Sunday, March 11, 2007

ANOTHER DAY...
ANOTHER CALLER...

The Far-Flung Voice checked in tonight, and did his usual job of making me laugh. He's really good at it.

It's true that he only intends to make me laugh some of the time, but the laughter feels just as good either way. Everyone should have such a friend, especially one who's willing to call up when you're blue and talk you out of it. Of course it turned out that he had called because he was feeling blue, and I did my best to talk him out of it. Mostly I laughed, and got him to laugh some of the time; I don't claim to have his skills...

But he has several themes that always crop up: how brave I was to come out [!], how I deserve to be happy [!], how I have helped him take the next steps in turn...

I must have been completely drunk the last time we talked, because I apparently gave him a timetable to come out by. This is a man who still has to negotiate the tortured pathways of his divorce. Like mine it is uncontested, thank God; there are, however, minor children, and that means more complications than I had to deal with. My heart goes out to all men who have to face the task of coming out to kids who have no clue what's going on, but are just picking up on the emotional storms of the people they count on to make the world go 'round. It's not a path that I can contemplate with anything like equanimity, yet apparently I told the poor guy to get his act together and come out.

OK, that was stupid, especially as it was the advice that really got my goat back when I was on the fence, so I feel bad about it. My only excuse is that he seemed to be doing things that were going to lead to him "outing" himself more or less by accident -- just blundering into it to avoid making a choice that is still fraught. So I told him to pick a date after his divorce and work backwards from it, and figure out who he needed to talk to when... so he had control of his coming out and not other people, or gossip, or rumor, or innuendo... maybe that wasn't so bad; at least it's practical. It's less the trees than the forest, though: it isn't as though my life were in such great shape that people are knocking the door down to find how I manage it... So, on the whole: What on earth was I thinking???

The moral of this particular sordid story is:

NEVER GIVE ADVICE.
Ever.


Not that any of you would be stupid enough to wade into someone else's life like that... or to take my advice if I offered it...

Anyway, I was feeling pretty down when he called, and pretty up when we finished. It was after midnight his time, and he has to go to work tomorrow, as we all do. I can't really figure out how we ever manage to meet up, as he is never on-line when I am, unless I'm at work, but every once in a while he goes on-line at home, and we have the luxury of actually talking, sometimes, like tonight, for up to an hour,

FOR FREE. Thank you, Google. I know there are people out there who think you are an evil empire on the scale of Microsoft, but I will always be grateful for the way you make it possible to connect across time-zones and national borders, and do it all for free. I can't think of a better gift, really. If I could only get ALL my friends onto Gmail, I would be all set.

Oh, and remember my long-time friend to whom I finally admitted that I had loved him, in one way or another, for thirty years? The guy whose name I took to travel under here in Blogville? Well, he checked in today, too, and my first thought was: OHMYGOD, I have to get him on Gmail and GTalk and...

Anyway, it was one of those awkward e-mails that let me know that my letter [outing myself] had arrived, and that he had started a reply. Instead of just SENDING the reply, by e-mail. Well, we all have our learning curves when it comes to electronics, and I guess he is still at a fairly early place, and hasn't yet learned to dash things off and then hit the "send" button and then realize what a mistake sending that one was... like me...

Well, give him a year or two, and he'll be in the same boat, praying that people will understand what he meant and not what he said...

But, having spent a lot of the day sniveling about my isolation and how I don't seem to have the guts or other relevant wherewithal to break out of it, it was great to hear from them both, and remember what does actually make the world go 'round: other people and the love they offer. It's the best thing we do as carbon-based life-forms. And I got a phone call inviting me to dinner, from my friends with the children trained in literary criticism; it's true, it's another dinner with my eldest brother, who is down visiting -- you know, the one who waxed so eloquent on the subject of lesbians and real estate in his county and on his road. but it's well worth the drive to see our common friends and make a caustic remark or two at the stupidities voiced by the young. The Big City always gives me an opportunity to do something stupid that I would never do at home. I might give the Cutting Edge Cathedral a pass this time, though...

A friend recently told me that I posted too much for him to read. That sounds like a polite request for me to stop posting so much, and when my life actually has something going on in it, I may take his adivce. Until then...

You can all stay tuned.

Hang in there.
I do my best.
.

1 comment:

  1. Be assured, it was good for my soul. I went to bed smiling and slept well. The laughter really is good for the soul.

    ReplyDelete