Tag: June 2019

172 // From Bad to Better to Best

I’m still not feeling much like myself but I am doing my best and pushing through. I just wish time would move a little faster so I could get back home and get back to resting. I’m grateful for my fiance today who will answer a call and reply to texts even when she’s busy because she knows I need her. I’m grateful for a partner who will leave early to make lunch plans and who can make me feel that even if  “right now” kind of sucks, “soon” will be so much better if I can just hang on.

So, lunch had to be canceled due to family emergencies, but the day still got so much better. I got that nap I needed very much and afterward, we went to do another fitting for my suit. It’s coming along so beautifully. Now just the pants need to be hemmed up and let out a little at the waist.

The weather was crappy, and we were hungry. The week was still wearing on us still and we’ve missed each other, so we opted on impulse for a much-needed dinner and a movie date night. We got crappy seats to a zombie comedy, ate too much popcorn, had too many cocktails, and giggled like schoolgirls in love. Oh, how I’ve missed that! The week couldn’t have ended on a better note!

171 // It Could Be Friday

Today was a hard day. My mood is in a downward swing and I’m not playing well with others. I did my best to fake it for as long as I could but I ended up calling it a day early and heading home to my dog and a good nap.

Fatigue is killing me. I used to be able to fake it. I used to pride myself on my ability to power through, but lately, I haven’t been able to hide it so well. Lately it’s been noticeable and lately, I can’t even gather myself up enough to pretend.

I have the option of making today my Friday and making Friday the beginning of a three-day weekend which sounds really nice but I keep doing the math in my head so many dollars per hour times so many hours per day is how much money I am taking away from us when I stay home. My actions impact others and taking care of me often means depriving my home of something it needs.

It could be Friday but I doubt it will be. My guilt won’t let it.

170 // I Couldn’t Resist

The most wonderful feeling is to be wanted, and the most special feeling is being wanted by those who aren’t as quick to wanting as most. I was late to work today because I was so wanted by someone who rarely expresses the need and it felt so good I couldn’t resist. I laid in bed surrounded by the warmth of love and the summer sun pretending I didn’t have a care in the world like it was a lazy Sunday morning and I had nowhere at all to be.

The rest of the day meant nothing and made no impression in comparison.

169 // This is My Gift

Tonight we saw my dad for his father’s day celebration. As always, it was a wonderful visit, and as always I wish there wasn’t that strange gap between us. It’s a hole that opened between us the day I was born, I imagine, and though it’s width has grown no wider since that day its depth has gone beyond our ability to fathom and our courage to leap over.

Such gaps between parents and their children are common, but each one is unique. The one between my father and I, from where I stand, is made of all my love, and all my anger, and all my wondering and regret. Its depth is all he couldn’t give and all my incessant wanting.

I’m sure from where he stands it must look different. From his side it may be darker, made of much more past and much more pain. I know this and for this reason I hold his hand above the fissure and squeeze it in forgiveness. For this reason, I ask nothing more than what I know is possible. This is my gift.

Happy Father’s Day.

168 // There Isn’t Much More

I’m still recovering from the weekend. I know, I know, two nights should be enough but I’m getting older now. Not old, but older, and I don’t bounce back the way I used to. The end of my partying days are growing closer, I’m feeling it. I’m hoping I’ll be able to let them go gracefully when the time comes.

It was a good day though. I was productive and the work hours flew by fast. I was able to leave early and to come home to my fiance rather than an empty house. Plus plenty of leftover fajita fixings leftover from last night to make for dinner and a little time to write in before I’ll have to do it all again tomorrow. There isn’t much more I ask from life. There isn’t much more I can ask, I guess.

167 // Talking to Dads

We never made it to the parade. I’m just still so exhausted from yesterday’s celebrations and shenanigans and I’m still so sore from all the walking and my ankles are beat up from the new shoes I wore. There was no way. All I wanted to do to was stay in bed but we still had so much to do I just had to suck it up, suck down some coffee, and do my best to be engaged. I think I did okay.

I didn’t get to see my dad (he had to work) but I called him, of course. He sounds tired, stressed, maybe sad? I worry about him a lot but it’s hard to tell him that because the way we talk to our dads is different than the way we talk to our moms. Maybe I will though, because the way we talk to our dads shouldn’t be different than the way we talk to our moms.

166 // Gay Day! Gay Day!

I’m not up as early as I’d hoped to be (the story of my life) but I at least got going the moment I got out of bed. I’m spending the morning doing some more pampering—face masks, nail painting, shaving, teeth whitening—before we join all the other beautiful queers downtown for celebration.

We have a whole gay day planned. We’ll have our best gay friends with us to do some shopping, drinking, eating, exploring, and later more drinks and dancing throughout the rest of the night.

I’m excited for tomorrow too when, I hope, we’ll head back downtown again to see the parade. It’s been 50 years since the Stonewall riots, we have a gay Governor, and, for the first time, we have a pride flag hanging from the state capitol. I want to see it. I want to go and be a part of all that progress and joy.

While I agree with Marsha P. Johnson, the revolutionary LGBTQ rights activist, when she said, “As long as gay people don’t have their rights all across America, there’s no reason for celebration.” I do think we need a day to love and celebrate who we are because no one else is going to do that.

Today, we will celebrate, tomorrow, we will remember, and when the weekend is over, we’ll get back to doing the work.

165 // It’s Going to Be Wonderful

I had originally planned not to go into work today but this is one of the few weeks where I can get more hours than usual and I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to make a little more money. I regretted the decision the moment I walked through the door.

Things were tense at work in preparation for a big meeting with the big boss. All around me minds were working out loud to predict the conversation and plot the outcome. All wanted to tell it like it is, make an impression, and somehow someway find the dignity they’d been missing, I guess. I couldn’t help, and I couldn’t handle it, so I went home early.

This evening has been amazing! We’ve had perhaps too good of a time and now we’re off to bed early without having finished out planned self-care/home spa routine in preparation for Pridefest tomorrow. Oh well, if I head to sleep now there’s a real chance I’ll be able to pull myself out of bed early enough to write and get ready.

The weekend is here and I can already tell it’s going to be wonderful.

164 // Outraged and Angry

Today someone I am attached to professionally violated some established social norms in a spectacular and offensive way, while I was in the room. I did nothing wrong, and I did my best to keep out of the fray but though the violator wasn’t aware, or perhaps didn’t care, I felt the eyes of the room and the wave of disappointment, anger, and disapproval falling on him, and me by association.

I was mad at the violator for the outburst the same as everyone else in the room, but I was also angered by my lack of control over the situation. Suddenly the way I was being viewed had nothing to do with me. Suddenly someone else was acting and speaking for me.

My anxiety has over the years turned me into someone who moves deliberately and with forethought. I rely on my friends and coworkers to give me the space I need to control the world’s perception of me and this person took that away.

I watched, outraged and angry, as he initiated a chaotic situation and acted in ways that left the outcome uncertain. He left me with no choices. He left me with no way to reassert my place or my boundaries. He left me exposed and with no way to salvage anything for myself. This, for me, is his true offense.

I don’t know how I can forgive it.

163 // There Has to be More

I’m fortunate enough to work for a district that is big, dense, and well financed. I’m fortunate enough to work in a place that is at the forefront of compliance, knowledge, and implementation of laws and best practice recommendation too, but because we are often the first or the best, there is little room for me to go out and learn from others. Of course, some would say that I should be the one teaching then, but I already do that every day. What I want is a chance to learn. I need is to be challenged.

Today I took a class I hoped to take something, anything new out of and instead I was presented with the same slides and materials I had been studying and teaching for years. I’m glad that others in the class were able to learn something new but I’m exceedingly disappointed that I wasn’t.

Tomorrow I’m taking another class and hoping for another chance at a challenge, but if I once again walk away with what I arrived with I will certainly devote much more of my time elsewhere to find the pieces we are missing and taking the teaching upon myself. There has to be more to know than this.