Fathers and Sons

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Yes, I'm wearing Green, so you can't pinch me. Neener!

I went out with the parental units last night to finish off the weekend. I also took the laundry so I could get the wash and dry for free. The fluff and fold was all me, though.

I was surprised that Dad and I actually connected for a minute. It shocked me. Normally Dad's incredibly reserved. He follows his father's trait of being reserved, composed and utterly emotionless. I don't know whether he's trying to connect, or he was just tired after having worked a night shift, and then going out to train the other Sheriff's officers how to pass their weapons tests.

Yep, Dad's a jailer, gun repairman, Republican, Limbaugh listening kind of guy. He's also college educated, and one of the wisest people I know, so don't be too hard on him. I'm the family liberal, and I'm still pretty conservative.

He knows that I've had a hard time at work lately, and he was nice enough to be concerned. It was surprising. Not that I don't think he cares, it's just rare that he would actually make mention of it and sit by me and listen. He does that more with Laura, but their bond is different.

Note: Well, I've gotten to a point where I've got to say something I haven't put into this journal. I'm not out to my parents. I'm sure you didn't see that as a surprise, but still...

I'm already of my mind that Mom never needs to know. She may find out, but I'm not going to be the one to tell here. She's on the tenterhooks of sanity as it is, and I just don't want to deal with her getting this revelation. I won't be the one to tell.

Dad, though. Dad's made some many comments that shows that he thinks homosexuality is wrong. For not being very religious, he can sure use his old Episcopalian teachings to condemn it. Did I mention he's conservative?

This frightens me.

Still, I'm tired of lying. Or at least lying through omission. Other things are happening in my life, and I can't say anything about it. I haven't been able to relate stories about lostncove, oakleycub, mattycub, or even cristalskye, or all of the other people I've been meeting here. I haven't even mentioned LJ, though all of my friends know about it.

Last night, at Red Lobster, after the talk about how stressful work has been was over, the conversation pretty much stopped. (Mom was there, so it wasn't going any further anyway, but I digress) There was nothing more to talk about. My life, for them, ends there.

I clearly remember counting the ice cubes in the glass. Pondering when, and how I'll tell Dad.

And what the fall out is going to be.

I'm thinking I'll need to get anything else I want out of the house. It's good to finally be able to be independent of the parents, but I may not be able to go back. My family's pretty small as it is, and Laura is the only one I've come out to. I hate to lean on her, but she's going to have to help with Dad here.

He may have already figured it out, but there's going to be denial, and disappointment, and anger. I guess I'm expecting the worst, and it's scaring me.

How much longer can I count ice cubes?

Tears roll down

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I'm in shock. He was an inspiration to me. I never "knew" him. We had never met except through LJ. He wrote about the man he loves, and how he was going to tell him that he loved him.

I added a comments of encouragement, stating how great it was that he had someone like that, and that he felt he needed to express this. How great is it, to see two people in love. His paramour said yes to the thought of a relationship, and the plans were being made for them to move in together.

They were living in two different cities. For Valentines Day, Christopher surprised Mark by appearing at his work, unannounced - flying from Chicago to Boston to be with him.

The future looked bright, but now we'll never know.

Christopher, christophernwin, my deepest sympathies.

Mark, furballmark, I never met you, and am saddened that I'll never get the chance. Look down on us from Heaven. You are an inspiration.

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I'm loving Angels instead...

I hope you'll all indulge me one more time here. It's been a wild day here in LJ land.

Randy, lostncove, posted some interesting thoughts, personal thoughts, that struck home, and I found the need to comment.

I really felt that I should include those thoughts in my own Journal:


You know I'm not a religious person. It's not that I discount the whole thing, or that I have a need to belittle others beliefs. It's more because I have never felt the pull of it, the need of it. If anything, my youthful experience {of the glory and boredom that is the Methodist Church} left me less spirtual than from when I started.

It's nights like this that make me wonder. I was IM'ed by Buzz just a few minutes after I read the email, and posted my feelings about the loss of furballmark, whom I never met. I'm afraid Buzz got the brunt of my feelings - which have already been on edge lately.

I said, "I was ready to post some more bad news from work (wages are frozen, no raise for me this year), and I got an e-mail from a friend of them {Christopher and Mark} no one I knew. I hadn't even kicked in LJ. I thought, oh, maybe there going to have a commitment ceremony or wedding... Well, I can't say that I ever knew him. But still, it's just so sad. I cried when I read the email. When something seems so right. Man. I couldn't believe. It makes you just want to go scream at God. Why!?"

It's times like these when you want to feel it. You want the reassurance of the divine. You need the comfort of a blanket of love to surround you. Just that little feeling from the cosmos that it will be alright, and you just don't understand-right now.

And lord knows I don't understand a thing right now.