Sunday, July 20, 2008

YES, THIS IS THE DAY...


Here we are, two years later. Or rather, here I am, alone. Not a good day to be alone, but it no longer tears at me as it did last year. Last year at this time the Goat showed the depth of his commitment by being with me as all my anniversaries (my leaving home, my wedding, my divorce) left their bloody marks on me...

This year, I do feel calmer, but I have no Goat at hand.

I would like to call Isis and see how she's doing, on the off chance that two years have diminished her need to respond to any advance with "Leave me alone." But I don't have the courage; I think things are still too raw for me to say what I want to say. And there is a lot to say: what I've learned about myself in the last two years, what I've learned about being a lover, and how I failed her by not being able to give her what she wanted most. I thought my heart was enough. Silly me.

Now I know what it means to call and answer the deepest wiring in our flesh, and it was something that for all our love for each other, I never felt we could share...

I still love her, but the strange thing is that the agony of withdrawal has scarred over, and it is a quiet, more retrospective love, a yearning more than anything for her company, her affection, the great pleasure of sitting around the table as a family, talking, joking, sharing food and laughter. There is no substitute for the spirit of a house two people create, and usher others into; all real, living communities live by opening up and inviting others in. Yes, I know that families sometimes leave more scars than memories of pleasure, but that is rarely the whole story.

I am still struggling, but beginning, to understand how for so many gay men, their former lovers form that family, the place where, in Robert Frost's words,
Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.

I should have called it

Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.

There are the same shared jokes and affection, memory struggling with the demands of the present--which is not to deny that it makes a huge difference whether "family" is defined by having slept together or by not sleeping together. And scars are left here, too, along with the memories of pleasure. As I say, I am still struggling...

Does anyone know if Drew of "Drew's Brave New World" is in fact our Drew, author of the GMM blog with the best name of all time, "Closetman," as well as the proud sequel, "Drew's Next Step"?

Just wondering...
C

2 comments:

  1. My 2¢ ... I think that yes you should reach out to Isis, but probably not today. Not on an anniversary. Some people can be just so damned sensitive about such things.

    However, you two will remain -- forever -- the parents of your children. That alone is reason to share the good times.

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  2. I am coming up on the two year anniversary of my gay-ex-husband leaving the house after 19 years of marriage. I wouldn't want him to contact me on our wedding anniversary, the anniversary of him being kicked out of the house (after he lied to my face about being sexually active in the gay community before he told me he was gay), or the anniversary of our divorce. What is there left to say? He has said he is sorry for the pain he has caused. He has said he is sorry for not loving me.

    Imagine that you and the goat stayed in your committed relationship for 20 years and then he told you that he didn't want to be with you anymore. Would you then want him to contact you on anniversaries of special times with him?

    Or would you want to make the cleanest break possible and get on with your life without intermitent contact from him with the unspoken message - "sure there were happy times together, but I'm happier without you in my new life"?

    My ex wants us to be closer - to be good friends. I don't think that is a very reasonable desire given the one-sided dose of hurt and pain that his confusion caused, whether intentional or not.

    By the way, I think Drew's Next Step is active again, but you have to have to be an approved reader to access it. I don't think Drew's Brave New World is the same guy.

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