Joys and concerns

After church choir practice we always have joys and concerns.  For the most part, the same people are always having trouble, and the same people know about others that are sick or in the hospital.  Someone's child is doing great things.  I always think about what if I were to come out to the world.  Would I have enough guts to tell them, my joys and concerns.  Well hell, I don't even tell them about my joys and concerns in the present.  Why would I tell them this.

Right now I feel a big burden that I feel like sharing with them. The worry that most people, except my immediate family, don't know is that I feel like I am going to be broke for life.  I have this sales job that paid me less than 1/2 of what I was making a year ago.  I am expected to call people all day and sell products and services.  What the company has is great, but is very limited in its scope, and specialized.  I have this pit in my stomach about it.  My wife, and me to some extent, have cut back our spending tremendously, but she has even said, I can't make myself stop till there is nothing.  I guess I will need to continue to tell her there is nothing. 

On the other hand, our little family is doing pretty well emotionally.  We have been through a lot over the last year.  Me being in the hospital for a week for my appendix blow up.  Three hospital outings for the jelly bean of a kidney stone, and then there was my mom's scare surgery and recovery.  But I think this has brought me to realize the one thing I have in my life that is great is my wife.

She has stuck with me through all the crap I have thrown in her face.  She should have ducked and ran a long time ago.  Why has she stayed with me?  Why the fuck does she care so much about a gay, almost jobless, sometimes lazy guy like me? 






 LOVE.... does she really love me that much?  Why?  



I don't even let her in and know me.  How do I start telling her more about who I am, and what I think?

The other questions is should I?  I shouldn't have to ask that questions, but it has been so hard to let someone in as far as I have, maybe we should have a "peel off the band aid" talk and go the rest of the way.  But things seem pretty good now and I don't want to do the peeling.

The Christmas Season brings so many Joys and Concerns to the surface. 

Joys:

1. Health
2. I have a job
3. Family who loves us
4. Safety and warm house
5. Talented daughter
6. Concerned Friends

Concerns:

1. Future as a family
2. Making ends meet
3. Family that loves the me they know.
4. A job that is uncertain
5. Daughters future college and pressures
6. Wife's mental well being
7. Keeping the sexuality part of my life a secret

Making this list was good.  They all kind of wipe themselves out.  But that last one that just came to my fingers. Number 7.   Why is it just making the balance look so uneven. 

Live your life!!!!   No regrets any more. 

Love  -  Peace  -

Merry Christmas

Will My Family Love Me?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  Not because I'm contemplating coming out, but because it has always  been a question in my mind since I relieved who I was. My wife and I had discussed this a lot when I first told her. My family is the epitome of small town, conservative, christian values.  I hear fag comments when I'm at home all the time. Not directed at me, but in everyday conversations. They know people who are gay, but they do not know anyone real close to them. 

I guess the real question is not will the LOVE me.  But will they want to be around me or accept me if they were to know. I think some would, although they would treat me completely differently. I think they would have a long period of morning, and loss. I know gay would "disgust" some, but they would come around.  I think the problem is most people, including my family, see being gay as a sexual thing.  They can never imagine sex with someone of the same sex, so to them that is disgusting.  Well here is my thought.  I can think of some sex between people of opposite sex and think, "How disgusting."  When I say that I mean, dirty, gross, unclean people, having sex disgusts me. 

It is about who you long to love and be intimate with. I think that is the hard part for them to understand. As I've said before, If you are in the closet you sometimes make it all about sex because that is all that you will allow the world to see, and that is all that you can keep "down low" with out the world or your family knowing. I could not allow myself to get close to another man. So I understand in a way why people think it is all about sex.

I remember right before I decided to tell my wife, I was confiding in several guys, but one was still married, but living "apart" from his wife.  I was starting to fall for him.  I wanted his comfort.  To see him was so exciting to me.  Once my wife and I decided to stay together, I had to pull away quickly.  He understood, and pulled away as well.  But again, that was easy for him as well. 

So again, it is not all about the sex, and I think once people figure that out, they have an easier time accepting that their loved ones are different.  Some in my wife's family know.  They accept me, but they are part of the secret as well.  Not telling anyone, and yes they do treat me a little differently.  But maybe I just take it differently because they are part of the lie and secret.

Will my parents, and siblings ever know? Or do they already "know" but won't admit it? Will I ever tell them?  I don't know what God has in store for me, but for now these questions will stay in the closet with my wife and me.

Peace