Apologies From Your. Humble Servant

My apologies to any (and all) for being unable to post to my blog, CPU & wireless router issues made it nigh unto impossible to do much more than open/answer emails.  But, I'm back on-line now (I don't want to say anything lest I jinx something and live to regret it.

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental,

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self,

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss,

To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,

To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure,

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing,
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing,
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live,

Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom,
Only a person who risks is free,
The pessimist complains about the wind,

The optimist expects it to change,
And the realist adjusts the sails.

With thanks & gratitude to the blog-master of "Wandering Caravan"

Volunteering At Fudger House! Yes!

I saw Stephanie, Fudger Volunteer Coordinator (http://www.toronto.ca/ltc/fudger.htm), last Tuesday.  I was brave and asked for an opportunity to volunteer.  I start next Wednesday (May 19th) substituting for the guy running the bar while he's away for six weeks (doing another of his roles, six weeks as a cruise director, to the Mediterranean, fortunate guy).  It felt good to do something concrete to relieve my anxiety. I needed to have the police expedite my clearance. No need!  It arrived in the mail today.  So, it's all clear and I can now figure a way to get my placement done as well.

Playing Catch-Up!

I'm writing before I lose the thought..... It's strange to say I have something to say but I can't tell you all of it... You'll just have to believe that I've learned this evening that even the smallest victory is significant.  I did something very mundane (to other people) for the first time and I DID it!  Something I'd been so wary of.... Just another step to a New! Improved! Sa'ad! Talia!

Dentist Days # 3

The third, and final extraction. There's greater discomfort and, for whatever reason, it involves my inner ear.  Rhetorical question: What is it about dentists and root-canal work?  This man talked about root-canal work before every filling.
The entire day has been overcast and soggy.  I must have looked a sight with my large, rainbow-colored parasol to protect me from the gentle elements.  Bloor West Village was as pretty as it was sodden, in an evocative mix of light fog & drizzle. I've popped a pain-killer and decided to stay home and dry.

Humor: # 1 - "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

        'The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with poison; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true'
        'They've broken the vessel with the pestle and replaced it with a flagon with the figure of a dragon on it.  Now the pellet with the poison's in the chalice from the palace and the flagon with the dragon has the brew that is true'

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

Across A Crowded Room

I started in narrative fashion and was unhappy with the result.  I'm trying to write the truth and an absolute minimum.  I am describing an experience.  I fear that whatever I say will not be adequate, I feel so much emotion and am trying to write objectively about what was (and is) totally subjective.

     I went to an office downtown, doing by-election work for the municipality.  I rode the elevator to the seventh floor - I was anticipating something, like I was coming home.  Inside the office, instead of talking to the receptionist, I moved left, toward a side room.
     There were two men at a desk.  One of them was tall, perhaps middle to late 40s, looking at me.  I had never seen this man before, yet I stood there, waiting for him to come and talk to me.  I knew he'd been waiting patiently for me, missing me.  Just like I had ached to see him.  I felt like I was coming home, returning to this man.  I felt great joy, I was relieved to be back, relieved I was looking at this man with whom I had a loving, strong stable relationship.
     His expression was wonderful.  He looked so happy to see me. He really had been waiting for me. Somehow, he'd known I'd be coming.  I could see he felt the connection as much as I did. Then I looked down and saw his wedding ring.  It made me turn away, disappointed, just in time to answer the receptionist's questions.
     I saw him a total of three times.  Each time, there was no opportunity to speak to him, though I tried to make myself available, sitting in the foyer, staying by the water-cooler, .  Every time I saw him, my heart would pound, I'd get cotton-mouth, my hands and knees would tremble.  I'd be happy, sad, angry, disappointed, lost & resentful.  I knew he'd had the same emotions about me.  He couldn't keep the knowledge from me, just as he knew how I was feeling.
     When we looked at each other, there was some deep, deep soul-conncection - as if we had been lovers, partners, something serious and permanent.  My hands would itch to touch him, my arms felt empty, my eyes would  start to tear up.  He was always there - He'd look at me.  I knew him then, somewhere deep inside me, just as I know him now.  He's out there.  He belongs to me. I wish I could see him, talk to him, hold him, listen to his voice, come home to him.
     I know I hadn't met this man before the experience and I've never seen him again.  I wonder where he is, if he's okay, if he misses me, if he think of me at all.   I haven't mentioned this to anyone before and keeping silent has been very difficult.  I can't believe I'd have this connection with somebody and not know who he is or what he is to me.

I'm driven to write about him.  Perhaps this will find him and bring him to me. 

A Relationship vs Freedom

     I don't want someone because it's a good idea, and I don't want them because it's a bad one.  And it isn't a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence.  Those are just words.  The truth is, I don't know how to say what I want or even what the hell it is.
     I started thinking about the word "freedom".  I always think about it, I say I have it, but the fact is, I can't ever get there.  No matter how free I am, there's always one more restriction I could get rid of that would make me a little bit more free.  The only way I can get there, really, is to be God.  But, I'm not God, obviously.  I'm only halfway there.
     The world is set up so that we humans imagine something like freedom, and want it, but just by the nature of being who we are, we'll never have it.  And, freedom's not the only thing that's like that.  But at least we know the name of it.  There's something we want that we not only can't have, we can't even know what it is.

     If you talk about the grass being greener on the other side, you're saying that it's just an illusion, it's the same grass that's over here.  Deep down, we're convinced there is another side, and the grass is really greener there; in fact it's a whole different thing, it's not even grass anymore, and that's where we really belong.  And the things we want on this side, it's not that we don't want them, but what we really want is what they represent.  That other thing, whatever it is that we can't have.

Dentist Days # 2

     There've been a number of sessions between Dentist Days # 1 and # 2.  Dentist Days're remarkable because of an extraction.  Today, the removal was a tedious struggle to remove the offending tusk!  Eventually, the deed was done.
     I sit, tongue avoiding the sutures Chatty-Cathy-ing with you.  I'd mention the heroics, gore, sanguine bundles of gauze, if I could wring some pity from you.  I do ask you to note my dedication (and opportunism), with no topic left unaddressed.  Dentist Day # 3 is in early April.  I'll comment then.. Ta-ta from my bed of pain!

To Be Or Not To Be, That Is The Question

     I live in Supported Housing.  This building, High Park Villa (HPV henceforth), is one of ten rooming houses for people with mood disorders. I moved here in January, 2009.  The buildings belong to a numbered company. 
     The numbered company buys two buildings at a time.  Both are gutted & re-furbished.  One building becomes part of the not-for-profit lineup.  The other is a rental or flipped (sold for a profit).
     Habitat Housing, a Not-For-Profit, handles intake, monitoring, advocacy, care, feeding and oversight of (approximately) 500 individuals in these homes around Toronto. HPV is considered the "Cadillac" of the ten locations.  I'm always amused by the "Cadillac" reference - Do they mean the others are bumper-cars on the highway of life? Or, Haven't they heard of General Motor's troubles?
     Habitat workers set up various activities - coffee outings, Mickey D's for ice-cream, Bingo and movies.  Last Wednesday's (the 17th of March) special treat was a St. Paddy's Day dance.  All the ready, willing and able residents congregated at The 519 Church Street Community Centre. There were pizzas, fresh fruit for after, soft drinks, little green Derbys and plastic favors, and so on.  One of the loons was DJ-ing and there were door prizes.  The male-female ratio was something like 8-9 men to every female.  From what I've seen in the past 15 months, this disparity is reflected in the residents of most of the locations.
The 519 is where I've been volunteering for the last three years, with the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer) Seniors' Monday Afternoon Drop-In.  This program is the only one of its kind in North America and I'm very fortunate to be included in their roster of volunteers.

     The attendees were a conglomeration of every mood disorder known to mankind and science.  The dancers - there was a giant leprechaun, a Santa Clause gone wrong, in a green t-shirt as far as his sternum, a giant belly and shiny, tiny shorts.  Upon his chrome-dome was a wee green fedora.  The memorable parts of the leprechaun was the previously mentioned belly and a beard like Gandalf Lord Of The Rings. There was a woman running around doing "The Bump", creating mayhem with her left hip.  There were yet others who were totally unselfconscious, dancing alone and doing their own thing/s. Watching them was hilarious & enlightening due to my split perception.
     One of my facets is the healthy, balanced person with enough control and self-awareness to venture out alone, go to school, start a new career, etc. Keeping that healthy individual in mind, there have been times when I've asked myself what I'm doing here in Supported Housing when, evidently (evident to me at least), I don't belong here.
     Another facet needs lots of quiet time, daily naps and solitude. This Sa'ad only ventures as far as the dining room (one floor down) twice or thrice a day.   There are times when I look at what I'm saying, thinking or doing and and tell myself it's a good thing I live here.  If I lived anyplace else, men in white coats would come after me with elephant tranquilizers and a super-sized butterfly net!
     The things I gained from watching the attendees, people who were oblivious to the onlookers, dancing for love of movement, the music, the freedom to just get out there and do what THEY pleased, without fear or favor.  I envied them their lack of self-awareness, if that was what I was seeing.  A woman alone on the dance-floor, moving in time to the pounding beat, her eyes closed, a beatific expression on her face. "The Bump" lady, doing her hip-thing, clearly enjoying what she was up to, ignoring the dismayed faces of her "victims" and rushing off to go accost somebody else. The giant leprechaun, unashamed of his equally giant belly, greeted everyone.  I wondered about their back-stories, diagnoses, prognoses and their understanding of themselves, of their self-images.
     So, here's the $64,000 question.... When Sa'ad is mentally and/or emotionally unwell, does he know he's unwell?  And, joking aside, when he's scrubbing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush, does he realize this activity stems from his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?  Or, does he say it's the right way to clean a bathroom floor and leave off the questioning?
     One of the symptoms of depression is to neglect one's personal hygiene, another is neglect of one's surroundings.  It's strange to be cleaning something and to have to ask myself,
    * Am I cleaning this to prove I'm NOT depressed?
    * Am I cleaning this because I've OCD?
    * Am I cleaning this because it NEEDS to be cleaned?
    * ALL of the above?
    * NONE of the above?

Humor As Tonic aka Self-Actualization 101

     In the subway a couple of nights ago - I was pondering an epiphany and wanted to write a note at once.  I was nibbling my ball-point and gazing off into space, deep in choosing adjectives and ruminating on run-on sentences.
     I became aware of a young couple, he (Nat 'King' Cole lookalike fitness purveyor, embossed red leather jacket), she (60's Nudist Lifestyle, peroxided French Braid).  I began to understand I must have stared right at or through her in my brown study.  She'd informed him of my supposed "interest" which was why they kept craning, staring, glancing at each other and laughing.
     It appeared they thought I was leering at her; all I thought was I'd looked vaguely at them once or twice .  I was caught up in grammatical deliberations and perhaps they perceived me as a weirdo from 999 Queen West (the old asylum from where they turfed all the resident loons) now CAM-H {Center for Addictions and Mental Health) or a lecherous middle-aged brown man, muttering to himself.  Either way, I was suspect.
     The thought flashed across my brain-pan to stop looking or say something..  That thought got lost in further scribbling.  The next time I roused myself from my catharsis, the couple were gone, I'd missed my stop and the train was arriving at Jane Station. I removed myself from the train forthwith and began strolling back.
     There, on cold dark Bloor St. West and all at once, I wanted to shout as if they could hear me, "See! See! I really was involved with my writing!  I wasn't looking at Barbie!"  I amused myself so much I chuckled all the way home.  My closing thought for this was, "Here we go again!  As usual, Sa'ad thinks it's all about him!"
     Even more humorous and startling was the notion that in some intrinsic way this really IS all about me.  I should believe in myself enough to treat myself gently and not put myself down.  Not necessarily about those gym-bunnies, but in general, and in some permanent way.

Smoke, Choke, Croak!

     I came out of a friend's place and decided to have "a cigarette moment" before I caught the street-car.  The result of the two puffs I took was I realized my lungs were hurting and my mouth tasted vile.  I stubbed it out and started walking away.  A young man came up to me, with wallet open, and asked me to sell him a cigarette.
     I started to take out just one to give him when I suddenly handed him the pack and said, "Take the pack, I just quit."
     He said, "You might just have converted me!"
     My response, "It's every man for himself!" and I walked away.

Realizations arising from this:
1) I don't have to fit in to society, (at 14, I was told & certainly believed, I had to smoke to be welcome),
2) It hurts my lungs, (I was allergic & it made me hurl, yet I persevered & became an addict),
3) I don't like the stink, (I lost my sense of smell altogether),
4) I don't like the taste, (it disguised the flavor of everything I ate),
5) I don't need a crutch anymore, (I can walk away like Lazarus, free at last).

The Secret File of Good Intentions: Rule # 2

Rule # 2

The road to good intentions is paved with hell.

The Secret File of Good Intentions: Rule # I

Rule #1
No act of charity goes unpunished!

Mettle Fatigue!

"A man grows more tired while standing still.  (Chinese Proverb)

When I was unwell,  I appeared, to myself and others, to have an amazing reservoir of energy.  I'd rise at 6 AM, work for ten to twelve hours, go do a volunteer stint, have some sort of social interaction, get high & drunk and lose myself in music till I'd crash for three to four hours.  I did this daily.  Weekends meant I'd finish earlier from one thing to go on to something else.

Since 2003, with diagnoses of depression and sleep apnea, metaphorically speaking, every molehill is a mountain.  I frequently nap once or twice a day.  I break tasks into portions, making each a "baby-step" and spreading the task over the time as I have available.  Else, I start beating myself up for not accomplishing a thing.  I neglect my changed circumstances and make "a stick for my own back" (i.e. giving myself shit or disappointing somebody).  Newton said every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  For instance, I mailed a letter and bought hearing-aid batteries today.  I probably walked 3 to 4 blocks there and back.  Here I sit ready for a nap and not allowing myself that latitude.

This makes me furious at, and disappointed in, myself.  I should be calm, acknowledge my age and the changed levels of energy.  Consciously knowing isn't the same as a firm belief in myself.  Right now, I feel grotty.   I am my own worst enemy, chastising myself for situations I should take in my stride. This is a part of how I view myself vis-a-vis looks, weight, intelligence, wisdom or what have you.  This is part & parcel of my inability to accept compliments, to denigrate myself to myself and to others.  I cannot convince myself, both Id & Ego, that I am a good person, intelligent, loving, kind and worthy of every praise, love and consideration.

Dentist Days

Jokes aside, these medieval "rippers" look ghastly.  I, like many others, dislike visiting the dentist. So, lack of funds and insurance coverage has seemed a blessing in disguise. The "blessing" has backfired and I have to face cleaning, multiple fillings, and (at least) a couple of extractions - thus, today was the first of at least four visits to my new dentist. A couple of minor fillings and one wisdom tooth extracted. Aside: all four of my wisdom-teeth arrived simultaneously and with minimal discomfort. I rather liked lording it over all and sundry while talking of wisdom & teeth. Needless to say, nobody I grew up with would take my talk of wisdom seriously! And, I can't say I blame them!
As for today's session - I haven't grounds to complain. The dentist was as gentle as could be. There was minimal discomfort, some bleeding, numbness, etc. I'll be back in the chair next Monday morning. Now the process has begun, the faster it finishes, the better. Eventually, there will be bridge-work in place and I'll have overcome this hurdle before I find a job and have to pay for dental-work myself.

Life # 1

     I sought chill comfort in an analogy of death that has been with me for years.  It doesn't explain or justify.  It seems to remind me of how things are.

     Picture a very swift torrent, a river rushing down between rocky walls.  There is a long, shallow bar of sand and gravel that runs right down the middle of the river.  It is under water.  You are born and you have to stand on that narrow submerged bar, where everyone stands.  The ones born before you, the ones older than you, are upriver from you.  The younger ones stand braced on the bar downriver.  And the whole long bar is slowly moving down that river of time, washing away at the upstream end and building up downstream.
     Your time, the time of all your contemporaries, school-mates, your loves and your adversaries, is that part of the shifting  bar on which you stand.  And it is crowded at first.  You can see the way it thins out, upstream from you.  The old ones are washed away and their bodies go swiftly by, like logs in the current.  Downstream where the younger ones stand thick, you can see them flounder, lose footing, wash away.  Always there is more room where you stand, but always the swift water grows deeper, and you feel the shift of the sand and the gravel under your feet as the river wears it away.  Someone looking for a safer place can nudge you off balance, and you are gone.  Someone who has stood beside you for a long time gives a forlorn cry and you reach to catch their hand, but the fingertips slide away and they are gone.  There are the sounds in the rocky gorge, the roar of the water, the shifting gritty sound of sand and gravel underfoot, the forlorn cries of despair as the nearby ones, and the ones upstream, are taken by the current.  Some old ones who stand on a good place, well braced, understanding currents and balance, last a long time.  A Churchill, fat cigar atilt, sourly amused at his own endurance and, in the end, indifferent to rivers and the rage of waters.  Far downstream from you are the thin startled cries of the ones who never got planted, never got set, never quite understood the message of the torrent.

With thanks to the late, great John D. MacDonald, "Pale Gray For Guilt"

A State Of The Individual Post: In Limbo

A "State Of The Individual" Post  

     The blues are back again.  I'm struggling to stay afloat.  Yesterday was a total washout - napped the day away.  By early evening, I'd forced myself out to the "office" (Timothy's @ Church & Alexander).  My losing streak continued till I gave up the good fight around midnight.  So, rinse & repeat - to coin a metaphor.
     The new cook is Egyptian.  A nice guy who is toiling to jog my Arabic into working again.  I've even committed as far as to unearth my notes from immersion to which I had surrendered myself,  three hours a day, 5 days a week, for almost all of 1989..  I still read Arabic and can understand spoken Arabic if it's spoken slowly.  I've also retrieved some of my French, since everything here's bilingual.  Sadly, the longer I live here, the less I feel inclined to a French immersion course.  That'd bolster the 4+ years I spent trying to turn it in to my third language. I'm really in the mood to (formally) learn Spanish.  I want to visit South America 2010 winter, budget permitting, and my friend Patricio still living in Sao Paolo.
     While I'm dreaming of arrows to add to my quiver, I'd like to take an introduction to massage.  I had a little training from the early 80s and have since muddled along quite well.  However, it appears I have a healing talent to add to everything else. So, anything in the holistic side would be good.
     I'm working tomorrow for Elections Canada.  A 13 hour shift down The Esplanade way.  This will be my third stint.  Last year I canvassed Regent's Park for El-Farook Khaki (an immigration lawyer & NDP candidate).  Unfortunately, he didn't win, better luck next time
ABRUPT RIGHT TURN into La-La land.....
     I'm trying to keep my goals before me.  I've put it out there for the Universe to consider, while I make the probability manifest itself.  This is finally for me, by me, about me.  I recognize and allow myself to feel how proud  I am of myself.  I've survived and I have the rest of my life before me.  I can have ambitions; ambitions beyond just staying alive. I will stress the positive, I have had a second chance at everything.  I'm proud of where I finally am, my new career, a relationship in the making, and feeling like everything's as it should be.
     Why is it? That, as I'm trying hard to not be negative, I feel like I should be putting in asides, sort of a lame-brained tour-guide preaching to the choir. I can't write something, about not writing something of a thought or an opinion that was less than positive.  Round and round...... Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
     Wasn't that a negative thing to say?

Night & Day

In tragedy and despair, when an endless night seems to have fallen, hope can be found in the realization that the companion of night is not another night, that the companion of night is day, that darkness always gives way to light, and that death rules for only half of creation, life the other half.

Idealism Vs Avarice

The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system.  And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success.  And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.


Check it out:
John Steinbeck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck
Cannery Row
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannery_Row_%28novel%29

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings, 
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.  Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark , or even eagle, flew,
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.


John Gillespie Magee, Junior (June 9, 1922 – December 11, 1941)

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee,_Jr. 

Hilarity Ensues

From a textbook on family dynamics:

UNMARRIED COHABITATION: This is becoming more approved and practiced as a lifestyle, especially among younger people and Quebeckers. (My italics)

I love it.  Doesn't it just reek of Anglo-Saxon rectitude and austerity? 

Dream # 1

     I am asleep yet awake, my eyes open.  I look up at the ceiling fan which seems higher than usual.  The sheets and my body are as nothing.  All around is silence, I might as well be on a desert island.
     Compelled to rise, I fumble by the bed for my slippers.  Through the open door I go and into the hallway.  There is certainly  no other person in this empty dark house.  As I slowly walk on, I listen for my footsteps and hear the slow thud of my heart.  I am frightened and yet detached.
     The feeling grows excessively when I see just a blank wall where there should be a front door.  I don't investigate this unusual happenstance but move on weightlessly into the drawing room.  The darkness is as usual but not the absence of the hum of the air pump that supplies the fish-tank.  By now I'm feeling the chill that seems to be coming from behind those drawn curtains.  I concede to the inevitable and draw them open.  The succeeding surprise is so great that my overwhelming fear is no more and I am held spellbound, unable to stir for what seems like ages.
     Behind the curtains is a huge window.  There was one there before but the panes swung out.  This is hermetically sealed  (and I instantly comprehend that it is so with all the windows of the house).  The glass is flawless as priceless crystal, very shiny, unusually thick and glowing with the absorbed light from the scene beyond.
     Gone is the daily driveway and wall of flaking, faded-cream distemper.  Before my eyes is a panorama of heroic proportions.  Where the glass ends, begins gently rolling country-side, lush green, rich dark loam, noble trees in the far distance - set under a gray sky - stretching as far as my eyes and imagination can see.
     It is slightly overcast, maybe a faint drizzle gives it that misty look.  It is the chill of the wind that has made my teeth chatter and even the smell is at my nostrils - sharp and clean with the scent of cool, damp earth, grass, rain and open spaces.
     I feel sure that if I walk into it, the window, so real before, will let me through.  I move and bounce off the glass, hands first.  There is no reaction, no sound and no pain.  I am mildly disturbed to note that I leave no palm prints.
     So I go back to watching it all.  The breeze stiffly ruffles the waves of grass, sways the trees and whips the wheeling, keening birds up and away.  I ache to step through and go walking away, over the hills to some unseen destination.  But I'm held here, forced to look upon what I desire most.  Hard as I try to look away, my eyes dwell on each play of light and shadow, the captivity unbearable, the pain indescribable.
     Subjective hours pass as I am chilled to the bone, uncaring, untiring.  Finally, I reluctantly turn from my dream, leaving the curtains open - I know it is out there and I hope to be part of it someday.  My captivity is all the more bitter because of what I have just seen.  I stumble back to bed and lie in the icy sheets, trembling with rage and loss.
     Suddenly, it is morning and I am awake.  Now the windows can be opened and the front door is where it should be and yet, the barriers of the dream are unchanged, real as ever, insurmountable.

Six Commonplaces

One part of love is innocence,

One part of love is guilt,

One part the milk, that in a sense 

Is soured as soon as spilt.

One part of love is sentiment,

One part of love is lust,

One part is the preesentiment

Of our return to dust.

Mr. Wonderful, Part 1

     I've just spent an excellent evening out with my fiance (more on this anon). Volunteer Appreciation Night at the 519 Community Center, Church Street.  I've volunteered with the Senior LGBTQ Monday Drop-In for almost three years now.  However, this actually was the first time I've been out (socially) with Ian since he proposed.
     Hanging out with Ian's always been great but the evening was infinitely better with him at my side.  90% of the time we see things in a contextual way.  I don't have to learn a stranger's ways, I already know a great deal of this man and it's easy for me.
     I've avoided intimacy.  I feared that, if I didn't please the person I was with, in some fashion, they would leave me.  Obviously, I believed their departure would be doubly distressing because, not only had I lost a lover, I had also lost a friend.  And that's all it would take - my fear would consume me.
     I feel embarrassed.  I've spent three years learning to love Ian as a friend, warts and all, so to speak.  We'd go backwards and forwards.  Yet, we always got together again, sooner or later.  Till Ian proposed.  And now I find Ian's teaching me to let go my fears and learn to care for him in a completely different way..
     I was facetiously lamenting the lack of new men in the Village.  An acquaintance asked me what would happen if somebody of the village shows me facets of himself he's never shown others.  Well, now I have the answer.  If people say I'm a South Asian social butterfly, Ian's one of Scottish extraction, and then some! And, he's doing exactly what we were talking about.
    When Ian proposed, I thought it was a joke.  He was pulling my leg. Sooner or later, the other shoe was going to drop. It's taken just a short while to realize he's completely serious and he isn't going away.  Since I narrate in metaphor, he's chipping away at the citadel.   He's showing me things about himself that I've never seen.  I think my jig's up.
     Remember my line "I'm off on a new adventure"?  So easy to say, so scary to do.  Well, it's the only way I know to live life.  I learned from Phyllis.  She lived in the moment because she always believed that was all the time she had........ I am ever her son.  I jump off the deep end and see where the tide's  going.to take me.
     Nowadays, it seems to Mother Earth & homo sapiens are saying, "Where are we going? And, what's with this hand-basket?" Yet, we go on living our lives..... Ian's and I, it seems, will be traveling together.
     So, ladies and germs, I give you Ian Grant, my fiance, Mr. Wonderful! And I am NOT being facetious.
    

Patience

"......... the story of a demonstration by a biologist: he and his class watched a butterfly slowly emerge from its chrysalis and with agonizing deliberation expand its tightly folded wings.  The scientist, impatient, helpful, stretched the wing and damaged it forever, teaching his students the while.  Inevitably, one must learn to wait." (my italics)

A Trap For Fools - Carolyn Heilbrun, (January 13, 1926 – October 9, 2003), writing under the pen name of Amanda Cross.

Where Angels Fear To Tread

     I've started 2010 with something I hoped I'd eventually do, but just didn't expect quite so soon, y'know what I mean? Stop that snickering!  I am not speaking of the high colonic people keep encouraging me to have before it's too late.
     I've agreed (in principle) to a relationship with Ian!  What a circumspect way of saying I accepted Ian's proposal. Ian is 19 years my junior!!! That's my ageist prejudice showing, so non-PC.. It's also probably significant that I mention Ian's age.
     Certainly, there's enough punctuation to remind people of my dramatic ways. It's a double whammy - Not the proposal, the drama.  I'm gay & I'm South Asian. Or, do I mean double jeopardy? Prosecution of a defendant for a criminal offense for which he has already been tried.. I can be pedantic and no man shall say me nay.
     Seriously though, a real double whammy exists in the form of my Pakistani passport listing place of birth as Iraq.  The  citizenship will change eventually, it's just a matter of applying for it..  Too late about the place of birth though.  Phyllis (my biological parent) suggested I describe my birth as: in the back seat of old Chevy, stuck in mud somewhere on the delta created by the Tigris & the Euphrates.  Sounds exotic to me.  Here I go, digressing as usual. Tangential thinking rules!
     We've had an on-again, off-again thing going for over three years. Having said that, I'll flatter myself and believe I should brace for incoming from Tina.  When Tina met Ian, she asked if he was my BF.  I swore he was a friend. When I shared the news, Tina sounded stunned. Tina's known me long enough to intuit things. Could her question have been based on her intuition connecting the dots?
     I wondered at Ian being so punctilious about accompanying me to midnight mass, my quasi-usual (and only) religious Yuletide activity. Last year, after a feast with Ian's parents, I beached on their couch and was quite amenable to being talked into giving church a miss.  Witness my deep reverence of my Anglican faith.
     Ian proposed on Boxing Day. I've felt honored, flattered, cautious, scared, elated and everything in between and under the sun. Today we brunched with Ian's parents, Lynne & Keith.  Their company was a pleasure, as always.  However, I had something to say and welcomed witnesses.  I told them my previous run-ins, aka relationships, have left me very, VERY, wary. And that I would rather see the romance end before I lost Ian's affection, friendship & respect.
     Ian has my sympathy... I'm feeling & behaving skittishly. Some of the fear is about Ian's feelings and commitment, but the larger portion is about myself & how apprehensive I am of making a mistake again.  Rehab and therapy, to gain calm & stability, has been a slow (and often painful) process and I'm more afraid of myself than I am of anything Ian might say or do.
     Ian has been totally honest about his HIV+ status and mood disorder, he's bi-polar. I've known that since the first time I met him.  I respect him for being completely up-front with me. He's helped me a great deal and I can only thank him, so far, for that.
     I am not HIV+ and Ian's status is of little concern to me. I have my own mood disorders - depression, OCD and PTSD.  I am an alcoholic. I have to remember I will always be an addict & at risk.  I am supported by medication.  I will be in allopathic treatment for the rest of my days.  I have rebelled at defining myself by my disorders and have tried to do without my meds. I have a checkered past, with abandonment issues, profligate spending & a track-record of leaving things incomplete, I've done the bankruptcy thing and have no credit to prove it.
     And yet, I'm optimistic about this.  Ian, Lynne & Keith know now that I'm a worry-wart and more likely to make a break for it than Ian. I'm trying to live up to the standards, the new & healthy ways, I've been learning  for ten years.  I have acknowledged my mistakes and my role in my first marriage. I'm fully aware it is possible Ian may leave me for a younger man, the stated concern of my biological & extended families..
     I realize this is real life.  I believe it is possible to make things come true, if I just work on it. The last ten years are proof of that. And I won't be alone, feeling like I'm doing all the work of carrying my marriage, like the world on Charles Atlas' shoulders. I will keep in mind the line I've used all my life: I'm off on a new adventure.
     I'm not alone. Ian's beside me and, if we are any good together, we'll make it through with flying colors!  I will not ask you to wish me luck.  Phyllis used to say wishing somebody good luck is to bring bad luck down on them.  She would say, "Have a good time!"  So, I'm wishing myself and all who know me or care - Have a good time!