Daybreak

It's always darkest before the dawn.

I've had some time to process Saturday's events. It's been a rough couple of days. I've come to realize much.

First, I've let fear run my life for far to long. Second, my love is valuable. Third, I am worthy of that which I seek most:

Love.

I had two very important conversations today. The first was with my best friend from high school, Jason. The second was with my brother Joe. Both of these voices have been very important in my life. The former has always been a clarion call of truth, honesty and focus. The latter has always offered a loving, compassionate wisdom that belies the fact he is my junior by 5 years.

They both said the same thing today. Their words hit me like a thunderbolt. The haze I've been in for the past two days was swept away by what they said:

"You are worthy of love. You're love is as valuable as those from whom you seek love. You did all you could. You didn't ask for anything more than you were willing to give. It wasn't all your fault."

They gave wise council. "Find out where you stand. Be sure that you have the same understanding and expectations. Be true to yourself."

So tonight I did that.

I spoke with Bobby tonight. It was a difficult conversation to have. I know he's in the middle of his own battle right now. Bobby is torn between two men who love him, and whom he loves.

My place is nothing compared to that.

But I couldn't be silent. I had to seize the moment and speak my needs and concerns. I was not about to allow fear to rob me of my voice again. No this time I would stand up for myself, what I want and what I need.

I need.

We discussed the central tenets of our relationship. We found common ground. But there was also disagreement.

Of course Saturday's events returned. It was difficult to not have the conversation without discussing Kenny. For my part the matter was simple. Kenny left. he didn't just leave me, he left us.

It's clear Bob sees things differently.

I am to blame for all of this. I brought Kenny into the relationship. Kenny left because I couldn't tell him I wanted him here. I am the reason the possibility even existed for Bobby to fall in love with Kenny.

Tonight, I asked Bob to let that go.

If I am to stay, my feelings must come first with Bob. I need to know that. Why?

Because I didn't leave.

I stayed.

I bared all of my insecurities for both of them to see. I agreed that I must grow and began to change. I did the work I was asked to do. I bore all of their fears and concerns alone. I did all of this.

Here.

Right here.

I was willing to do more. I was willing to work with Ken on fixing what was broken between us. I was willing to put aside my doubts and try. I took all these steps toward the middle, all I was asking for was one, single, solitary step in my direction. One word of assurance, that I never got from Ken.

I don't get why.

When Ken was at the beginning of his journey in attempting to bond with Bob, it was I who reassured him. I was the one saying, "it's ok, it'll work I love you, Bob will love you too." It was my mantra to him. I salved his insecurities and fears. I was there for Ken when he needed me.

And it happened. He bonded with Bob. Bobby fell in love with him.

I'm sorry it may be petty and small, but I have to ask the universe; Where was my reassurance? When I was struggling with my fears and insecurities where was the kind word, the loving look?

It was nowhere.

I was told early on, "I won't coddle you. I can't be in a relationship where all the focus is on one person's insecurities." How does one respond to that? How does one not feel more insecure and fearful, when one of the people who is supposed to love you says that? What can you do?

You can doubt. That's what you can do. You can lose trust.

You can lose faith.

In spite of all this. I stayed. Right here.

I could have run. I had many opportunities to call it quits. I have a place of my own to live. I have people who love me. I have emotional resources.

I could have left them together. I could have given into my fears and insecurities. Once again I could have employed self destructive tendancies.

I could have seen Bob's choice to put Ken's feelings ahead of mine as a betrayal. I could have seen Bob's silence as his contribution to the end of the relationship between Ken and I. I could have taken the viewpoint that Bobby had the knowledge to save the relationship. Bobby had the tools in his hands to fashion the middle ground Ken and I needed and did nothing. I could chose to be bitter about that.

I could have made those choices but I didn't.

I stayed. I didn't quit. I did the hard thing. I stayed where I thought I was not wanted.

Because I believed. Because I didn't lose heart. Because I had faith in Bob and in Ken.

Which makes it all the harder to bear the accusation that this is my fault.

I didn't leave you Bobby. Kenny did. He left us both. All because he couldn't say "I want to be with you Jerry. Do you want me to be with you?"

I didn't have the knowledge that you did. I didn't know what you knew. I didn't make the choice to remain silent when action was needed to save all of this.

Kenny had his line in the sand. I had mine. Neither was crossed by the other. You didn't help bridge the gap and now you're left in the no man's land between.

I am heartsick about that.

But the reality is, I'm still here. Regardless of both of your choices. One choosing to leave the other choosing not to act.

I chose to stay.

Now I must wait.

Again.

I have to wait for you to decide what you want Bob.

So I will. I'll wait. Right here.

No matter the outcome, I can and have survived as witnessed by this blog, much bigger, much harder hits to my heart and psyche. If you decide to let me go to be with Ken, I'll be here. If you decide that I'm the one you want, I'll be here. If you chose to try and bring Ken and I together, or to end it with both of us, I will be here.

The point is Bobby, I. Am. Here. I have always been here. I didn't give into my fears. I didn't give up on the love I have for you. I didn't quit when things were hardest. I stayed.

My choice to stay has meaning. If that doesn't tell you how much I love you nothing else I do or say will. Nothing.

So I'll wait. Again.

But this time, I wait without my nemisis;

Fear.

No Day But Today

The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn

There is no future
There is no past
Thank God this moment's not the last

There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret-- or life is yours to miss.
No other road
No other way
No day but today

There's only yes
Only tonight
We must let go
To know what is alright
No other course
No other way
No day but today

I can't control
My destiny
I trust my soul
My only hope
is just to be

There's only now
There's only here
Give in to love
Or live in fear
No other path
No other way
No day but today--Rent

Kenny

I can't fix this.

I've never been good at expressing myself emotionally in the heat of the moment. I get tangled and twisted in my insecurities. I stumble and fall when trying to describe the truth of something deep within. You see that as deception. It's a lie. I'm trying to put a happy face on something or cover up what I really feel.

For me it's fear.

Fear of truth. Fear of pain. Fear of loss.

It results in so many unintended consequences.

So I'm going to write down what I feel. That is something that has always been easy for me to do. So here on this page I'm going to say what is actually going on in my heart.

There are moments when I want you, and when I don't. There are times when I love you and I don't. The push and pull you describe is real and it's relevant.

You helped fashion that feeling. I wasn't alone in crafting it. Maybe someday you'll be able to understand this. I don't know.

My sins and transgressions are legion. In fairness I need to say where I failed you. I allowed you to imput assumptions because I failed to share what I felt.

You once asked if you were a surrogate for my sexual needs. Yes that was one of the reasons I wanted you here with me and Bob. But it was only one reason, and it was only at the start. It was selfish. I own that.

Yet you failed to remember a confession I made at the outset of all of this. I told you that I had feelings for you. Those feelings existed after we first met. They existed after we first played.

The night we first had sex you told me clearly "don't fall for you". Yet that afternoon on our first trip to Sundance alone without Bob, I told you that I had fallen for you but you were gone on your trip and I had met Bob. You knew that, because I told you so.

So your insistance that the relationship was started under a false pretense, is mistaken. I wanted you here for more than sex. I wanted you here because I had feelings for you and I wanted to see if it could grow to be something more.

For a time it had.

Where all this changed for me came from one critical night. Bob was asleep and you and I started to play. In the midst of this, you stopped. I wondered why and then you told me you couldn't. You felt close to me, so you needed the space to get close to Bob.

I agreed.

So I told you that I would give you that space to find the balance you needed to make it work. I also told you that I would leave things to you to tell me when balance had been achieved.

So I watched while you got closer to Bob. I gave into my insecurities and I started to act out. I will own that too.

Yet you did nothing to alieveate them. No reassurance. No "it'll be ok I still love you". Instead you choose to focus on how my insecurities made you feel, not on what was causing them in the first place.

So I struggled to check myself. I became a tangled mess of emotion. Unsure, scared defensive. All because I began to doubt that you loved me. That you wanted me.

I didn't share this. I kept this to myself. I was too scared that it might be true. So I allowed you to believe what you were feeling, that I didn't want you here anymore.

I lied. To myself and to you. I own that one as well.

Yet you did little to convince me otherwise. The one time you did say something it was after a weekend's barrage of "here's what you're doing wrong and how I feel about it". You came to me and said hey I don't want you to think you're a bad guy, you're a good person.

It was an afterthought.

It felt like you trying to make yourself feel better about what you said. That statement wasn't about me, it was about you. Had it been about me you would have said something much simpler like:

"It's ok, I love you this will all work out."

You didn't.

That's where you failed.

All this time you've spent thinking that I didn't want you here. You were here under false pretenses. You share all of this with Bob and none of it with me.

Because you thought I couldn't handle it.

Maybe it's true. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Maybe I would have denied it all. We'll never know because you never tried. You failed there too.

So all of the doubt I've sown in your mind finally comes to a head. The week after I think I've made progress. The week after I finally feel ok with you being close to Bob because now, surely now after balance has been achieved you'll want to be close to me again.

No.

Instead I'm confronted with the knowledge that you won't be here on Friday. You need time to reflect. Instead your actions fill me with doubt again.

You confess all you need to again to Bob and leave me out. Because it all deals with me and for whatever reason, you can't say these things to me. So you leave me to wonder on my own what this is all about.

Talking myself with Bob, I find he's sworn to secrecy. In that moment I know. I know my greatest fear has been realized.

You're leaving.

So I prepare as best I can. I prep myself for the worst. I wait for Saturday's time bomb to come. It does.

You say the words. Yet even after that, there's still hope. Room for a change of heart.

Now it comes to it. The moment I'm waiting for you to ask plainly, directly. You don't. Instead I get "How can anyone stay where they are not wanted?"

I respond with the only thing that pops into my head "I don't know anyone one who could." Then I begin to think. I want to say something, but I pause because I doubt. I doubt if you love me. I doubt if you actually want to be here.

The months of doubt we've both been experiencing crystalize in that moment. Before I can say anything other that "I don't want to parse words" You say that my silence says everything and you leave, forever.

Had at any time during all of this, at anytime you simply said "I love you I want to be with you", had you said, "I think we can make this work", had you given me "I love Bob and I think I can love you again" That would have been enough, because for me love makes everything fixable. I would have been able to instantly say:

You are wanted.

I want you.

But you didn't. You never gave me the assurance I needed, so I could give you the assurance you needed. You need to own that.

I see now that despite all of this, despite all of my doubts and fears I have always wanted you. Not for the right reasons initially. But that changed for me. Along the way I fell in love with you.

I became angry at you for what you were building with Bobby and at the same time denying me. I became fearful of being left alone. I was afraid you and he would no longer care. I felt you were taking something from me, not Bob:

Yourself.

It wasn't true, any of it. But if felt that way. I didn't understand that I was a part of what was being built.

I lost you because of it.

I lost you because I gave into the easy thing. I chose to not say what I really felt because it would be easier without you here. Today, when I needed to use what you and Bob have taught me over the past 3 months, I failed.

In the moment, I felt I didn't want you here. That I wasn't in love with you anymore. That things would be so much easier without you here. That I would be better off with Bobby alone.

So that's what came out.

But it's not true.

What's true is that I want you here. I need you here. You are the reason why I have begun to change. To grow. I am better today because of you. Why would I want to let that go?

Why would I want to let go of the source of my transformation into a better person?

You'll never believe this or me. I know that. I know that this is an exercise in futility. I am saying all of this because I need to speak the truth to myself. This is more for me than you, since you will never read this.

But I need to speak the truth. That what began with a lie, ended with another.

Had I just been truthful at the moment I needed to be, you would be here.

And I wouldn't need to ask your forgiveness. I would feel the awful sense of lost and failure and pain I feel now. My life would be better than it is now.

Instead I am left in between here and gone.

Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.
Now I'm just wonderin' how we know where we belong.
Is it in a photograph, or a dashboard poet's song?
Will I have missed my chance to right some ancient wrong,
Should I find myself between here and gone?

Now I could grab my keys, clear out in my truck,
With every saint on board bringing me their luck.
An' I could drive too fast, like a midnight sleeve,
As if there was a way to outrun the grief.
Now I'm just wonderin' how we know where we belong.
In a song that's left behind in the dream I couldn't wake from.
Could I have felt the brush of a soul that's passing on,
Somewhere in between here and gone?

Up above me,
Wayward angels,
A blur of wings and grace.
One for courage,
One for safety,
One for "just in case".

I thought a light went out, but now the candle shines.
I thought my tears wouldn't stop, then I dried my eyes.
And after all of this, the truth that holds me here,
Is that this emptiness is something not to fear.
Yeah, I'll keep wondering how we know where we belong,
After all the journeys made, and the journeys yet to come.
When I feel like giving up instead of going on,
Somewhere in between.

Yeah, I'm just wondering how we know where we belong.
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn?
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn,
Singing in between here and gone. ---Mary Chapin Carpenter

I will be better. I will be honest. I will.

Because wishing doesn't make it so.

I know I screwed up, but you did too. All I can say now is that I will always love you, Kenny. It's not enough, but its' all I have.

Its' all I've ever had.

Triumvirate

How complicated can my life become?

Seriously, I've been trying to simplify things and the more I do, the more involved things become. I've gone and fallen in love with two men. Yes you read that right.

Two men.

What's even more interesting is that they have fallen in love with each other. Confused? Yeah keep reading.

I've become one leg of a triad. Initially what started out as me falling in love with a handsome blue eyed boy has evolved. We've both fallen in love with a brown eyed, gorgeous older man, and he has fallen in love with us.

Oh the Bard was right. It is a tangled web we weave.

It's no wonder so many of us end up like the fly.

Yet for all my discomfiture about this new situation, it has provoked growth. I've begun to face some deep seeded issues that have plagued me from boyhood. It's been hard and painful, but despite that it's been good.

I have to credit my two men for starting me on this journey, however I need to be a bit self congradulatory in that I'm the one who was willing to make the journey in the first place. Not for them, but for myself.

I needed to change. Years of being wounded has provoked a sense of profound desire to end my previous condition. I had chosen to exist in my broken state because it was easy, simple and all I had known.

Yet it was exactly that, a choice.

Just as it's been a choice to walk away from what was easy simple and known for hard, difficult and foreign.

While I have always adapted to change well, I've seldom accepted change gracefully. I've always stumbled my way though emotional evolution, slashing, bruising and bleeding along the way. It's never been pretty.

This instance is no exception.

It's taken harsh words, difficult conversations and pregnant statements full of implications to force the issue for me. My world view has been challenged. I've been forced to look in the mirror and see things I've not been happy seeing.

I've had to accept the darker parts of who I am, and acknowledge that I, like everyone, can at times have bad thoughts. I've wished ill. I've hoped for bad things to happen to good people.

This has not been an easy thing to accept.

Yet the honesty has been liberating. I find myself feeling freer to say what needs to be said. To be honest with myself about how I'm actually feeling and having the strength to say so.

I owe that to my partners.

The previous week I finally shared the deep dark secret I've feared giving voice to. I admitted to both my partners that I have never trusted anyone I loved. I have always expected that someone I love would lie to me and then leave.

Because, I saw myself as unloveable.

So my life has been one big exercise in self sabotage. I would create the conditions in relationships by which my belief would be proven true. I would pull away from those that I love so I could say to myself "See! They left! You are unlovable!"

Except this time, as I began to create the conditions, these two refused to allow it. Both are far more in tune with who they are and are far more evolved than I in many ways. It was their love for me that created in me a sense of trust for one of the few times in my life.

And as I told them what I needed to, neither ran screaming from the building. This proved critical. Their actions disproved my believe that I am unlovable.

So now I need to find a new foundation stone to build my psyche on. I need something much firmer than the quicksand I've been living on for so long. I feel so unsettled an unmoored.

Yet that is so much better than the fear and loathing I've been in all my adult life.

That has to be good. Right?

For Good

At the risk of being a typically cliched gay man, or a typical man unable to share his emotions in his own words, a selection some of you may be familiar with:

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share

And none of it seems to matter anymore

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood

Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

And because I knew you...
Because I knew you...
Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good...

Tere, For all I have done and all I failed to do, I am so very very sorry. I was unable and unwilling to see my flaws, my failings and I pushed you away. I drew away from the one person who loved me despite all my insecurities and fears. I hope you can forgive me. Though I know you may never read this, know that I forgive you. I have been changed forever because of your love, kindness and wisdom.

Though I've had to release and mourn the death and loss of my sweet southern cowboy partner and lover, I can now embrace and rejoice at the birth of my beautiful, wonderful sister and friend.

Goodbye Douglas, I will always love and remember you.

Hello Teresa I will always love and treasure you.

I have been changed for good.