a man and amen

I was just re-reading a blog post I made two Decembers ago. I'm going to repost it here and add in my current thoughts:


Dear Heavenly Parents,


Thank you for sending me the man of my dreams. I loved him when I first saw him and I still love him today more than a decade later. This summer it will be 12 years, wow! Sometimes I feel frustrated that he doesn't love me the way I love him, but in my saner moments I realize there is wisdom in pairing me, a bisexual man who is a married father, with another married father who is straight. He is also kind and his kindness shines through in so many ways the longer I know him.

Yes, I sometimes wonder what our lives would be like if both of our wives died or divorced us, but I strongly suspect that my man would soon find himself dating women and would soon find himself in love with one and remarried. The same could happen with me I suppose, although maybe you've got another man of my dreams in store for me somewhere in the future and maybe this one is gay, or at least bisexual. As time passes though, I think I've become more realistic. It is a blessing to be married, and it is a blessing to have a such a good married friend. When he says, "I'd like to do that, but I can't this time because I promised my wife I'd..." we both understand we have other priorities, which also makes the time we are together memorable. 

But maybe this is as good as it gets and if that's the case, that's OK. Not just OK but great, really. I waited more than 40 years for you to place this jewel along my path and I realize that this may be it. Thank you for our many days and years together. He is so much more than an amethyst remembrance. He is real. He is alive. I stood by his side and enjoyed his laughter this very day and the day I'm writing the addendum as well. You've also given me the opportunity to be married to a wonderful woman and for us to be parents of wonderful children. She is alive. She is real. She is only a few yards away, resting her mind and her bones after a busy Monday at work. She's been out of town for a few days as I add these thoughts and I'm so glad to be with her again, so glad she's returned safely to our home. She is my friend, confidant, wife, mother of our children. I would not be the man I am, if she were not in my life. I love her as much as a man in my situation could love his wife and I know she loves me to the best of her ability given our circumstances.

You've blessed me so abundantly with the ability to love both men and women, to find some of my brothers and sisters here intriguing, mysterious and beautiful. You've blessed me with so much more, with wonderful teachers, neighbors, friends and extended family. I'm also grateful for the ability to find beauty in small things, like a smile, a "thank you", a "please", a Facebook "like", and the comments on this blog. 

You've blessed me with good health, with strength, with the ability to endure uncertainty. You've blessed me with a love of music, nature, art, food, sunshine and snow, darkness and light, fireworks, fireflies and fire itself. You blessed me to be able to notice and appreciate nature and human nature, the cold and the warmth, the extremes of summer and winter and the perfect days of transition in spring and fall. 

I've had a good life full of challenges and rewards. Certainly there is more good ahead, but sometimes on a cold winter night like tonight, I'd be just fine if I didn't wake up. Isn't that crazy? I know it is. It's irrational but understandable. I think I've grown a little more patient with myself since I wrote this. A little more tolerant of my changing moods. A little more aware that if I'm discouraged, encouragement is just around the corner, and vice versa. 
I have more to do. Children to be married. Grandchildren to be spoiled, to read with, to laugh with, to sing with, to color with, two swing with, to put on my shoulders, to run through the sprinklers in the summer, and zip into a winter coat when it's snowing, to lift in and out of high chairs, to buckle into a car seat and kiss on the forehead. To realize how much capacity I have to love and how I must have been loved as child and grandchild. I have a tender, strong, dear, intelligent, kind, loving, independent, talented, giving, patient wife to grow old with. 

And a married friend who I miss when I haven't seen him for three days. Someone who makes me smile just by thinking about him. Someone I probably stand too close to sometimes. Someone I bump into when we're walking together and when our hands touch just for a fraction of second, I know and wonder if he does too. Someone who is married to a woman he loves. But someone who enjoys his brothers, his buddies, his independence. Someone who is so comfortable in his own skin, that when I'm with him I'm somehow comfortable in mine. All just as true now as it was when I first wrote it. 

Why should I need someone else to feel this way? Because I'm human. We are social animals. Or as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote (and Neal Maxwell quoted) "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience." I shouldn't. And I don't always. But when I'm with my man, this magic just happens. It's as natural as sunshine. The magic remains as does the warmth. It's human, it's spiritual, it's almost as tangible as a warm shower or a favorite sweat shirt just out of the dryer, and I know I'm alive when I feel it.

I'm glad that somehow we crossed paths (probably part of some great plan you two cooked up, eh?) and that our friendship has endured. I'm glad I came across that great quote from Albert Camus, "In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." I'm glad I still know that, and that I know it even more deeply now. Thank you for all these blessings and others I can't even imagine. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

Public Displays of Affection

Tonight following a weekend of news about the kissing arrests on the Main Street Plaza near Temple Square and today's Kiss-In protest, I'm feeling the unwelcome presence of my old friend HP (aka Homophobia).

HP and I go way back. I knew him long before I knew his name or what he was about. He showed up in kindergarten when I found out that telling the truth about bullies made me a tattle tale. He later taunted me on the playground of my elementary school, but where I really got to know him was in my junior high gym class. He was the loud mouth in the locker room who threatened "You're gonna die a long slow death if I ever catch you looking at my ass that way again you little fag."

I tried to make peace with him and by the time I got in high school I thought of him as my friend. In exchange for averting my eyes and trying to be more manly in my walk and talk, I thought he was protecting me from the other bullies. HP's not so bad, I thought. If I follow his rules, I'll be safe. More people will like me. I might not be one of the jocks, but at least they'll talk to me. 

In college I tried to lose HP, but by then I'd pretty much accepted that he'd always be hanging around. To be fair, he's probably one of the reasons I dated women, fell in love, got married and had children. I guess I owe him thanks for helping out on that.

During the AIDS crisis of the early eighties, I again thought of him as a friend. Without him I imagined that I could have done things that would have caused a real-life version of that long, slow death he'd threatened back in junior high. He's a jerk, but I guess he helped save my life, I had to admit.

But by now, three decades later, I really thought I'd put the whole HP friendship issue in the lock box of the past. He was someone who used to be in my life. Someone I got over. Someone not worth the effort to even think about. 

But I got a strong dose of reality this weekend. I see the truth is that he's been a very busy and successful power broker. He hangs out with everyone from presidents and religious leaders to security guards. He's got a condo in Sacramento and access to a beautiful home in a gated community in Texas.

Even so, I have a feeling he's not forgotten me. I wonder if he saw me Thursday after lunch when I hugged a friend. I wonder if he saw me with my friends on Friday night when I put my arms around them both for a picture. 

I wonder if he's been taking his own pictures of me. I wonder if I'm going to get a email, or worse yet, he's going to be in the garage again some day, like he was years ago when he whispered, "If you just leave the engine running, the world will be a better place in just a few minutes." I feel like screaming the old Dylan song, "You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend." But the truth is I'm still afraid of him. 

Anyone else here know this guy? And have you got any advice for me on how to get rid of him once and for all or is he something I've just got to endure to the end?