, that you would think that they just ate some bad shrimp and that they were breaking out in a rash with hives☺️☺️. There are other people who are mostly cool or they do a great job faking it, pretending to be progressive☺️. I’ve always known that I was a little different, but not as in strange. It’s just when we watch a romantic comedy, we have to try hard to see ourselves in it. It’s gotten better and there are movies about couples like us, they just aren’t well received.
- One of the things that makes my head want to explode is the religious fanatics . There are countries that we can’t visit without putting our lives at risk , because they are so backwards in their thinking. It’s like they are stuck in the middle ages or something. They don’t have much respect for women either, and sometimes it’s not safe for women to go out without a male escort. It’s really like they are trapped in time. When I think about all of the restrictions, I wonder why we would want to visit those countries in the first place . Things are better here in the states, but still a lot of prejudice towards us. I don’t know if it’s all Christians or just the ones with the designation as evangelicals,☺️☺️ but they are some of the most confusing people on the face of the planet. They say the most unrealistic and irrational things of all. They say that my lifestyle is a choice. They make it sound like I’m at Walmart picking out produce☺️☺️. It’s just ludicrous, why would we pick out and choose something that’s hard, difficult and goes against the grain? I’ve never wished that I was straight, honestly that’s the part that’s weird for me, I guess it just goes to our wiring. ☺️
- Just think about it for a second, why would I choose a life of bullying, getting beat up, name calling, and probably the worst, being rejected by family members and the really close ones like my dad😪. This is no exaggeration but I can think of a thousands of other things I would choose besides this. It’s not a choice, it’s just who I am and I don’t know why people just can’t except me for who I am. I get further confused by them telling me that God loves everyone, but somehow there’s an exception when it comes to people like me. They don’t say that , but every fiber of their being says it for them. They have these amazing pointing fingers. Reminds me of when I was younger and my grandfather use to take me bird hunting and his dogs would point like that☺️☺️. They point out and talk about sin as if we have cornered the market on sin☺️☺️. I don’t know much about religion, but it seems kind of jacked up. They say that God made me, which means He knows who I am. They say that He doesn’t make mistakes, so I’m supposed to be who I am, but I keep feeling as if I’m being penalized for me, just being me. There is this other strange contradiction, they say that all are welcome in there services, but for some reason I feel like they roll up the welcome mat, when I want to come in.
- My boyfriend and I look like we could be siblings. People mistake us for brothers all the time. So there was this one time that we went to a church. The invitation of God’s love just sounds amazing. They say that God loves us just as we are, and unconditionally… amazing!! We slipped in and set in the back. The guy who was doing all of the talking was really good at speaking and I guess it was a story inside of another story. He was sharing about a real life experience of someone who was kind of like us, the less desirable. Then I think that he was talking about some Bible character and made a very strong comparison between the two and talked about how God had redeemed it . I wasn’t really sure what that word meant , in that context, so I pulled out my phone and googled it. I got a vague idea from the definition, but not totally clear on what it meant by to be brought back. My fella, thought that it was lame and the waste of a perfectly good Sunday morning that we could have been at the farmer’s market☺️☺️.
- I can’t tell you that it made complete sense to me, but something registered with me, as the guy who had been doing all of the talking, prayed before the end of the service. I could tell that there was something different about the majority of the people there . My first thought was that it’s very cultist☺️. Maybe that was some of my insecurities lashing out, I don’t know maybe that’s what it looks like to be a true believer in God. If I’m being completely honest, it haunted me a little bit, I’m not really sure why. I think some of the terminology, just left me in the dark. It was sure enough different, but a little intriguing. My boyfriend and I were holding hands as we left the church and got some stink eye☺️☺️. We saw other couples holding hands, but somehow we had crossed some invisible line in the sand. I think this is my whole problem with religion, they say and preach one thing, but do another. If these people are God’s kids, how can I trust that God is just not like them, waiting to pull the rug out from under us?
- This was all brought on by a coworker, who had been inviting me to church and now more than ever my suspicious side is wondering if it was done to try to shame us. My coworker knows that I’m gay and has heard me refer to my boyfriend on numerous occasions. I can be a little bit of a deep thinker and I’m wondering if there is something else at play here other than the obvious. I wrestle with this idea of ” original sin”. I want to just disregard it, but it just continues to roll around in my head. If this narrative about Adam and Eve, and that apple thing has any merit at all, then who and what I am must have rolled out of the garden when they opened that Pandora’s box. ☺️As I said I was intrigued, but I don’t know if it’s enough to make me want to go again. If I have to change who I am to be accepted, then that’s a no go for me. I can’t change who I am, it’s just who I am. I’m not going to apologize or act as if I’m something less than because I don’t fit into their cookie cutter perception of who I should be. It’s just so hard to accept that God loves us just as we are, when we are met with sly looks and snarky comments behind our backs.
- I’m kind of an informed person and I see all of the division and divisiveness in our society. The political, and racial divides are deep and cutting, and I can’t but help feel that the culture is also divided when it comes to same sex relationships. My take on it is that we have always been here and we are not going away. So , somehow you are going to have to deal with us and all we are asking for is to be treated just like everyone else, no special treatment, just the same as others. I just can’t bring myself to make the comparison between our struggles and what African Americans went through with the Civil rights movement back in the sixties and seventies. There are some similarities, but the differences far out weigh the other side of the scale. It wouldn’t be fair or accurate. There is just something about the human existence that there are always some injustices and looking back over history, it will probably always be that way, I just don’t know .
- A turn of events of sorts. My coworker, Stan , doubled back around again to invite me to church once more. I told him that we had attended and he wanted to know what we thought. I really didn’t know how to answer that question. My mind was thinking, what can I say to keep him from asking me again ☺️☺️. I tried to be some what honest and say that it was OK, but a little confusing, and I wanted to say that we felt a little less than welcome based on the piercing eyes as we left. Stan began to tell me his story and how his journey had played out. I wasn’t prepared for what he had to share and actually found it to be very unbelievable. He told me that he had also had a boyfriend in the past and my mouth was on the floor . It may sound like a racist stereotype, but I thought that we all knew who one another were, maybe just a vibe and he didn’t have it☺️☺️. At this point I was thoroughly confused, as you probably could imagine .
- He had shared about his struggles and him misunderstanding things about the church and the people who attend church. He told me horror stories about some who were just over the top and went out of their way to point out the obvious. They are the one’s who tell obese people that they are fat, as if they don’t already know that. The plan is to keep the spot light on you and off of their own discrepancies ☺️☺️. Church people get it wrong all of the time, just like everyone else. However, they didn’t represent the majority of the people, even though some were obviously uncomfortable with who I was. I had to stop him in his tracks , because it’s just so unbelievable. What happened I asked, and what happened with your boyfriend, seemed like a legitimate question? Well it was a legit question and it started with two guys who befriended him and all they wanted to talk about is what he wanted to talk about, no hard sales, and honestly I didn’t feel like they had an agenda to change me. We started and began a genuine friendship. Of course at some point we had discuss the elephant in the room.☺️☺️. Well my boyfriend just kind of dropped out of the picture, I don’t know if he was jealous or thought that something else was going on, but he made it clear that it wasn’t for him. Well when we got to some of the really hard conversations, it got to be about who I am and comfortable being. After all, I was born this way. Stan the guy from work was one of the two guys who befriended me and maybe that made it a little bit easier because we already knew one another, but his story of him once being exactly where I find myself just continues to wreck my brain. ☺️☺️
- He told me that someone explained to him how we are all born with predisposition towards all sorts of things, such as being stubborn; being selfish, being prideful, being born with attractions to same sex relationship and even some being born with a predisposition towards pedophilia. Stan said that we are more than the things that nature tells us that we are and that we don’t have to act out upon them all. These things are like temptations to us and they are not good or bad until we act upon them. Jerry, my other friend confessed to having anger issues and that he can explode on someone with little notice and sometimes over the most minor of things. Jerry thinks of it as an addition that he tries to beat back, one day at a time.
- Ok, this is a lot to take in and honestly on some level it sounds like a bunch of pie in the sky or just some good old fashion malarkey ☺️☺️. You guys are telling me that I actually have a choice, and it’s to deny who I have known myself to be my entire life, not much of a choice if you ask me. I asked Stan point blank, how did you make this incredible change in your life? He told me that it started with believing and acknowledging that the word of God is true. He said that he encountered a God who loves him more than he could express with words. Hear me out he said, I still have urges and attractions towards other men, but I became a member of a support group of men just like myself and we encourage one another In our celibacy, not an easy life. I know all that God did to reach me by giving up His son for me, so I can be celibate to honor Him. It’s one of the hardest things that I’ve even done in my entire life, but totally worth it. See , God says come as you are, but He doesn’t say stay as you are. The changes have to come from the inside out, and it’s just about your personal journey with God. External pressures will just not cut the mustard☺️☺️.
- I want to tell you that there was some happy ending, but I’m pondering and checking the sincerity of all that has been laid out for me, so I just say , stay tuned.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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