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.
