Friday, June 26, 2015

Marriage Equality has arrived - In the US.

Lets hope it lasts.


I am sorry, I need a hot minute to absorb this. Ok, I need more than a hot minute, I need a hot hour.

Just now via my darling friend Sharla and the never ending stream of tweets from tweeters like Same.Same, BET, People Magazine and GQ, yes, even GQ is onboard with this, I now am to believe that marriage is something that will be afforded to the LGBT community. Is this shit for real?

Let me explain why I am having a hard time believing this will stick. I am happy, happier than most, as my dream has always been to get married to the one I love, the rest of world told me that the one I loved needed to have a vagina, I preferred the penis option. I digress. I had heard from the get go how wrong being gay was, that is was disgusting, perverted and more often than not likened to the worst kind of being I could have ever imagined being. As you can imagine, coming was going to be super easy with all this behind me. NOT.

Like the majority of my gay, lesbian and transgendered brothers and sisters, I came out and not to the roaring crowds full of appreciation that you may see at a Pride parade around the world, more a solemn "Are you sure?" and "OK, if that's what you want", coupled with silence and long periods at the beginning of this "coming out process" of not really talking to my family. Some of it was them not understanding me and a whole lot of it was me feeling that I had somehow brought shame upon my family, that I had let them down and ultimately, let myself down. Luckily that shit passed and things are a lot better, not perfect, but better.

I was saying to my friend Sharla that she needed to remember something, that she was speaking to a gay guy who is nearly 40 years old, who, and let's be brutally honest here, has very rarely seen or heard positive things about the community that I am meant to belong too, except from those close to me, like said (and wonderful at that) friend. I have grown up listening to people preaching from every corner of the  globe how disgusting I am meant to be, perverted, diseased and living "that" disgusting lifestyle is a choice. How I do not deserve the right of the law and very often, how these "people", my people, should be stopped with their "agenda", even eradicated from society and the earth we all share. Yes, even in 2015 this still exists, you just needle to google gay to see what comes up, or even better, ask one of your gay/lesbian/transgendered friends on their experiences in life, you'll be surprised and more often than not, deeply saddened. Violence, murder and suicide are still all to common amongst the LGBT community and hopefully this changing of laws will allow peoples fears and misconceptions to slowly dissipate.

So, whilst I am over the moon, ecstatic even, that my brothers and sisters in the US will now be seen as equals in the eyes of the law, I need a minute to process that I too may be seen as YOUR equal in the eyes of the law one day. That this may in fact be my reality, now, tomorrow and in my future. That eventually it will NOT be referred to as "Gay marriage" but rather, simply "marriage". That as a global society we will start to look at love as truly that, LOVE. That we will not associate the negative with being gay and that as humans, consenting adults, we all have the right to share a life with someone that we love, no matter what their gender, colour or religion may be. Just love.

It's taken me just over 30 minutes to write this and yes, it has finally sunk in.

What a day - June 26th, 2015.

For more information on Marriage Equality:

http://www.marriageequality.org

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Trust Yourself.

Always.


Its really hard to understand each other sometimes, especially when different cultures are involved. I have learnt so much over these last couple of years, none more so than the time I have spent in Brazil.

I have trusted, I have loved and many times I have lost, lost my heart, lost my friendships and yes, lost my love. I wish there was something that I could have done to change these things as the loss of someone that you gave your heart and friendship to is one of the hardest losses we face in life.

Emotions run wild and whilst I don't believe in regret, I do believe in self evaluation, reflection, the ability to say "If I had my time again, maybe I would have done things differently.." I am man enough to say yes, I would have done things differently. I would have been less needy. I would have said no. I would have loved myself more. I would have said goodbye earlier.

But I didn't. That's ok too, life is about learning, right? About the ability to stand in front of the mirror and promise yourself that those mistakes will never be repeated. Never. I believed in love, I really believed in it. Man, I flew across the world to be with the one I loved, I thought he loved me too, he didn't, he thought he did, but I know he didn't. I'm not angry, I am sad though, to think that these relationships we cherish so much, we work so hard for, we love almost as much as family, can disappear in a split second. Everything is forgotten, love becomes disdain, fond memories are now more painful than anything else. Yet through it all that person or those people are still so missed.

We are human, all of us. Our experiences are different and yet so shared, common even. We laugh, we cry, we fight, we make love and we all yearn for that special someone to enter our lives and change it all. We trivialise the things that were once so important us, photos are destroyed and our hearts are broken. Why?

Fear. Love. Solitude. Sex. Insecurity. Emotions. You. Me. Us.

Although the winds change the seasons, our lips no longer connect and words and laughter no longer share our moments together, you are all in my heart and my memories.

Always.