Well, it is finished. Since I first wrote about it last week, I came out (in order) to my best friend from high school, dad, grandma, mom, aunt, aunts (a lovely lesbian couple for more than 20 years) and finally my step-dad. That's it folks, I am as out as I can be without getting really creative, or posting to FB, but I hate FB. I'm not out at work, but I don't see the need at the moment, doesn't really effect me one way or another. That can be tale for another day. The point it is, all the pressure and anxiety to get it done, to find myself, to......:tears::tantrum!) You know what has taken its place? Two days of absolutely centered and complete peace. I've not felt this good, calm and content for so many, many long years. I've not felt like I know myself this well and actually liked what I see for even longer. It feels so damn good :icon_bigg to be utterly happy for once. What next, don't know. Taking it as it comes. Got to finally finish the move back from Europe, get the family settled and begin the search for...., well I'll leave that your imagination.
I'm going to borrow a quote from Ormanout's thread from today entitled "Great progress!!" According to Strong's Concordance 7965 Shalom means completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. Shalom comes from the root verb shalom meaning to be complete, perfect and full. You have found Shalom my friend! This is the peace beyond all description, enjoy it Pal!
Congratulations. Everyone deserves to be at peace with themselves. It is so inspiring to read your story and see how far you have come.
Hurray for you Preacher Man! You've worked long and hard for this, I am so glad to hear that you are enjoying it and finally reveling in some well-deserved peace. I aspire to finding my of place of peace... someday.
Every step out of the closet -- allows you to claim more and more of who you are. You being gay is not only a blessing to yourself but to the world. You are going to astonish yourself, really. :icon_bigg
A huge congratulations to you Palimpsest! Inner peace is a wonderful thing. I have to ask how you got past any feelings of guilt for the impact coming out is having on your wife/kids (that's where I'm stuck right now).
Thanks one and all. Spaceman, I'm not so much past the pain and turmoil of many things that yet lay ahead, I'm just to the point where I literally realize that I am capable of abandoning it all. That took a lot of working through once I realized. Pretty sure I posted about my cosmic melt down with my wife when that began to hit. Then, I realized, ironically the person (me) who has been so afraid of being abandoned, was capable of abandoning. Once that sat in my noodle for a while, once I could own it, I decided that I could live with it but do not have to do that. I can go either way right now. Yes, would I regret at some point in the future taking such action, perhaps. Would my making such a bold move force my wife's hand, yes. Could that go really badly and hurt the kids, yes. Those are all things that exist in my head and could exist in the real world. The point of all this for me right now is what exists today. I do. I am gay. God it took a long time to work that out. All the people in the world that mean something to me know it too. They didn't freak out. I freaked out. I was my own enemy. My noodle and its ability to create phantoms and ghosts. The bottom line is that I can't be a person who is good to anyone else, myself included, without being me. All of me. I'm not thinking of it in terms of good or bad anymore either, just capabilities. These are my capabilities. I feel like it has given me an actual stake in the game of life. I know where I can go, where I can't go better than ever before. I feel like I am in a position to make a decision. The true test of me will come in the next few weeks as it looks like the move to Vermont will happen no later than the first week of December. I don't want to go, but I will go because I don't want to crush my children by not going. That too, is a head game, but I will make this decision based on the kind of man I want to be. The kind of man I want my son in particular to see in his father. I don't know how long I'll stay there. Who knows, six months from now perhaps I'll love (which I will if I find someone to be with). That's it, I know what I want and how far I am willing to go to get it. That is part of today's peace. I've seen my fear evaporate in many ways, my dark side dissolve into the light of day and I'm learning about myself in the process. One of the key points then, and I'll stop blabbing on, I'm gay. I'm good with that, frankly at this point, I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, I'm ready to enter the next stage and perhaps act on what I want. Not bad profess for a 5 month long journey.
Congratulations friend. I am delighted at your news. Of course a kind and gentle soul, such as yourself, would surround himself with equally kind and toleratant loved ones. As far as your decision to accept the reality that you could abandon, I would offer another perspective. We refused to adapt ourselves and perceptions of the world or the way people perceived us before- that is why we ended up in the closet in the first place (or at least that's what I did-being gay was not an option, so I never considered it). However, coming out-- and coming out later in life has offered us possibility. That's the beauty of accepting a truth and embracing it despite many associated difficulties. You see.. We don't have to choose anymore. It doesn't have to be one or the other. The lines of our lives are being re-defined. We are the artists of our own futures. So don't think any situation has to be either A or B.(East coast or West coast) We each can create a path of our own. I know this is true bc each of us is already doing it! You are not abandoning anything. You are creating something good and strong and adding beauty to the world. You will add beauty Pal; I know it, bc I have benefited from it and seen it's effect on others. Best.
Talk about setting goals and accomplishing them! Congrats on some major steps forward into the great unknown and and the unknown great.
Palimpsest...I know that feeling. SO wonderful to get the weight off and walk free and feel that you can love yourself for what you are, for what you truly desire. Euphoric. Nice if that lasted... but you know. Life is still there to be dealt with. Like that wonderful book (is it still in print?) "I Never Promised you a Rose Garden." Been 3 months--that might as well be 3 years for all the changes I've gone through--like 8 days at the Fall Gathering at Short Mountain Sancturary! Oh wow... Getting used to getting used to it. But so much better. Welcome home, girl! Hugs!
This is truly inspirational. We can be discrete with the people we love and still let them know we have different feelings than they do. This is not a competition, or a quest for power. This is the only way we know to liberate the LGBT community. What a blessing this experience has been for you.
