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On Everything and Nothing
(from Sunday)
Ricky has been having some difficulties with his parents lately, and as he is living with them, accepted my invitation to spend the weekend at my place. Studies aside, we dined, partied, and vegged -- exactly opposite my plans yesterday morning. Lately, I've noticed I turn into a different person when I'm around him. I've been working hard to keep that from happening, mainly trying to keep comfortable as myself. I can't deny his influence in my life, however. He has made a permanent change on me the past five years I've known him, and it shows in everything from my taste in art and music to my hobbies and gestures and mannerisms.
I took Sumo to be groomed, today, while Ricky and I went to the school's gay and lesbian group meeting. It was nice not having to worry about Sumo for a few hours. Nothing too exciting took place at the meeting. Stan read over some updates and we pigged out on brownies, Fritos, and bean dip. I'm working on setting up an event next week with Campus Activities for a lecture at the school. Besides that, however, my involvement in the group has been limited to cameos only.
I remember at one point, when I was in Denver looking forward to my future life once I would return home, I said to myself, "I am going to join the student group, become an activist, and turn that close-minded community upside-down." The whole idea of moving to a small town with virtually no gay community just scared the bejesus out of me. My way of compensating for it was to think of myself as bringing a piece of the gay scene in Denver to the closeted gays down here. "I'm an upstanding citizen. Successful. Well-mannered. Pretty. They will like me and I'll change their notion of gays being gross, leather-daddies and nightmarish drag queens." (Which was, and still is, the extent of the public gay population down here).
Unfortunately, as soon as I moved back in with my parents, the high-school closet mentality quickly set in. I got a job at Applebee's waiting tables that summer, and even though I came out to a few of the girls there, I was nervous at the thought of other people finding out. It was like taking fifteen steps backwards. I've made slow progress towards being fully comfortable with my sexuality in a straight city, but it is still nothing like my year in Denver.
I've been considering buying real estate north of the city in a small town. Part of me cringes at even the consideration of the idea, but the practical side of me is loving every minute of it. I knew I should have gotten out of this city for good when I had the chance. Again, here is the internal conflict of comfort versus adventure. Sometimes I hate my parents for being so damned practical. I envision myself on my deathbed at the hospital here in town and cursing my father with my last breath for instilling such a deadening sense of level-headedness within me; cursing him for leaving me with this legacy of such a dreadfully mundane life.
No. I can't complain. My father has given up so much for my brother and me. We've travelled to exotic places, had the best of everything, received so many opportunities. It's just that now I'm expected to stay put for two more years to finish additional schooling that is above and beyond my degree, when I could be out fulfilling my dream of exploring life. My dad sees it as only two more years, but two years to a 60 year-old man is nothing. It's easy coming from his perspective, but for me, I will never have my early twenties again. It's a once in a lifetime event. Hell, life is a onetime event. His usual response to this argument is "What's the difference between leaving when you're 23 and leaving when you're 25?" I simply shake my head and walk away.
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