“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
That’s it. That’s the story. I just want you to have the same mental picture that I have to see in real life. Have a good day.
The other day my mom called to tell me that she got her Mother’s Day gift in the mail and to tell me how one of her dogs has really bad-smelling farts lately.
“Hey. You ask me what’s new around here so I tell you,” she says.
Since moving across the country to Los Angeles, my mom and my relationship has been a very “storytelling/Just talk to me about anything so I feel like I’m at least only a few miles away from you like when I lived in Chicago/SO MUCH emotional and narrative” relationship ( Basically, think NPR without the edits). Honestly, the distance has made us become closer. No longer can we just sit in the same room while silently sipping wine because that would be super awkward on the phone. Now we HAVE to chat to fill the space and distance of our phone connection with anecdotes of everything. It’s been lovely keeping up with everything back home this way. It connects me. Anything we talk about makes me feel close.
But one of my favorite things she does on the phone is when she asks me about Nate’s and my upcoming wedding.
See, ten years ago this year, I was outed. Long-story-short, my mom and dad got pretty upset about me being gay. It damaged our otherwise pretty tight relationship. She said some things she regrets. I felt some things I’ve finally let go. Shit. Got. Real, people. Ask my friends: I was lost. Ask my teachers: I was gone. Ask my brother: he’d tell you I’m being a drama queen (well, he’s probably kinda right). But ask my mom and I what it was like and you may see our faces turn from bright smiles to forlorn distant looks.
But that’s gone. Done. Finished. In ten years, my mom has went from “What did I do wrong to make you this way” to “Thank God Nate is marrying my son because there’s no better man I could imagine for him.” And now we get to have conversations about my impending wedding like no big deal. Things like: “So I was thinking for your flowers…” or “I also picked up a little surprise for all your guest!” And even “WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP!?”
As I write this my eyes are watering. Not because I miss my mom (Ohmygod, I do SO much) and not because it’s so sweet that she harasses me about behaving at my bachelor party. My eyes are watering because of the person my mom has become. Through the years she taken herself on this personal journey of getting to know her gay son through her own exploration of reading, discussions, asking questions, watching “Glee” (thanks, “Glee!”) and molded herself in a beautiful human being full of compassion and so much love.
See, I’ve always thought moms had secret powers (Dads have them too, just different kinds. Like “Getting tennis balls out of gutters” super powers — that’s a big deal!). They deserve this day for us to bow down and be all “Thank you for making me and letting me chill in your belly thing.” But we should also bow down to them for always being there. But that’s the great thing about parents — they never stop being your parents. And they never stop teaching you lessons about life. Even when you’re all grown up and have your own FICO score, you can still learn from them. And I was lucky to have the chance to truly grasp a big lesson about Love from my mom over the past decade that aligns in perfect timing with the wake of my forthcoming marriage: Where there is love there is life. (With a little help from Gandhi, of course)
My mom proves that Love is a thing. Not just an obvious thing that makes people feel gushy and warm and a popular theme in most Nick Hornby novels. She proves that Love is this cursive-flowing power that is beautiful in all it’s dramatic loops. She proves that Love is also a sturdy foundation that one can construct a bridge upon so two people can be reach no matter what kinds of distance stands before them… whether it be physical in thousands of miles or the gaps created by heavy emotions from the past.
Happy Mother’s Day mom and to all moms. Thanks for sharing your magic.
Have you ever sat down and thought about your life. No, like, really thought about the moments that defined you. Sure, there are the birthdays and the holidays, but everyone gets those. I’m talking about those single moments that you, ONLY YOU, own. No one else has lived those moments the exact way you have. I know, this all super heady for a non-booze-equip convo (unless you have some, please share). But that’s what I’m doing right now for the Memoir Project.
(See that blue line? I did that! With blue tape! It was tricky because my fingers are like Barney Rubble’s toes. But I did it!)
So I’m taking part in this whole project that wants writers to capture some aspect of their life in a small journal that will then travel in a touring truck around the country. The journals will be scanned. The pages will be turned by people all over the US of A. And the best part: THE STORIES ARE HANDWRITTEN — like with human hands writing in letters and stuff! This is such a stellar project that I’m honored to be a part of! And sharing stories is pretty much the reason why I love writing and became a writer.
Anyway, I got to thinking about time and, obviously, how it changes everything, but especially right now with LGBT stuff. Like, ten years ago when I was outed by my aunt, the topics we are hearing in mainstream media these days weren’t even being whispered about back then. Gay marriage? AHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA, LOLOLOLOL at that 10 years ago. DADT was still alive and active. I think “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy” was like, the only thing gay people were winning.
So, now, here I am asked to write a story of my life. The struggles. The frustration. The powerful. The beautiful. How do you hand write that in thirty-some pages?
For this particular project, I decided to go timeline style. I’m going to pick moments of my gay self to highlight in the last 10 years — from ages 20 through 30. It is going to branch from being outed, being disowned, being re-owned, getting heartbroken MANY MANY TIMES for many different types of men. Finding out things about myself that are scary/awesome/fun/smart. Falling in love for the first time with a real classy guy and then getting married. Everything in between. All handwritten and dated.
I’d like to think that this notebook will be around for a while — forever, perhaps. So then Kevin or Max or 01101 (Maybe future kids will be named in coding, I dunno), will understand what it was like to be gay back in the day and take a moment to reflect on “what it once was.” They will be like “man, 2007 was stupid about gay stuff…” and “Wow, what are these squiggly lines and stuff — is this what people mean when they said they used to write things by hand?!” Then, the boys will all jump in to the hoovering personal spaceship scooters and go ply 4-D Mario Brothers in their house on Mars knowing at least some little part of the past.
Mostly, it’s been kinda beautiful seeing my own personal evolution over a 10-year life span. It’s been hard. It’s been crazy. It’s been an adventure. But, damn it, I love having the time(line) of my life.
Today I was sent a random email asking if I’d like to freelance as a writer on a “legitimate” conspiracy site “based on some of your tweets regarding the Illuminati.” I ask (out of pure fear and fascination): “Which site are you from?”
Random email address: “We can’t tell you that until you say ‘yes.’”
My response: “What would I write?”
REA: “We can’t tell you that either until you say ‘yes.’”
My next response: “I will say ‘yes’ if you can guarantee I get a chance to meet supposed Illuminati member Beyoncé…”
REA: “On second thought, this position probably isn’t for you. Have a good day.”
I had a dream that I was camping in outer space. It was in one of those cloth tents propped up by a stick, you know, the kinds you see in old Boy Scout manuals. My view was Jupiter — It was shimmery, like a jaw breaker dipped in glitter. When I woke up I decided I wanted to be an astronaut. So I googled NASA, and I signed up to take their “So You Want To Be An Astronaut” test.
I passed every part of it. Section 1: How do you greet aliens? (With a friendly handshake, duh.) Section 2: How do you parallel park a gigantic space ship? (Check your mirrors obviously!). Section 3: Compute these quantum physics equations (A breeze, clearly!) Every section of the test… I nailed it all!
So there I was in my brand new white space suit staring in the mirror all proud. (It looked real good on me, let me tell you.) I WAS GOING IN TO SPACE!
But that’s when I realized a possible problem: You can’t update your Facebook from space!?
There I was sitting in that gigantic space ship, buckled in to the for take off panicking because NONE of my friends knew where I was. None of my friends would now the amazing places I’d visit or how many cool planets I could check in to! HOW COULD I DO THIS WITHOUT GETTING “likes” on my updates!??!?
There was no reason to go to space if no one was going to “like’ it on Facebook!
(New story in the works!)
I was journaling while waiting for Nate to meet me for dinner the other night at this pub downtown. They were cranking 90s Radiohead and I was LIVING. But, dang, you wouldn’t believe the looks I was getting for doing it WITH A PEN AND NOTBEOOK.
Anyway, my super sweet waitress came up to me and she was like: “Can I get you something to drink?”
I order my pint of lager beer (Guys, Californians like beer — they actually drink carbs like the rest of the country!) and after I was done ordering I thanked her… yet she lingered. She made eye contact with my open journal then to me then back to the journal. If this was a scene in a movie, the camera would pan to a close up of her eyes, down to my Moleskin, to a close up to my eyes (with a “not sure what’s going on right now” look in their gleam) and back to her eyes. Finally she says:
“Wait, so are you actually handwriting something?”
I nod excitedly.
“Wow… like, who does that anymore…?” She said as she typed my drink order into HER IPAD.
(Oh, did I forget to mention that my waitress was like, the ripe age of eighteen?)
I nodded and smiled as she shook her head confused then shrugged and said something like, “I can’t remember the last time I did that. Wow, that’s vintage.”
VINTAGE?! She used the word “vintage” to describe writing with your hands on paper!?
So while she was away I tried to think of this teacher/writer/humanitarian-ish grand speech to give her to inspire her to put done her tablet/iphone/Mac and to use her ::Dun dun dunnn: fingers to write. I thought I could tell her how I still write in my journal everyday. That I take NOTES in it. That the way the computer soaks the moisture out of your eyes for staring it too long is the same way I feel it does to my soul — sucking all it’s juice click after click after link after app after email after email. And so when writing on a piece of paper with a pen, I at least get this feeling that is so epic and nourishing and freeing that it goes beyond the feeling one might get if they see a triple rainbow or a unicorn jumping through a triple rainbow. I wanted to hand my nearly full journal to my waitress and tell her to take it and write something RIGHT NOW, anything. Just write it using your own handwriting and NOT in Helvetica/New Times Roman pt. 12. Let’s do this TOGETHER!
I do this thing with my high school writing students where I make them journal for five minutes. I call the time “Brain Barfing.” I just want the kids to come in to the classroom and let everything bubbling up in their ever-expanding minds to come out on the page. The tactic feeling of physically words fall out of your body through your finger tips has proven to be therapeutic. At first the kids were like, “Booo, handwriting’s for chumps.” But now they walk in to the classroom and start the process before it even happens. I can’t tell you the awesome feeling I get watching this go down, but nothing was more AWESOME-ER than when one of the student say: “I can’t remember the last time I wrote something with my hands that wasn’t a math problem or notes for a class. My fingers usually hurt from texting too fast, but not my wrist hurts. I like it!”
So why shouldn’t I do the same thing for this waitress that clearly doesn’t write anything because she was taking our order (sorry, can I repeat this?) ON AN IPAD!!!! Maybe I could tell her to take a seat and we’d have this human connection where I show her how to use her pen on a piece of blank paper to write her feelings. Instead of her tweeting a wondrous thought, she could actually journal about it! I imagine she’d suddenly come to this realization that she was living her young life all wrong and will NEVER take writing in a journal for granted. Then, this light from above would shine down on us because a miracle had been made! And we’d both scream: “Can I get a WITNESS!” lifting our pens in to the bright light with “Hallelujah” playing on full blast!
So, when the waitress finally returned with my pint of beer, I opened my mouth, gathered the passionate words in my throat and said:
“Thanks.”
Maybe my passion was distracted by the glistening golden alcoholic liquid that I was about to enjoy. Or maybe me explaining the joy out of writing in notebooks is like someone explaining to me the joy of NOT using a calculator to solve math problems — which, guys, is just plain gross.
Later that night, after Nate joined me and we caught up on our day while swigging a few more beers and splitting these duck confit covered fries that are too ridiculous not to mention in this story, our bill came. After Nate’s eyes bulged at how much we spent, I looked under the total where there was this little a arrow doodle pointing to the back of the receipt. We turned it over and it read:
“Thanks for being really cool. I enjoyed meeting you both. Have a great night.”
… and it was handwritten.
{ New story alert!}
The news that all the gyms in the world were closing was especially terrifying for Max because he had just bought the most perfect work out ensemble ever! The idea that this like, rich man that got hit on by a gay guy and didn’t like it decided to buy all the world’s gyms and close them down permanently in efforts to “tame gay dudes’ ways” was a concern too, sure, but mostly it was that these really excellent Lulu Lemon work out shorts were going to be put to waste now that hey had to do his Zumba routine in his studio apartment.
“I’m so mad!” Max said to his friend Tim who loved the gym super hard too, “ I mean these shorts are so perfect. I can’t even tell you!”
“I know!”
***
“Wait, you’re really doing this? You’re really writing a story about gay men not being able to go to the gym?”
Adam always had a way of interrupting me in the middle of wirting a really great story.
“Yup, ” I say as I tag a giant swig of wine and click ‘Spell check’ to review the first paragraph I just typed.
“I mean, why?” His green eyes turned in to paper cut slits as he continued reading my computer screen. I cover up the sentences written on my word processor — I HATE when people do that, read your shit while standing behind you.
“Because I hate going to the gym and this is the best way to not feel guilty about being a gay guy that actually hates going to the gym… now can I keep writing?”
Adam put up his hands in a “I surrender” style and stepped backwards sipping on his Cabernet.
***
Max hadn’t always loved going to the gym. He actually used be totally fat. Like he wore Husky jeans when he was in third grade and now he totally has a problem with people who have Husky dogs because the word “Husky” is just sooo upsetting.
***
“Um… you’re actually thinking that someone guy would hate a breed of dog because it reminds him of being fat?”
“Yes. Yes I do, Adam. I’ve had my fair share of dates to know that some people hold grudges over things that are much more stupid than that.”
To be continued, yos.
8/9-year-oldish-kid: “Excuse me, I wanted to tell you that you have really cool hair.”
Me: “Aw, thanks! That was nice of you.”
8/9YOK: … (Stares at me shyly.)
Me: “You need something else?”
8/9YOK: (Whispers) “My dad told me to ask you where you get it cut so he can get his cut like that but I feel weird asking you because I don’t really like your hair.”
Me: O_O
