January 29, 2017 I been having an introspective weekend. I have been thinking about this blog, and some times I wonder if I have it all wrong. I been doing a lot of reading of books about men who have Come Out Late in life. I know now, that Coming Out Late is a relative situation. Maybe what Coming Out Late really means is that you didn’t adopt or recognize your sexuality when you were in your teenager years. I am not really sure I buy that concept, maybe it’s the concept that Hollywood peddles. I believe we all come into ourselves and the meaning of our existence at different times in our lives. I must be honest here, when it comes to writing this blog, when I read other’s experiences, I feel as if maybe I have less than encouraging. I don’t mean to be. Many of my readings all allude to the idea that you need “Authenticity.” I am not doubting that idea, I just sometimes don’t really know what it truly means? Being “Authentic” isn’t a gay only thing. Being true to yourself is an everybody thing. I have always thought that most of our lives are very similar. Most people work throughout the week in cities and in the small little towns across our nation. We clean house, pay bills, go the grocery store, maybe try to get a little exercise done. When is the authenticity to show itself? When I started all of this writing and reading about the Coming Out Late process, I was looking for answers. A big question was, “How could I have gone so long without really knowing I am gay?” I cannot but help but think there are different degrees of gayness. No, I will not place a rank on the different levels, because one level isn’t any better or worse than another. I just don’t think there is one type of way to being gay. We are complex individuals, the outer influences on our lives affect us all differently, and in different ways. If I had to be really honest in terms of authenticity, my moment came when my wife found an email that I wrote to Dr. Ashden. It was just about four years ago, she asked me, “Are you in love with this person?” Believe me, I wanted to say “No” it is all but a stupid mistake, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to be in love with a man. I did not want my world to change. I thought that this feeling for Dr. Ashden would subside. I guess that was my true “Authentic Moment”, finally acknowledging the truth, however uncomfortable as it was. When I moved to San Antonio many years ago, I joined the Unitarian Universalism church, they had a Joseph Campbell Group. I have read his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth and I was immediately hooked. I was also a member of the Noetic Sciences, and his writings were frequently published within the journal. When all of this happened to me, I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite quotes of his, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” I never thought those words would come to apply to me, but they did. I wish I was a writer or blogger or whatever, to be a person who encourages you to go get your happy gay life, that once you get your happy gay life, you are going to be finally authentic. Your life is going to be great. I read these things happening to others. I really want to be that person, but I find myself writing from a position that I am just an ordinary guy, living a rather ordinary life. I have come a long way in four years. If there is a takeaway from this blog, it’s that to be the person you truly are is a process for most of us. A process that takes time. I believe that the term “Authenticity” has a meaning similar to “Enlightenment.” Through my experience, yes, I had a moment, but much of my life has remained the same. Work, housekeeping, taking care of the animals, etc. It’s fair to say, the idea of now I am authentic doesn’t really occur to me when I am shoveling up dog crap out of the backyard. I do realize things have changed. I realize now that why some family and friends are gone from my life, I have the ability to meet new people. No, they don’t have to be gay people or straight people, just people. I have joined organizations to meet new people. I am leaving the house much more, and more and more I am shutting the door to an unpleasant past. My experience was a struggle. How could it not be, I was married 24 years. I lost something and someone very dear to me. I found myself in a place I thought I would never be. It’s hard to Come Out, but there is an added dimension of difficulty when you been married to the opposite sex. So, if I am being authentic, well it doesn’t really occur to me. I don’t feel enlighten by any stretch of the imagination. I work at trying to be enlighten, but I continue to have more questions than answers. I am still searching. I will leave you with this, as time has gone by, I find myself more and more grateful for the people in my life. For the people who stayed by me in my darkest moments, and that includes my ex-wife. She has been there for me. Dr. Ashden has been there for me. If you are going through this process, I hope you to have people that are there for you, and more importantly however you are feeling, that you acknowledge the people who are there for you. Being grateful is a gift you give others and yourself. January 22nd, 2017 Sometimes I catch myself reflecting upon the idea of “Where am I now?” I especially find myself asking this question when I take a moment to read my past journaling. I really never journaled before until I got divorced and outed all at the same time. I guess, I saw a need to tell someone what I was feeling, even if that someone was myself. Gosh, I look back at the beginning of this entire situation, and I see I have come along way. At my lowest point, I remember laying on the hardwood floor of the home I use to share with my ex-wife, and I was unable to move, I laid on the floor for two hours just feeling crippled. It was a dark moment. The good thing about reflecting, even on dark moments in the past, I see that I survived. I am not going to lie, there were times that I felt like I didn’t want to live anymore. My family said that everything was alright, but their actions spoke more than words. My friends quit calling or they quit answering my calls. What kept me going? Well, I had to keep care of the three cats and two dogs that my ex-wife and I accumulated over the years of our marriage. I thought to myself, “They are the innocent ones, if anything I will live for them.” My obligation to them, kept me alive and going. Well, all of that was about four years ago, I must admit, I let myself suffer more than I should. I had a lot of guilt and shame, and maybe not without good reason. I am not afraid to own up to my mistakes. I am a very spiritual type person, and I hold on to a very liberal idea of Christ. A reading that I read once reminded me that “God’s forgiveness and love is much bigger and stronger than my sins.” I asked for forgiveness, and I truly met it, so now it’s time to move on. I did move on, and to see where I moved on I read in Bret K. Johnson’s book, Coming Out Every Day about the six stages of the Coming Out process per Vivienne Cass:
In my case, I didn’t Come Out, I was Thrown Out. I have to give some credit here and deep respect to Dr. Ashden. He didn’t run, in fact he gave a much-needed helping hand when there were no other hands to help me. By staying with me, he in effect Outed Himself. I was and am lucky, even though I take it for granted some times. There are times when I find and feel like I am at Stage 6. However, I get jolted back to a different stage, when I see that people begin to look at Dr. Ashden and I differently, and when they realize we are partners. This feeling usually just last for a few seconds. I been with Dr. Ashden for four years now. Probably, a lot of the romance of our relationship is gone, but not the love. According to M. Scott Peck, “Romantic love isn’t love.” He stated that only when romantic love ends, can real love begin. Peck defined love as “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another spiritual growth.” He wrote a whole book on this concept, The Road Less Traveled. I confess, in my mind all of this is related. You see, when I realized that Dr. Ashden and I were not one, and as time passed on we really were separate individuals…well, my outlook changed. An example of this situation would be when Dr. Ashden was going to quit going to church, he had lost his faith. Through the years together I knew how important his faith was to him, so I quit going to my own church, and I attended church with him. By doing this simple act I realized that love is more about what type of sex you’re having, what love is, is getting out of yourself to help another. When I was in the deep darkness of self, I couldn’t help myself much less help another. I grew, and I am still growing even at 52. Where am I now? I guess you could say that I am stronger than I ever been. The years filled with confusion, hurt, and anger made me a better person, not less of a person. They made me more empathetic, more sympathetic. By surviving my difficult situation, I became stronger. Who do I need to be? Just myself, a person dedicated
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Happy New Year! I cannot really say that I am a person who puts a whole lot of importance to a marker, a new year, however, this year seems to be a little different. I was walking my dogs in Brackenridge Park this afternoon, since I normally walk my dogs in the early morning, there was a dramatic and stark difference to the scenery in the park in the late afternoon. The lowering western sun reflected off the dull barren winter trees, and their slender crooked bodies stretched upwards towards the sky. The change was dramatic from their early morning solitude, and glancing upon these new vistas within a familiar setting got me thinking.
I began to think that this newness within the familiar was like my current life. I probably have been guilty as most in being caught up in a routinized life, routinized thinking. I made my cries and moans along my path from a heterosexual life for lack of a better description, to a gay life? A gay life, what does that mean? I write these words, and I think, in so many ways my life, the person who I have always been, is still very much a part of me. I really don’t feel very different, but that is only partially true. There is a lot that is different. This Christmas season has past. Unlike my previous heterosexual life, I did do many different things that were completely different from my past life. One evening I attended an older gay man’s group at a Christmas party, I had a dinner for four and shared the evening with a gay couple, I went to a few Christmas parties with Dr. Ashden, and I was unconsciously unaware that we were seen as a couple, I mean a gay couple. Well, all these events were something totally unlike I experienced as a heterosexual male husband. It’s this couple thing that has me bothered. I do not live with Dr. Ashden, so the ideal that we are a couple or partnered seems so strange to me. I say that, but then I think about a Facebook post of a friend. In a photo with my siblings, Dr. Ashden was with me. Since it was a friend’s Facebook post, a friend of the friend who post it was, asked, “Who were these people?” Everything she posted was pretty straight forward, however, when it came to Dr. Ashden and me, she explained Dr. Ashden as my “partner.” She met nothing by it, yet I was bothered. I spoke with my sister and told her, “This seems like an untrue description.” My sister said, “Well he is your partner!” Without a doubt, everyone in the photo and at the party would probably agree Dr. Ashden is my partner. Funny, I just really didn’t see it that way. Maybe I don’t see it that way because I have begun to hang around more gay men, these men were living together, and my idea of partnership is different. In the older gay man’s organization, many of these men were married before and had children. Now, these men live together as a couple, I would say, as partners. However, this is not my relationship with Dr. Ashden, and to be completely truthful, I doubt this type of relationship will ever occur between us. I am not even too sure, that I would want that type of relationship. I would be dishonest to say, that I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a man live in my house. To be sure, there are times, when I don’t want to be alone, but I guess I have come more accustomed to living alone. No, there is nothing crazy going on here at my house other than taking care of three cats and two dogs. When my ex-wife walked out, she just walked out, leaving all us behind. Well, I do believe that life is better shared. And, the only times I am truly bothered by the loneliness of living alone is when Dr. Ashden and I come home from a trip. Usually when we travel, we rent a home and I have my own bedroom and bathroom. Yet, it is during these vacations that we really seem more like a couple. Daily a huge magnitude of San Antonio restaurants consists of Dr. Ashden and my living rooms since we eat lunch and dinner out almost every meal. And, we do live very close to one another, but to live with him? So, let me go back to the beginning thinking about the park, and its complete newness by the changing sunlight. I wonder if maybe I am wanting more and more something different in the very familiar? I don’t want to be alone, but it seems to be the most natural form of existence to me. To actually share a home with someone again, well, conceptually it sounds appealing, but in actuality I am not so sure? I just don’t know how all that works. I would love to hear a comment or two from anyone who reads this blog. Again, I am just here learning a new way of life, and I try to share what I can to help others. Other men and women who come into their sexuality late in life. On a lighter note, Happy New Year’s! I ask you who are struggling “If not now, then when?” Create a great new year ahead! |
Christian Cantu
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