Independence and Freedom

Yesterday, the United States of America celebrated its birthday again. I spent the day in the least eventful of ways. I treated a friend to coffee and, then, we gamed with a group of other friends. I managed to miss all the fireworks displays. Afterwards, I came home and watched TV until I was tired enough to sleep.

I have spent the last two mornings awakening obscenely early. Then, I waste my time on GROWLr and Bear411 until realizing that no matter how many faces I see my Bear will not be there. Eventually, I find my way to the living room and burst into tears. I hate this chapter of my life possibly more than I did my teen years. I do not much like this guy I have become in the nearly 19 months since Phil died. I cry often. I feel so isolated from every other living soul on this planet. When I am in the physical presence of friends or family, I can usually pretend that I am fine. I act happy. I give laughter, humor, and fun to others. Much like Pagliacci (or my late partner's "porcelain mask" analogy for himself) I give my "audience" a show...and cry afterwards when I am alone.

Yesterday morning featured me laying on the living room floor where Phil died and sobbing.

I was recounting the circumstances and men to whom I have said "I love you" through my lifetime. I clearly remembered 8 guys; only 1 counted. I am a selfish person, but when I fell in love with Phil I cared about another's life and another's happiness more than anything I could want for myself. I wish I could have been less concerned with being too much like his mother in getting him to take care of his sleep apnea. I should have pressed him to use the damned C-PAP machine. He died and left me alone in the world because I didn't pressure him to make the healthy choices he needed to make. Instead, I was trying to distance myself in behaviors from how overbearing his mom could be.

The only freedom I will ever know will come when I give myself independence on the day I choose to end my life. This lifetime has sucked. I have been hurt and wanted more than I could have. When I needed a car and my license, I didn't have either. When I needed love and companionship, I found only guys wanting meaningless sex and no connection to me at all. Wanting and never having. Needing and never receiving. THIS is the story of my life. Being Phil's partner and the simple life we shared together for 13 years, 6 months, and 23 days was the sole and only happy period of my experiences. Now that he is dead, I will never be happy again until I am also deceased.

Other people get all the good stuff. Others have friends, family, good jobs they like, cars that work, and homes they own. What do I have? Friends who never call or even want for my company. Family who only calls when I am needed for some reason. I have a temporary job which uses none of my skills and from which I do not receive enough pay to afford to live solo. I knock on wood or pray to whatever gods may hear that the minivan continues to function until I can afford to make whatever repair happens next. I have nothing. I don't have Phil, though I desperately need him. I am doing this living thing alone. I can be surrounded by friends, family, or strangers and I feel alone.

Do you know what that is like?

It is torturous. I am in Hell without any way to leave it.

And, then, there is the matter of same-sex marriage becoming a Federal-level right. It has been salt, lemon juice, and battery acid all poured into my wounded heart simultaneously. The Friday the ruling happened all of these gay male couples I knew were posting to Facebook and boasting about getting married. Without exception, all of them are currently open relationships. They "play" with other guys. They cheat on one another regularly and do not see it as cheating. Now, they are proclaiming that they will be marrying their "one true love" but I doubt any of them will stop being open. It makes me ILL!!! Phil and I fought for the right to be married. We were a closed and monogamous unit. We would have done right by marriage! Not these guys. They will be privately thumbing their noses at marriage and giving the relationship my late partner and I had the bird! It makes me SICK! If these jerks are going to keep fucking other guys, then they should stay single. When you get married, it is adultery to have sex with anyone who isn't your spouse. Seriously!

It isn't right or fair.

None of what I have faced in these past 18+ months has been either.

The Wedding

We won, mi Oso.

On Friday, the United States Supreme Court decided that same-sex marriage was a Federal right. The voted opinion of a majority should have never been utilized to strip a minority group of its freedoms. I had been complaining about this ridiculous idea since 2004 when Ohio's Issue One put the one-man-one-woman definition of marriage into our State's Constitution! Issue One took the idea further by saying any attempt to mimic marriage was illegal.

I remember how we both felt after that Tuesday in November, Bear. We had lost and been horribly betrayed by friends and by family alike. It was not right or fair to us. People who knew us voted against us??? How does that even happen? How could they call themselves "friends" when they would do THAT to us???

Yeah, I remember.

Now, we have won, but you are not here to marry me.

I heard about the SCOTUS decision shortly before lunch. I cried through my lunch, actually. I kept looking at the picture of us I keep on my phone:

Pictures are the only way I have of keeping close to you these days. I cried because we wanted to be married. It was not just something I wished to happen. You decided that as long as it was a State-by-State deal that we were fine being unmarried. I would become frustrated with that opinion, though I shared it. I wanted to be married to you, Phil. I wanted our friends and our families to come to our wedding. It didn't have to be some big to-do. Yeah, yeah, my dream wedding was me in a tux and you in a kilt, but we could have done simple. That would have been our style. Us, a few friends, and someone to solemnize our vows.

We never got there.

Friday's decision was so very bitter and only passingly sweet to me. I visited Facebook where all of these guys in open relationships were bragging about how they were going to get married to their "one true love" and all that. It offended me! How could these men who are cruising websites and phone apps for sex from random non-partners get the opportunity to marry when I never will??? It is a f**king OUTRAGE to me that THEY get to be married!!!

We were a closed, monogamous couple. We were faithful to one another. We loved each other enough that we didn't need to be screwing other guys or cheating with some random dude. And WE were a threat to "traditional marriage"??? Meanwhile, the guys in open relationships are cashing-in on the new right to be married and STILL f**king around???

How is that fair?

It isn't. If you want to be married, fine. You stay faithful to the man you marry until the day one of you dies. If you find you can't do that? Don't get married. Don't you F**KING DARE sully marriage with your "lifestyle choice" of cheating and lying to the "love of your life"!!! Stay off the apps and websites where you're showing your dick pictures and your body, too. Only your husband needs to see that. If you're really looking for new friends, they don't need to hear about your favorite sexual activities or how big your penis is! If you want to behave like you're dating, then don't be married. Leave marriage for us guys who will treat it right!

Infamous Last Words

This blog is ultimately my own space. Few people know of it or how to find it. I am the only individual who posts to it as I have never seen a comment made to any of my content. Having no audience means I should feel more free to post whatever stream-of-consciousness ramblings I wish to make, right?

I keep visiting Facebook to play Bejeweled Blitz. I am tempted to post again like some FB-addicted junkie who wants another hit. Then, I remember why I stopped posting there. It is home to some truly critical people, many of whom I call "friends." When I would discuss my feelings or my grief over the loss of Phil, others would say nothing or give me feedback that generally only re-enforced my belief that they did not understand what I was attempting to write. I was alone in a crowd...online.

And that is why I stopped.

My basic intent in posting anywhere about anything is a quest to feel supported or, at the very least, understood. I have rarely found what I was hoping to find, even prior to Phil's death. It is one of many reasons I miss Bear so succinctly. He got me. He might not have ever replied much in our day-to-day life, but I knew he understood me. If I was feeling pained or saddened, my partner would hold me and comfort me in real time. The caring and compassion was not some virtual emoted hugging; it was real and from a real person. Online-only hugs soured for me early in 2014. The last real hugs I have received happened in December 2013 if I am being honest. I have held other guys romantically. I have been hugged as a way to say "goodbye." Since Phil, no one has held me or hugged me in the real way I need most. I have become some kind of radioactive or polluted pariah that no one wants to touch. The lack of tactile re-enforcement mixes with the communication issues of online-only life to make me feel incredibly isolated. When I see friends, they are present only for short spans of time. Emotionally, they may or may not be present at all. Not only do they fail to understand me, but they prove to me time and again that they do not wish to try.

Am I angry at them?

Frustrated, disappointed, hurt, and confused all make better adjectives.

I have been screaming at the top of my lungs, writing maddeningly, and am still not able to make my needs clear. Phil is dead; I get that. I understand that my ursine partner is no longer capable of hugging me. My need is for someone to do it in his stead. I want to be loved by someone. I hate being alone, lonely, and isolated. I hate feeling like there is not a soul on this Earth who gets me. It is as if I am speaking some weird foreign language that NO ONE ELSE speaks. They can see me trying to communicate and how frustrated I am by the lack of comprehension, but no one understands what I am trying to say. I am flustered by this scenario.

And in times like now I remember Phil and miss him the most.

A friend recently and publicly accused me of having my head up my ass when it comes to missing Phil as if my grief was invalid. She was not the first to make this attack. Friends can become strangers in moments when it comes to this topic. Actually, friends can become enemies this way, too. Telling me that while my grief is fine and natural I should be done with it somehow already is a shortcut to making me an adversary. I will cling to Phil's memory even more intensely when someone tries to make me let go. He was a good friend. He loved me. He was always there for me. He didn't treat me like my feelings didn't matter and didn't count. He cared about my well-being. He was everything that my modern friends cannot seem to be. We may not have agreed perfectly on every matter, but we did so often enough.

I am tired of fighting with everyone about their opinions being right and mine being wrong. That is the bottom line here. My grief and the pain of my loss both count. They are real. I seek solace which no one is offering to me. Then, when I become disappointed or disillusioned by what I cannot find, I turn to Phil's memory again. It opens the grief all over again. Talking to a counselor cannot heal this cycle as counselors are not supposed to become personally involved with clients. They are no substitute for real friends and for a real social support system. Therapists are primarily concerned with diagnosing and treating mental illness; that's the job! Candy-coating it with anecdotal experiences does not change what a counselor's job is. The reality of the profession is that they want to be paid for their services. It often means finding a diagnosis for Axis I and sticking to it. At some junction, my grief becomes Major Depression and medications start getting suggested as insurance will gladly pay for head-drugs but are not so confidant in extended talk-therapy sessions. My education was taking me into this profession! I understand the ethics and job-description of counseling far better than most people do!

I am scared tonight. My body is threatening another panic attack. I am afraid of dying, almost as much as I usually think about wanting it. Death has been in my thoughts much lately. I wonder when it will finally be my time to go. I think about what I would want people to know if I did die. Telling my brother's kids how much I loved and appreciated them is usually first among my thoughts. They were as close to children of my own as I had. I want for them to be healthy, happy, and to have wonderful lives. I would want my friends to know that my death was not anyone's fault. I may have been frustrated or disappointed in these friends for largely ignoring me, but I never hated them or felt angry towards them. I am just not wired that way, I guess. I don't hate anyone honestly. Even in my darkest days, I can't hate.

I am scared, though. Living alone means dying alone. I won't be surrounded by friends or by family when my time is through. Someone will find my corpse, probably in my bed, with days or weeks having lapsed since I died. It won't be like how Phil ended. No one will notice I am gone. I leave no lover behind to cry for me. I fathered no children. I own nothing of much value to be divided to my non-existent heirs. I am not anyone important.

What I hope will be is: I will be with my Bear again.

We can wander the hills and the valleys of some Summerland together. We can play and be happy again. He will hold me tightly to his chest once more the way he did. I won't be alone anymore. I won't have to cry or to wish someone could hear me. I will be with him.

And that's all that matters to me now.

Where I Don't Belong

Yesterday morning, I learned that a good friend of mine died.

In the months before he ended, I could see his health fading as his body became increasingly frail. He commented several times about the matter as if, on some level, he knew his life's story was closing soon. Brian (sometimes "the Bat" as he loved Batman or otherwise Bri) was a unique character in my own story. He was a left-handed bassist who enjoyed music. He joked about not having been a member of the "27 Club", famous musicians who lost their lives at the age of 27 years old. For him, his life really started then. Bri was once very overweight and did the gastric bypass surgery. He gave himself his life. He was not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a loyal friend and a good pal to have. I loved spending long evenings in his company, talking about the musical groups we loved in common. Sometimes, we would both get philosophical about love or life. I will miss his intellect as much as anything he had to share with the world.

We'll never write those songs together, bro. Cheers!

This small eulogy will probably be the only one I get to make regarding him. During the last 36 hours or so, I have attempted to contact our mutual friends and his family alike. I have received the resounding reply that I am not welcomed at any memorial for Brian. Several of our mutual friends and I do not coexist well. While I would try for the sake of his memory, I do not wish to encounter the negativity some of them maintain about him and/or against me. I do not need those attitudes. His family is very Christian and do not like gay people. While Bri was accepting of GLBT people, his family of origin is not at all welcoming. They have demonstrated by ignoring my email that I am not welcomed. I do not go places where I am not wanted. I guess I will have to make due with telling the Bat goodbye in my own private ways.

I hope the next life is easier for you, my friend. You were a good guy and a great friend. You will be missed!

All Summer in One Day

Happy birthday to me.

Today, I turn 44 years old. It is my second birthday without Phil, the second year in my life after him. I think about how I celebrated last year: A cute boy of 20 years in my bed.

I had requested this lad to be there as I did not want to be alone on my birthday. Our romance (or whatever it was) did not last long. The wolf pup was TOO young for me and I knew it. He had someone else, too; I was a "someone on the side" as opposed to being a "primary relationship." His values included concepts like "open relationships" and "pansexual polyamory" which continue to confuse me. He spent my birthday with me, though.

Bear, I wish you were here in the corpulent ursine flesh. I could stand a few hundred hours of hugging/cuddling/snuggling therapy in your arms. I have not been held since you died. While I have hugged other men, I seem to do all the holding. I am not ready or even capable of being a fully grown Bear, myself; I am still your Cubbie. I am lost in the wilds of this world and alone without you. No one I meet is anything like you, even when I hope with all my heart to find you again and even when what I truly need most is you. This world is full of strangers, mi Oso. They never stay long. I am between two realities, honestly. One is a world of ghosts and memories where you are alive. I smile in that place. I can hear you, though it is often only at a whisper, say my name. I can remember for a moment how it felt to have you hold me. I like that place. The other world is filled with strangers and monsters. I am scared of this place. In it, you are dead, Bear. I cry for you, miss you, need you, and cannot be with you in this second world. Friends and family are in this secondary reality. They visit me but always return to their homes after too short a time. I return to the first world where you are. I tell you and our home that I am back when I return. I imagine you running to hug me, excited to see me again as I am to see you.

Can I come home again, Bear?

I do not like this second world at all. My family is gone from here. Mom died 8 years ago as of last January. You died 18 months ago as of a week ago. I am still here. I am surviving, barely. The job is a job but not stable and not a career. Our home was purchased by the bank. I keep hoping for this "better" promised me by others who have lost lovers...but I am not seeing it manifest.

How many years of this second world, this cursed life after you, my Beloved Bear, must I endure?

I want to come home again.

Agnosis

You don't get to know
how I feel.
All your words ring empty.
Nothing you say can console.
He was my dream-come-true.
He was my once-and-future everything.
You have your lover.
You have somewhere and someone
with whom you belong.
Your piece in the Grand Puzzle
and your place in some grand design
is still in place
and continues to be defined.
I now walk alone.
Most days,
it is more a crawl
along a ground littered
with broken stained-glass memories
of vows we will never say
and of memories we will never have
to hold or to cherish.
I keep my own counsel.
The truths I find remain my own.
You don't get to know.
You can never understand,
so you don't get to know.

Whispers

I dreamed of John tonight. He was my best friend during my high-school days. In my mid-20s, we grew apart and saw little of one another. We re-connected briefly while I was in college, after Phil and I had become a couple, but we split again. In this dream, John was the same person he had been to me during high school: A good friend. I told him about Phil's passing. I told him how I had missed having his friendship.We parted in the dream...and I awoke wondering if I should make another effort to contact John. I can't see what good would come of it, honestly.

Today marks 18 months since Phil died on our living room floor. I awoke at 7:41 AM that December morning. I had a strange dream about art-deco-stylized unicorns, flying by farting pixelated rainbows. I remember how I felt, too. Every now and again, I feel as I once did in my high-school days. I feel smart, capable, and connected to this human's experience in those moments. That's how I felt in the first few minutes. I needed to pee so I went from the bedroom to the bathroom. I realized as I was urinating how incredibly quiet it was. Phil slept on a mattress in the living room. His snoring was erratic but LOUD. Usually, the TV would be on, too. Neither was true. I turned and saw Phil laying on the floor with his face on the bottom corner of the mattress. I rushed to him. He was mostly on the floor, face down and arms akimbo as if hugging his chest. Only his face and uppermost torso were on the mattress. I shook him and felt his neck for a pulse. His neck was wet and still warm.

I called 911 on my cell phone, too shocked and stunned to think of anything else.

A parade of people coming into the house and asking me questions began. The EMTs did try for some period of time to revive Phil but he was gone. I remember calling Phil's mom and the extended monosyllable "no" from her. I called my brother David. What else do you do? I picked from the two nearest funeral homes. I had always joked with Phil what a poorly named facility "Newcomer" was, so I picked the one further down the road.

Gods, it all makes me sad and ill.

I miss my Bear. I can remember all of these details about the first day he wasn't here but it is difficult for me to remember how he sounded, what it looked like when he laughed, or how he smelled. Pictures are cold things. I have hugged the few framed photos I have of Phil many times. Sometimes, I put kisses from my fingertips on his image's lips. Mostly, I just cry and talk to him as if he is still there.

Why am I still alive?

Nothing prepared me to live without Phil. He died without a will, without life insurance, and without any preparations for leaving me behind him. It was not like he at the age of 37 had any intentions on dying. The house and both vehicles were in his name. Everything was in his name. I was left in this fucked-up new world without him to deal with circumstances I could not have handled before he died. Months of sleeping very little and eating nearly nothing followed. I disconnected from everyone in such a way that I cannot connect except for short periods of time and have the feelings generated last beyond parting from the other person.

I am tired, my Bear.

I wish I could find some way to follow you, some way to not be here. People always ask what you would have wanted for me, beloved, but this misery is not it. They see some future where I have mostly forgotten you and someone else loves me, but I don't want anyone else but you. I don't want to forget you! I want you back here with me. I don't want to be alone, but I am. I don't want to be broken, but I am. I don't want much of anything except for these miracles I cannot seem to make become true. I want you here. I wish I had a more money so I could keep the house. I don't get anything I want.

Oso, I love you. I wish you were here.