passenger seat

Here's my new plan: I'm going to revert back to the original, "don't ask, don't tell" approach with my family. You have all learned by now that my younger sister and I have had a few talks about the contents of this blog, and their impact on our lives, and she has become one of it's readers. How regular of a reader? Perhaps we'll soon see, if she responds to the new rboLife plan v3.0.

the machine

I think it's time for another break from university. It would appear that 2 years at a time is as much as I can handle, but maybe I'll stay away for more than a year this time... I'll need to switch to one of the new degrees, as the one I've been working so hard on will be erased from memory soon.. but I think that decision is one that will benefit my sanity in the end.. and my sanity seems to be something that I haven't been taking very good care of lately.

measure of a man

and so it begins.....

opportunity

This is interesting. Over the past few days I’ve begun to see my perspective shift. I don’t see it as a bad shift; it’s more likely something that will help put my mind to ease. You see, in my mind, a heterosexual relationship was the only human relationship that seemed to have any depth to it. Whenever I thought about me with a woman, verses me with a man, the imagined life with a woman appeared appeared absolutely limitless... like there would be such a level of.. tangible fullness. I don’t know if it was in part because of the potential for natural child bearing, or a mixture of everything all piled together. The thing is.. now I don’t see much of a difference.

incubation

So this girl, let us call her Mary, lives quite a few hundred miles away. She calls Denver, CO her home. That fact alone should make any sort of possible future together a little bit tricky, even if it is just a friendship. However I'm pretty sure nothing will come of it anyway... she was more of a reminder than a possibility... reminding me that maybe there is still a female someone out there.

My mom is helping/planning a new valentines dinner that the church wants to hold this year. She's already figured out that I will be going, and I will ask one of younger sis' friends to accompany me. I've never met the girl, but from what I've heard and seen, she seems like a nice young lady. I'm no good at things like that though... asking someone to dinner, even if it is a group affair. 'Cause you know, me not having any experience with such a thing, especially with the opposite sex, and then feeling like a deceitful person by the chance that I could come across as something I'm not.

god so loved

I don't know whether it was a dream or simply a period of imagining, but a few days ago I suddenly felt like what I'm going through is a stage that many other people experience. It seemed like the understanding of sexuality, the world, and spirituality is required to come to a crossroads in order for the individual to gain some sort of unfathomable knowledge of life... Like (speaking for males) my father, my uncles, their fathers, etc. have all experienced times of sexual confusion and same sex attraction, but mostly found that it was not their true nature to pursue any options that would correspond to being gay. Like it was a great examination where there is only one right answer, and that answer is God, and for them, that meant personal attractions did not matter... God and His plan were the only concepts of worth, and His plan, when investigated and fully understood, was man plus woman equals family equals the meaning of life.

sustainability

So I’ve been absent from the blog for a good number of days (as if you didn’t notice). Exams are almost finished, and the bulk of pre-Christmas obligations have passed. There were a number of thoughts that came to me during this time, but either I didn’t have time to write them down, or I didn’t have the energy to get more than a few sentences. I guess I’m generally feeling somewhat.. blah.

Enough of that, I’ll just write.

all the gays

We were sitting at the kitchen table after our meal (for the first time in about a year due to renovations) discussing my past and future education possibilities, when the parentals began to look a little more into my desire to switch schools again and go to the main art+design school around here - eciad. There was some trouble understanding exactly what I would be doing, and how that could get me a job, but despite their overall negative tone towards the whole idea, I managed to keep civil and explain my view and all that. Then the mother mentioned how "all the gays" would probably be at that school.

highway music

I had a could-have-been-scary but good talk with my mom on the way to pick up sis from university, before heading off to a church worship practice. I'm sure I've mentioned it on here somewhere before, but she babysits a few children from around the neighbourhood. One of them is unique in that he has two moms and no dad. They were referred by a friend, and when my mom found their situation, she felt the best thing would be to look after their son and try to help them sort out their terribly troubled lives (not that they were, but simply that mom believed they must be).

givingthanks

Today my family had our Thanksgiving dinner (comes on the 2nd monday of October in Canada -we invented it first). There were a number of firsts this year: First year with a nephew, first year with 2 married siblings, first year dad turned 60 (birthday today as well), and first year the topic of homosexuality dominated much of the conversation.

hundred mile

We arrived home from 100 mile house at around 3am (went for cous' wedding, and then detoured to see an aunt and uncle who had totalled their van in an accident outisde of kamloops - both are doing relatively fine for those wondering). Apart from driving in it, I love the BC landscape. If I could marry a province, this would be it. It's just so diverse - the dense forests and mountain lakes, the broad, grassy planes and windswept hills, the frozen glacial pathways further north, British Columbia is "the best place on earth."

The wedding was amazing. My cousin and his bride make the most adorable couple I know, and their love for eachother is immense and immediately noticeable. I felt blessed just being there. That feeling would turn into despair as the weekend went on and I realized that I would probably never be able to experience such an event in my life.

meant to be

I've concluded that things are meant to be difficult: even easy things. If they're easy, you're not doing them right. Like living.... (and now we all see where I'm going with that.) I just finished watching Larry King's interview with Joni Eareckson Tada, and it made me mentally smack myself upside the head for being so selfish and self....loathing these past few days. It's difficult trying to deal with the whole gay issue, while trying to maintain a Jesus-like life at the same time.

In response to some of the comments on the previous post; yes I have tried asking for help, though not in these areas. I don't like feeling like I have to ask for appreciation from my parents. If they don't outright provide it, I feel it's not my place to ask for it.

impatiently waiting

I'm tired. I'm sure I've posted about my regular fatigue and slight depression, but if not here's a brief overview:

Every couple weeks I seem to trip into my other self. It is usually sparked by something job or family-related. This time it seems to be a mixture of the realization that my 2nd of 3 sisters has been married and I am the next child on the list, and of my mom snapping at me for not immediately understanding and doing everything she says. It seems I'm not allowed to ask for clarification on one of her commands. ie. "now get one of the nice chairs and put it back on the lawn." (would nice chair be one for the yard table set, or one of the new, comfortable lawn chairs? apparently i should know.)

fourty-days

I don't think I've updated on the job situation, so I'll do that first and get it over with. He called in the afternoon, on the 27th I think. We talked for about 10 minutes, (he estimated 20 to 40 in the email), and I answered some questions quite poorly, but it could have gone worse. I seemed relatively comfortable, and got us both laughing a couple times, but I don't know if that is worth hiring a potential employee on.

Apart from that it's been all wedding this, wedding that. I'm going to be soo wiped by the time sunday afternoon comes around. (wedding on saturday, but on worship team sunday morning, so afternoon is the logical stress completion date) and why am I hearing thudding noises inside the house, its 2:00am. People are asleep.

Onto more personal matters,

"Openly Celibate"?

I stumbled upon a website Sunday night, one where I actually feel like I have something to say. It's a site for gay Christians, to come and converse and debate and just be there for one another. There are many different types of members, some pro gay-marriage, others opposed, some believe sexual intimacy for gay asociating people is ok, others do not. Basically, I am just.. thrilled that I have finally found such a place. I don't have to always feel like I need to try to explain myself to those who would not fully understand as it seems that many of the members have gone through or are currently going through exactly what I am facing as of this moment.

The creator of the site, Justin, wrote a story of his past. Although some parts of it do not apply to my life, much of it does. If you're into reading it, you can find it here: How I Came to Call Myself Gay

and i was like... ungh?

So here's what I don't get: why I struggle with this whole sexuality vs. religion thing so much.

Why? Mainly because my conflicting sexuality isn't a sexuality in that there's no sex involved. Society's whole concept and idea of being gay, is being sexually attracted to members of the same sex and .. performing sexual acts with those members. Seeing as how I have no interest in sexual relations with a member of the same sex, why do I feel like such a betrayer of my faith? I would have to say, at this point in time, it is because this leaves me extremely lost in considering my long-term future. In a homosexual union of sorts, there would be no proper offspring to raise and teach and learn from, and no further generations from that. In a heterosexual marriage, such a family would most definitely occur, but at what cost to the mental well being of my wife and myself?

Tomorrow's yesterday

I feel like writing something nice and long to make me feel good, but I just don't know what to say. In a big way, I created this blog in the hopes that I could finally find people with similar situations as mine, and people I could talk to about the things I have talked about on here. As I think I mentioned in one of the early posts, I didn't want it to become a grocery list of what I did today or yesterday or the day before that... but I do need to add some sort of daily happenings in order to make this thing not so haadkohh. Anyway, I won't be giving daily events in this post. hehe.

Well, except to say that I've reworked the design a bit, added some features to the side menu, added my blog to some directories, and just been havin some fun with it (like the playing live deal i've got goin on over there. you'll usually see some sort of country song or dance/oldies radio station, as thats really all i'm listening to lately.)

I'm going to pick up where I left off on establishment in order to keep some sort of continuity goin here. (I'll try to keep things chronological from now on and not jump around through time)

establishment

I think I already want to start getting less formal with this journal. It scares me when I look at what I wrote in that previous post simply because it is so formal and proper. i aint perfektly formal so i dont wanna act like it all the time. (it is fun every now and then, however, to confirm my belief that I do have a little class and cultural abilities.)

I intend to continue on with the last post throughout the period of time that I post on here so there's no need to rush back into the deep stuff quite yet. I want to blab a little bit more (blab as opposed to whine and complain which equals content of my previous blog) on me, myself, and that guy in the corner. And wouldn't you know it, I wasted all my energy on the build-up that I can't even remember what I was going to say... almost.

I constantly find myself trying to reach a place of maturity where I can begin to adequately question my surroundings and place in time; all hippy-like but without the green vacations on the clouds. I have always considered myself too mature for my age, but then I want to disregard that thought because someone who is properly mature wouldn't question his maturity.... right? bleh. I'm just sad that I was never able to have the average youth and childhood. I never went out to parties or snuck out of the house at night or blatantly disobeyed my parents. I don't have stories to tell of the time I.. did anything remotely interesting. My two years of university have so far been filled with extreme boredom and it's certainly no help that I attend a technical university in a shopping mall, where social activity is defined as the process of fragging oneanother over the lan.