525,600 MINUTES...

This is to mark the passing of an incredible anniversary. Just one year ago today I posted my first piece on this blog, repeating a comment I left on Drew's Next Step .

I still don't remember how I found him and the Toasted Bear. But I did. And since then there has been a fair amount of change in the world, in my world at least.

It's been one hell of a ride.

So, for those who have forgotten, here's my old opener:

Gay,
Married,
Christian, and
Mad as the March Hare...

And here is my first post, from last March 25th:

This is possibly a unique event in cyberspace -- a completely unintentional blog. I had been reading Closet Man [now Drew's Next Step] and Mind of A Bear, and found that much that they posted resonated with my own experience. So I wanted to send a line to Drew, and thought I needed an account to make a posting... imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a blog account I was opening. Well, so be it.

Here is what I had to say to Drew:

Drew:

I don't even remember where I found the link to your blog; I do know that while our stories are not entirely the same, we inhabit the same emotional minefield. Thank you for being there.
I have been holding back from acting on what was made clear to me over twelve years ago -- because even mentioning the subject caused my wife so much distress. And I am not talking about sleeping with other people -- just admitting to everyone else, as I admitted to myself long ago, that I am gay. I honor your hesitation to "act out"; for me it is simply a question of fidelity, if the word can mean anything simple under the circumstances.

Things are a bit messier for me, in that my self-loathing has little to do with being gay, and everything to do with the fact that it is the world of leather, and Tom of Finland in particular, that makes me light up like a Christmas tree. Finding out that a big component of the leather world is the "daddy" fixation was like hitting a brick wall for me, and in retrospect a lot of things began to make sense that I had long denied. [Sound familiar?]

Unlike many of your blog compatriots, I was bisexually active in college, always desiring men and enjoying women [still pretty much the status quo, though after thirty years without any experience on one side of the street, who knows?]. I freaked out some people who weren't ready for my declarations of love, met with great compassion from others, found that love often did not survive a good whiff of the gym socks, and generally got away with murder.

What changed my life was a religious experience after college, as part of which I decided I could no longer act on my homosexual desires. Nowadays, that would not necessarily follow, but then, for me, it did. Thirty years later, however, I am beginning to see that if there has been no change in me by now, there probably won't be in the time I have left; and what I want is the freedom to be openly who and what I am. That is not simple. Because it requires some kind of balance between "who" I am: a man who chose to marry, and believes that marriage, and particularly his marriage, is a sacrament; with "what" I am: a particular flavor of gay man. Did I say it made sense? No, but it's my life.

In any case, I just wanted to say that I suspect the role that religion has played in our lives, for good and ill, is part of what led you, and the Bear Mind, and me, to where we are today. But it's also what makes our lives worthwhile and worth living. Did I say it made sense? No, but it's my life.

Well, that's more than enough for one day...
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