On love...

Ok, this is going to be a post that is beyond sappy and that I will highly regret the moment that I hit publish, but nonetheless it is something that I feel I want to share and put into words:

I want love so badly, not just to be loved, not just television love, but the love that is scary and unpredictable, the kind that exceeds moods and situations. I want to love and be loved by someone so much. Often I feel that this may be impossible because of this in between life that I lead. I am growing more confident in who I am, but I still have this tiny nagging that pops up from time to time. It is a gut dropping question that was planted in me long ago and somehow incorporated heavily into the things that I know of God.

As a gay man it is shameful to share that there is doubt about my sexuality, even the smallest amount every other month, for only about a split second and only when the humidity is above 60% and the sky is covered with gray clouds, not big white puffy ones (please note that I am not confused about my attraction to the same sex, I am doubtful about what to do with it). Okay, maybe the doubt is not that infrequent, but it is still something that I am ashamed of, and then, of all things, I am ashamed that I am ashamed and feel that I will never be confident enough to love and fully allow myself to love. I fear being alone and unloved, but sometimes, even more, I fear being in love and doubting things because of issues I have not worked through. Can I work through these? God knows I am trying, have tried for the last 14 years.

I am writing this because it needs to come out (pun intended), as most things do. I need to read these words and know that God is doing something in me and in my life.

While this post was spurred by the viewing of the "Brothers and Sisters" finale (don't judge, and yet, may I say, MAGNIFICENT!) this desire to have a man that loves me and is deeply loved by me is something that I have wanted for so long, something that I have written about many times over in letters that will never be sent and questions that I hope will be answered. The last thing I want is to be someone dependent on finding love, or at least that is not what I want to live for, and I know that I stand for, live for and believe in so much more than a person to complete the picture for me. I know that the last many years have been spent to figure out who I am and what it means to stand with God. In that I have found the necessity of community and people to support, show love and stand with me and I with them. This is what I want in a spouse, a lover. 

I am posting this without rereading it because I am afraid that I would not post it otherwise, so I apologize for any typos.

And then we spoke...

God and I have our hitches, our bumps and our uncertainties, at least I do, the two of us haven't really sat down to just discuss these things. What I need to say is that I still need to know this God that I have looked for my whole life. What is great is I do, but I want more. 

This journey in faith and discovery has been so slow and tested because of my desire to know God along the way. 

• I waited to come out to my parents until it was more about family than it was about me
• I have not had a relationship until there could be honesty and an understanding about myself and a reconciliation of my faith with this part of who I am
• I have pushed the edges of who I am to see where God is in it all, only to find God was resting in the places I started as well as finished
• The most important responses to my coming out are not the supportive ones, but the ones that ring with care and sincerity, whether they are challenging, upsetting or positive

In all of this I find a quiet strength that God has been bringing me here, through a lot of different tunnels, but nonetheless, here.

Held up...

For the last 8 months I have been living at home with my family and it has been quite fine. Of course there have been bumps here and there, but it is all for the goal of moving out and landing on my feet. 

Well...

It seems that things may be postponed a bit, or at least that is what it feels like at this point. My teaching certification is not working out as expected and is looking to postpone me at least four more months if I stay on the route that I am on. When I found this out this morning, I almost lost it. I realized that I have been waiting for my life to start when I move to another city. I have friends and love here, but I have been living it as an in between period. I have purposefully not pursued any sort of dating relationship because of the knowledge that I will move soon.

The idea that I will be living at home for another birthday, my 27th birthday actually, is unbearable to me. I can not do it. My coming out to my parents was a launching pad into a more liveable and open life. There is only so far one can launch themselves in the suburbs of yuppytown USA.

While a lot of this is frustration, a lot of it is a request for help through prayer and friendship. I trust that something big and unpredictable will appear out of this.