5alvani

My imagination once again has the better part of me.. after working for a couple of days I am exhausted… i have worked everyday and the long long night shift (the busiest shift) all these gay men pop in and pop out ... so while i sit there i pretend i can read their lives off their expressions… so here is one of my accounts of my most frequent visitor… I don’t know him and we have never carried on a conversation beyond the basics, but that is all I need to keep me through the long hours…well I better get some rest before I go off to work again…
:Once again, my mother told me the story of how she met my father. I suppose I can gauge my place in life by my reaction to it; each time it means something very different.
"I didn't want to move to Dallas," she said over the phone, followed by a brief pause. My mother is famous for her short reflective pauses, in which she looks gazingly at an inanimate object as if to see some poignant truth in it. "I didn't want to move to Dallas, but I felt a calling. Amidst my ambivalence, your father appeared at my apartment door and introduced himself, mentioning that he lived in Dallas but was visiting New Mexico for the weekend." One thing led to another, and after a suede-designing stint she was engaged to my father in the city after six short weeks. Point being, sometimes self-will can in fact run riot. Sometimes you have to trust in signs, and not let self-will run in the way of fate.
When I think of my year in New York, I feel a distinct yet abstract sensation in the middle of my chest. It isn't my heart, nor is it my head; its the place where muddled emotions sink to when there's nowhere else for them to go. I can't return to the city where my heart was so violently shattered, and where I became so self-loathing. It was in that city that I demoralized myself into various addictions, indulging in drugs and alcohol as a quite faulty control mechanism. But if I don't continue my education at Cornell, where do I begin again? To return would be to try and make resolutions with a city that isn't amendable. Amongst a flurry of choices, I knew that my mother's redundant story would hold new answers.
So I worked ardently on an application to an design school in Los Angeles, while in rehab. Yes, I said rehab, of which I have numerous stories. After completing a portfolio and an interview, I patiently waited for an answer. If I have learned anything through my recovery experience, its that my controlling nature has led me to constant upset, and has henceforth made my life unmanageable.
This morning I found that I gained acceptance to the school. It reminded me of one year ago, when I learned of my acceptance to Cornell. I called just about everyone, save for my father. He hurt me deeply the prior year, through his addictions and infidelity. Begrudgingly, I called him. His response shocked me - he couldn't muster a coherent reply. His congratulations were in the form of tears, guilt-ridden for not being a part of one of the most important times in my life. I didn't understand him then... all the words he didn't know how to say, and all the pain that clouded them.
My grandmother handed the phone to my grandfather this morning, so that I could tell him the news. I was a bit hesitant to talk with him, for the same reasons I am a bit stifled in conversations with my father. There is a great distance that separates me from the men that are the most important in my life. That distance is constituted by feelings of inferiority and discomfort, and a lack of understanding of how men so different can love each other.
"I was accepted to the design school..." my words trailed off into the muffled sounds coming from the other end of the phone. Amongst his tomato garden, my grandfather begins to cry. I lit a cigarette from the opposite line, and remembered the year past, finally being able to hear the words my father couldn't say. It was this outburst of emotion, this demasculization, which made me realize that perhaps we aren't so different after all. Its always the people that are the most distant that surprise you the most. And its always the most intangible, unexpected reactions that are the most touching.
Most likely, I am moving to Los Angeles. I couldn't be more afraid or more excited. Sometimes it takes hasty decisions to fall into destiny. In two months, I have recovered from one of the most important and difficult times in my life. And in that two months, I made it known to my family that I am gay. Amongst my confusion, I am supported by the unfolding blessings in my life. I move from one coast to another, in disbelief that my father could love his gay son. I move from city to city, finally feeling like the man I want to be. And I move away from home once again, never feeling closer to it.
hope all of you guys are having a great week!