Désolée

Once again, something has been weighing on my mind. Me and my friends often joke about how my friends group is almost entirely populated by homosexuals. (said in the Bourgeoisie voice) I have been present for more than fifteen coming out speeches. I hang out almost exclusively with gay men. Needless to say, I am almost too comfortable with some of the aspects of gay culture.

So these debates going on right now hit me straight in the core. Because for me it isn't the rights of some far-flung majority. They are the rights of all my friends. I can't really talk about this topic without getting extremely riled, but I get very angry when I see things that are very rude in my news feed.

I don't care what you think on the topic. I really don't. You can post whatever you want. What riles me is when people complain about the ruckus that the gay rights movement is making because it is annoying. 
Because their Facebook experience is being soiled. Who call the whole thing ridiculous.

To those people, you have lost all respect. How can you call the concerns of people on both sides ridiculous? This may be the defining moment of civil rights in my lifetime. And I want my voice to be heard. I'm sorry if that is annoying to you, but honestly, I couldn't give less of a damn. So yes, I will litter your news feed, I will change my profile picture, and I will do everything I can to support the people I love:

Just to make it perfectly clear, I am a straight ally, actively campaigning for gay rights. I think it is morally wrong to deny people the rights so clearly available to everyone else.

I realize it is easier not to care. That is easier to sit on a pedestal and pretend you're above all this. But frankly, I have never respected apathy.

K

Our History

Anyone close to me knows about this already, but something has been dominating my mind lately. My summer and fall could only be described as golden. Those were days of happiness and money, and adolescence. I was dating someone, and I loved it. A little more than a month ago, we agreed to stop dating each other, which is probably the easiest way to put it. Like all relationships, it was complicated. (which I say with a smirk) I did and said things I never thought that I personally would ever be comfortable doing, and I loved it. I had a wonderful time.

There is some fading sadness about it in my life. We were in almost constant contact for nine months. And I feel the loss of that communication every morning, when I don't get my "wake-up" text. I really cared for him, and he cared for me. And maybe still does, I don't know. There are times when I wish I could call him and tell him every thought I have thought since the end of our speaking, because it feels like those thoughts belong to him as well. But I suppose like all other exes, I must pack up the memories into a box and shove them into a corner where they can tarnish and become less painful. I still have a few choice text messages that I can't bear to delete, but I will have to soon, or they will only hold me back.

That being said, I am extremely grateful it happened. I had some of the best days of my life then. I can still sometimes feel his hugs. I know that I will move on, and that time is coming rapidly, but for now I am stuck in what Steinbeck called the "hour of pearl", a transition so fragile anything might rip it.

I don't know what else to say, really. I don't even know why I write this really, except that this inner self, the part that was head over heels, needs to mourn in the open for a little while. So, here I am, I guess.

Waiting for time to pass.

Insomnia

Last night I couldn't sleep. And it's the first time I couldn't sleep since this summer. This summer, it made sense. I slept in short bursts, because I worked strange hours, and the heat tends to settle into all the cracks in a place. You're left with this boiling energy, and it's always too hot, even though the thermostat reads a green seventy-five.

But last night, it was cold. Which is how I prefer my weather. I was staying at a friend's home, and all nestled down into plaid sheets and a duvet that I'm enchanted with. But the light from the alarm clock, and the light from the coffee maker, and the buzz of my own mind kept me up. I'm writing and polishing a lecture on Steinbeck, and words from his letters kept sieving through my mind.

He was married three times. Once to Carol, once to Gwendolyn, and once to Elaine. He loved them all. It's evident. Even as his marriage with Carol is fading, he still cares for her. He wrote,

"I was cruel to her physically and mentally, and she was cruel to me in the same way and neither of us could help it. I am sad at the passage of a good big slice of my life. I could have been ecstatic. That was the age for it."

And later, after he married Gwendolyn, on an extended stay in London as a reporter for the war, he had not heard from his new bride in months. He wrote to her,

"I love you beyond words, beyond containing. I'm getting to the point where I half-way believe that I dreamed you."

How do we as humans do it? Having recently gone through a break-up of a kind, it weights heavily on my mind. How can we become so dependent on these people that we know, at least statistically, will come and go in our lives? Is it worth it to be "with" someone at all?

Or is it better to just let our own loneliness define us?

K