ANOTHER YEAR GOES BY...

It really is amazing how time flies when you're having a good time. In the big picture, it flies whether or not you are having a good time, and the older you get the faster it flies.

Having just been through three Goat-less weeks, which seems plenty to complain about, I know that time does not always fly. Far from it. We are a little more than two days away from our first rendez-vous [my next 300-odd mile drive], and I can taste it already. Yes, he went away, but he is also coming back. And he is there to begin with, which is more than I ever thought I would be able to say a year ago, and more than I could have hoped for nine months ago. I have no complaints about 2007, thank you; I only hope 2008 continues the trend...

and there are certain events this coming year which make me think that 2009 may be an improvement as well...

New Year's Eve is one of my little crowd's two big events of the year, and we try to raise enough money at each of them to bankroll the next one. (So far, so good.) I drove over to stay with the Ocean View people, and we spent hours throwing what had seemed like a lifetime supply of decorations at the hotel conference room where the dinner dance was being held, and they wound up looking thin and, well, thrown together. (The decorations, that is, not the OV people...) Well, thank God it's not an event about decorations: it's about drinking and dancing.

Some of you may remember that last year at about this time, I had just chucked my intention of not "acting out" for a year, and had decided to act out at the first opportunity. I was sort of hoping New Year's might provide one, but it was largely a straight crowd, and the only other people who set off my gaydar were either not interested or not particularly interesting. Now was that because I already had the Goat on board as my criterion of a desirable guy? In any case, I drank and danced some, and had a good enough time.

This year, I was looking forward to getting laid just as much, but had the very pleasant prospect of the pieces falling into place in a week's time. So I spent less time drinking and dancing, more in conversation, and generally had just as good a time, if a less charged one. Maybe I'm growing up... but don't make any bets on it. I admit I crashed after the party, as I had after the Goat left. in spite of his imminent return, because I came back to a house with only me in it. What sort of fun is that?

In fact, for those of you are keeping track, I drank an entire bottle of wine on my own for the first time in my life the night after. And it wasn't even very good. I went through every salty treat in the house, and even a few of the not-so-salty, not-so-crunchy ones. Not that there was that much to go through, but I was clean out of celery and carrots, which sometimes head the crunch demon off at the pass.

Just another sad, self-loathing homosexual.
Well, Boys in the Band isn't all fantasy...

Here's the odd thing. When I was contemplating leaving home, one of my nearest and dearest pointed out that there had not been a long line of men knocking at my door in the last thirty years [well, none she knew about], so what made me think that anybody would come knocking now? What made me so sure I would ever find anybody? And she only voiced what I pretty much thought myself. Having spent ten years in New York, I don't have a lot of illusions about the standards of twinks and trolls, let alone the combination. My Carolina sister opined that I would only find gold-diggers or other trolls, and didn't have the money for the one or the stomach for the other. Where do people get these ideas, anyway?

Well, here we are; not just a man knocked at my door, but the man who drove [drives] me crazier than I have ever been driven before in my life. Is that a gift from God or what? Maybe that's why I feel I am in so deep I don't know whether I'll sink or swim. Now, it's true I have only been deeply in love once before in my life, so I can't claim vast experience, but it does seem to me that being hit by lightning twice in one lifetime is something to be thankful for.

It has occurred to me that my own need to love is probably a large part of my response to the Goat. And I am quite aware of his shortcomings, as I am of my own. So all may not be as it seems, and it may yet come apart at the seams. Let tomorrow take care of itself, say I, I'm living it up today. Worst case: a great story to look back on.

It took an act of Congress to get more than 24 hours with him in the beginning, or so it seemed to me. [Some of that may have had to do with the continued presence of the RBF...] Then we spent a couple of weekends together, and that was nice. October saw us spend four whole days together, and that was nicer still. We spent nine days together over the Thanksgiving break [his break, my "personal days"] and that was incredible. (I suppose being separated for three weeks might just be the price I pay for that, aside from the fact that it coincided with not having my kids for Christmas. It's a lousy holiday to be, or even just feel, alone.) And now we look forward to another four-day weekend, for which he has sort-of-almost promised to come here, and then in March, three whole weeks together far away in the sun.

For the record: I am not complaining.
I'm sure I'll start up again sometime soon, but for now I'm not.
Really not.

Life is so much better than it was, that I actually spend more time worrying about when the pendulum will swing me back into the Slough of Despond, than I do looking for things to complain about now. Even downsizing to two rooms in someone else's house with no kitchen seems to be a perfectly sensible thing to do, under the circumstances. [To think I once thought I could swing a house in the Big Woods... HA!]

My eldest son actually tried to apologize to me after getting my e-mail, apologizing about voicing my bitterness about the shortness of the visit[s]. So one of us has this whole thing by the wrong end of the stick. My second son wrote a positively rapturous e-mail about how wonderful getting out of debt made him feel -- the most I have heard from him in over a year. What on earth was I doing when I should have been teaching my children to communicate? It would be so nice to have them trained to write or call once a week, or even once a month... Well, you bring 'em up and then they just are the way they are, and you have to live with it. Let their therapists sort it out...

So, it's 2008 and things are looking up.

So I pray for all those I know and all those I don't know, for whom things are not looking up at the moment. Life always seems to produce an awful lot of each, but everybody only gets so much time at the "up" trough before they hit a "down" spell.

So, hang in there, all.
Living happy is the best revenge.
I hope you get a chance to try...
C