Hello again.

I am no longer convinced that everything is okay.
I am not, and WILL not, be placated by small reassurances, by the quiet voices attempting to calm me down, to call me to settle.
This world is ill. Be it a symptom of my location, or of my state, there is sickness here.
I cannot change the world, I cannot fix the broken, I can only fix myself, my own lethargy.
I will climb mountains, I will see hidden places, I will create, and I will let the world create me. I will run full tilt down the boulevards and across the plains, laughing, crying, screaming like a madman. I will jump off the edge of the world, simply to live.
-Michael.
(Inspired by Walt)

Because my friends, I have not been well of late, and while I do not know why, I suddenly seem to be aware of it. I'm not sure exactly what has been keeping me down, but I'm certain that it is there, and that it is something that I need desperately to fix. I do have some theories, and I do have some plans, but we'll come to them in time.

I hesitate to call my state depression, and though it may be diagnosable as such, I've never been a terribly exuberant person, and on the whole I would say my moods haven't changed much. I have, however, been unable to make decisions of late. When faced with anything as unsubstantial as choosing dinner, to far more substantial considerations such as obtaining a new vehicle, my mind has been spinning in double time, racing down the possible repercussions of the decision, ultimately losing the thread and making no decision.

Despite this, the world has kept turning, and a few things of note HAVE happened, and I'll give you a quick rundown before we get back to introspection.

First, some romance, or lack thereof. An old friend of mine from back home and I have been hooking up every month or so for a while now, and it hasn't been a particularly healthy relationship. At first, we were friends with benefits, an arrangement that was initially her idea. Now, I'm not one for casual sex of the one night stand variety, but I am comfortable with non monogamy, and a big proponent of polyamorous relationships. Miny, on the other hand is not, and also doesn't support intercourse without the magical 'committed' tag on a relationship, and of late, has been hinting that she is looking for more than our mostly casual relationship. I do realize that I'm somewhat to blame for this, my behavior when we've been around each other has hardly been 'casual.' I'm just not good at acting like buddies with somebody that I'm sleeping with, I fall without realization into 'boyfriend mode.'

All of this would be inconsequential if it weren't for her looking for more of a commitment. I hate to think that I'm commitment shy, but I have a hard time putting a solid reason behind my dislike for the idea of being, in the usual sense of the word, 'serious' with her. We haven't been clicking in bed, though this seems to be a one sided issue, and frankly something I would be willing to write off until we were both giving it our all in bed, which I don’t believe she has. There's also a distance consideration, she lives an hour and a half away, and will soon be moving back up to our home town to do student teaching. I've done far longer distance relationships with no qualms before, so while a contributing factor, I certainly don't think of it as a deal breaker. Once again, I come back to my indecisiveness, I keep trying to imagine a long term relationship with her, and I just don't find anything there that appeals greatly to me.

I also, in August, I finally came out to my parents, and I'd like to offer a bit of advice to any younger LGBT folks that may stumble upon this blog at some point. Kids, do yourself a favor, and either, A) come out early, or B) act gay enough that it's not going to be a surprise to anybody. I'm fully aware that the second part of that advice seems particularly crass, since part of the whole point of the LGBT movement is to be yourself, but after getting burned like I did, I honestly think that fagging it up early and letting yourself calm down a bit after coming out would make an easier path.

My grandfather was in the hospital for about a month between July and August, and it was obvious from his condition that he was most likely not making it back home, two bouts with rheumatic fever in his life and several cardiac surgeries had left him in very poor condition, and stresses were high throughout the family. I had been up north to visit him in the hospital, and while having lunch with my mother and a cousin, she asked for what seemed the millionth time, if I had a girlfriend and let fly a gem that I had heard several times throughout my teens, despite having a girlfriend more often than not.

'You do like girls, right?'

I sat there, and took the question like I had so many times before, rolling my eyes and giving a hearty sigh. Now, I would like to point out that I honestly do not think that my mother thought I was gay. I don't think that the question came out of nowhere, but I do believe that she had herself thoroughly convinced that she only used the question as a joke. I was involved with Miny at the time, but we had a mutual agreement that we weren't discussing our relationship with people from home, since we weren't serious. I don't know if it was just the last time that I could take the question, if it was the stress of my grandfather's condition, or if it was finally time to be done with the charade, but I snapped a little bit, I didn't blurt anything out right then and there, but I did call my parents to days later and explained that yes, I do like girls, but that I also like boys.

Silence.

Silence from both of them, I had called them separately, and they both had the same reaction. I've mulled over the range of reactions that I could have received, and frankly, silence is fairly high up on the list when it comes to terrible reactions to deal with. Yelling I could have gotten angry about, and crying  can be dealt with in a way, but silence allows for no possible action. With something as difficult as coming out, the only thing I could really do was blurt out the words and wait, it took all I had in me to just do that, I had emptied my magazine.

Since then, the party line has been 'we're not talking about it.' My father has been by far, the better of the pair; our relationship hasn't changed noticeably, but it seems that my mother can barely stand me She's been drinking much more heavily, goes vague and vacant whenever the subject of conversation runs anywhere close to sex or sexuality, and is always a few moments away from staring at me blankly for a moment and tearing up. In short, it's been a bit nerve wracking, and I grow weary of it. Of course, my method of delivery, and the fact that I managed to wait for a decade, only to lose my head and blurt it out right before I knew my grandfather was about to die, put some of the blame on me, but it's now been five months, and with the exception that my mother and I can once again talk on the phone, we've made no real progress. Well, I guess I'll take what I can.

It was shortly after coming out to my parents that I noticed my neuroses were getting worse. I've always had a trace of OCD, but the symptoms are beginning to get a bit out of control. I've never been comfortable with food on my plate touching, but when that was my only symptom, it was presentable as a quirk, much like my synesthesia. Recently however, I've been increasingly paranoid, washing my hands until they're raw or I've burnt them, and being obsessive about cleaning to the point of sterilization in the kitchen. I've also been more prone to talking to myself of late, never really when people are around, but I've been catching myself arguing with myself enough of late that It's been concerning me. I've been growing more distant to my friends, stopped writing, sketching, and designing, and all but stopped doing one of my favorite things in the world, cooking.

Until now. I've been around the argument in my head a hundred times, and I seem to have finally convinced myself that I NEED to change, or risk doing permanent damage to myself physically or mentally, for you see, my friends, I've not been well.