Just Jack

I’m a traveling man. Today I had the pleasure of driving from Indianapolis to Nashville. It was a long drive, but alone with my thoughts I found myself in good company. And for the first time in my life, I saw a shooting star. Yes, in the middle of the night in rural Kentucky, a bright light in the sky moved faster than anything I ever saw and trailed off into nothingness. So, it was either a shooting star or United is missing a jet. I actually considered that since it was rural Kentucky, the fact that I won’t hear word about a fuselage found charred amongst the remains of about 200 doesn’t exactly mean it wasn’t a plane. Trust me, I stopped for gas and saw these people … they probably couldn’t find a lump of coal in a jar of mayonnaise … but, I’m sure it was a shooting star. I decided I needed to wish for something, but I drew blank, and mainly because the shooting star interrupted a session of deep thought about the words to a song I was listening to; she sang that after a relationship she would never be the same.

So, I was thinking about my relationships and how those experiences worked to form me and this is what I came up with

The college guy
Boy did I love me some him. Thing is, we weren’t together very long, but I jumped in body, soul and mind way too fast. What may surprise you is that I was 21 and it was my first time. Or, you know what, that may NOT surprise you … but it’s true. I had this juvenile notion of waiting for the perfect one for me, and it was justified since I was, well, a juvenile. But deeply embedded in my decision to wait that long was that I was afraid of my own sexuality …I wanted it, and yet I didn’t. I wanted to experience it and be it, but I didn’t want it to be so. I didn’t want the ridicule, the damnation (thanks, church), to be the outcast … I just didn’t. So, what I created was this big, HUGE, ginormous pressure that let out like a radiator cap loosened after a 500 mile drive.

I pined for him for YEARS. Well into my marriage … and the pining really wasn’t about HIM. It was about the fact that I attached way too much meaning into that man … and I longed to be me, the REAL me … the me I found that could actually enjoy his sexuality. And it so happened that it was with THAT man.

HER
So, I decided that if I waited all that damn time for the right one and it didn’t work out with college guy that “The Life” wasn’t for me. That’s how I ended up with her. It wasn’t about love – I wasn’t ever in love with her, though I loved her – it was about conforming to the expectations of those around me. I extracted from the college guy experience that I should not lead with my emotions. So, I didn’t invest any in HER. Unfortunately, it took a marriage, a house, a daughter and a son before that all shook out. And I learned that I needed to live by my own expectations and not by those around me.

THAT mother fucker
I so knew this had to end long before it did but I was too chicken shit to end it. Mainly because he cooked and cleaned and all that jazz and I kinda enjoyed being a kept man. But, THAT mother fucker helped me identify a pattern I established in my relationship with HER … I was getting more and more comfortable being the person who loved LESS in a relationship. (Someone always does) I was being safe. I wasn’t in love with him, but I know that he was in love with me. I couldn’t figure out how to end it without hurting him …but I knew that I needed to re-evaluate my relationships …because, I’m wasn’t good at picking a mate.

So, even though college guy hurt me and I hurt for YEARS afterwards, and HER made me lose my identity (seriously, I went from a crazy ass extrovert to this introverted hermit who hated leaving the house), and THAT mother fucker made me more angry that I thought I could be … I wouldn’t change any of it …

Because they all contributed to creating JACK … a gay man, with two beautiful children, who doesn’t have time to pour all sorts of meaning into someone more than who they are, who refuses to lose himself to ANY relationship and refuses to be with someone who is going to lose HIMself, and who will not sacrifice feeling love for feeling loved.

I guess my real wish on that shooting star is this: that I find a man that isn’t about bullshit, has goals and aspirations, who isn’t going to hide behind our relationship and isn’t going to want me to do that either, who lives his life the way he sees fit and not by societal (or mommy’s) expectations, who expresses his emotions and isn’t freaked out when I do the same …

But I can’t say he shouldn’t make me angry. Let’s face it … I do want a man.