Saturday, May 20, 2006

ROLLER COASTER RIDE...
HOW MUCH LONGER?

Recently, everyone seems to agree that there is no way forward except out of my marriage. I have found this troubling, as I couldn’t really see how they could be so sure that it was right for ME to leave twenty-six years of loving companionship behind, to break up something that has been my rock for so long – and, of course, the inevitable question: for WHAT?


But this morning at 4:30 I had a little epiphany: everyone telling me to make peace with living the queer life is only reflecting back to me what I’m saying to them — but when I say it, I can’t hear myself. “I’ve fallen in love with someone I know next to nothing about.” “I’m losing my mind because somebody else falls off the wagon and finds a motel room.” "I told a guy many time zones away: 'I love you,' though I hardly know what I mean." Each one of these little steps is a line crossed, a step on a road that to the rest of the world rolls out in one direction only. And I am beginning to see that the rest of the world has one thing on me: it isn’t trying to deny what’s happening. Even if I hadn’t seen it coming, those last three little words told even me that I had finally crossed not just a line, a bridge, or a border. I was crossing a barricade. And that means something. Indeed, those three words nearly always do. We can quarrel about what precisely they mean, but they are never uttered without meaning or danger, or both. Let’s say: both.

And here something from a long-ago post arises again. When I have to admit that I have betrayed my marriage vows, however physically far the person and evanescent the connection, I have become the kind of person I for one was never going to be. I have joined a larger community than the gay community; I have cheated, betrayed my beloved, my spouse. And in confronting my "difference", I find I have in fact become just like everyone else.

When I have to admit to betrayal, I am told that on some level I have already left home. And I can’t deny it. I have set forth in a dark night, but my house is so far from “sosegada,” it might as well be on another planet. It feels more like the House of Usher, trembling on the brink of ruin.

I have been on a roller-coaster for so long that I no longer trust the sense that
ANYTHING is finally settled. But forget what lies ahead — there is just less and less of a way around the simple facts of what I have already done. So, here is the new certainty, so closely resembling the old certainty: I have only to make the way ahead as easy as possible for everyone else, and let the chips fall where they may. God help me.

6 comments:

  1. betrayal is like dropping
    a fragile and precious piece of glass

    something you've carried along for so long
    cared for
    protected
    tended to

    but when you drop it, some cracks appear

    and you look at it in despiration
    trying to look beyond the cracks to remember
    the beautiful perfection that was there before.

    hoping there's someway you can hide these new flaws
    splintering the light like icicle daggers

    speaking out a new truth,
    for something that wasn't meant to be there in the first place
    forever scarred
    with spaces only big enough to fill with tears

    ReplyDelete
  2. JadedB:

    actually, I think what happens is more than cracks. It's more like it falls apart in your hands. There's nothing clearer than the difference between a crystal goblet and the shards of it to make clear that the whole is more than the sum of the parts...

    the
    Troll

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  3. This subject is the reason why I started my blog. Can we actually "restore" our vows that we have violated? This does not mean that we don't have same sex attractions...we readily admit this fact.

    What practical advise are we going to put into practice to prevent our cheating ways? Deleting some chat accounts? Cutting some ties with easy hookups? Some brutal accountability? I don't know.....

    For me, I think I enjoy the intimacy more than the sex. I am not going to sugar coat it though. It is still adultery...period.
    I am not proud of this fact....it just is.

    Thanks for your honesty here. Email me if you would like....I feel your pain.

    ReplyDelete
  4. RV:

    While I do indeed believe that "with God nothing is impossible", I think that most women are simply not interested in staying married to someone who can't stay committed to them, whether they are looking for sex or intimacy, and whether it's with a man or another woman. And why should they?

    I have for once an advantage from living in my head. The "falls" and "affairs" I am experiencing as part of the second adolescence that EVERYONE seems to agree is part of coming out, esp. late in life, are something I can learn from BEFORE I go out into the real world. Well, at least I HOPE I learn something. At the moment, it's still too much like catching on fire...

    I think myself that the threat is greatest from relationships of the heart rather than hook-ups, though I know that that's what some people get most riled up about.

    But betrayal doesn't really start to mean something until Other People do.

    Mea maxima culpa.

    The Troll

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  5. I am (as usual) without advice for you. But I am here should you need me.
    I am hoping for the very best for you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bigg:
    Thanks. However, I think it goes without saying that "the very best" is not what is going to hit the fan.
    The
    Troll

    ReplyDelete