Married, Gay man of God, living a life of pain and love and Grace and Mercy....

I have had this page open for the last hour wondering where I wanted to go wtih this process and what my intentions are. This being a public forum, I wanted to examine how intimate and personal I could let this be and for what purpose.

Sooo to that end, this seems a good point to introduce myself and provide some background information about my life and my self. My realization that this blog is inended as a brutally honest journaling of the journey of my life. I am open however to the outcome, and resulting theraputic benifit I may recieve or inadvertantly provide by the visitor/followers of these writings.

Soo, I am a man in my mid 40s, I have lived in the same 15 mile radius my entire life. The woman I am married to has been my best friend since I was 14 yrs old and had been in the same schools and classes since the second grade.

My childhood was not a plesant one, it was full of degrading emotional abuse, physcial abuse, negelect, and apathy. And yet to this day I have relationships with both of my parents, but that is a subject for another time. My time with my parents ended with me on a ten speed bicycle with a book bag, in a abandond tree house in my town. I had no job, skills, or funds. and I was 18 years old.

I have been gay since I was 5 yrs old. Yes that may be why I washed out of Army boot camp. But I actually think it had more to do with my ability to cope with athourity. ( again another story) I lived with a man I met in a gay bar in my town ( which I had been attending on a regular basis since I was 14!) Whom I fell deeply in love with. It was very romantic. we lived on a boat and had a five hundred dollar a day cocain habit which was the ultimate demise of our relationship. He too, I am still friends with and consider him a intimate part of my family.

I have lived on the streets of San Francisco selling my considerable wares, I have couch surfed, and rolled thru job after job, with no real focus other than to find another job or another place to live. All the the while my best friend and wife as a witness.

I fell in love with a man whom had AID's and didnt tell me the first thee years of our relationship, A relationship that changed me forever, The year he died we went to eleven funurals. AID's was then and is now a degrading and humiliating disease and the witnessing of such personally is a wound in my heart which still bleeds. I never practiced safe sex, and I dont have HIV, But I should have.... I frequented adult bookstores and was the object dejour and could tell many stories and sexual adventures that could make a good movie, perhaps that is another "hub"

I was sexually abused by a cousin when I was 14. yet I feel guilty. I was rape at knife point at 18 and was found running down the main street in my town naked and bloody . I drove home and never spoke of it again and I blead for weeks..... I also have been dealing with the guilt and shame of that.

In spite all of the above pharagraphs; I have happily been married for 21 years, I have had some financial (short lived) and professional success. From the ouside, I am living a typical suburban life, I maintain my Catholic obligations and involvement, I am helpfull and loving to my friends and neighbors.

I carry debt, and taxes, and suffer the same economic shackels our disapearing middle class are currently suffering. My wife and I have raised our two nephews whom we have had since they were 7 and 10 when they arrived. They too are my witnesses of the two sides of this life.

Then there are those who share our life that we have chosen as family. The person(s) you call because you need to talk or your feeling they need you, I call them the safe people and I love them all dearly and consider them blood as my blood.

Soo I have left soooo much out as I could write a novel on all of this and I am sure someone woudl be voyuisicly entertained. But I digress and want to bring myself and you as the reader into current time.

I currently and dealing with severe clinical depression and have frequently considered suicide, not as an escape but as an end to the pain. I have suffered for 25 some yrs, I also suffer from PTSD reslulting in compounding the depression and pain,

I have had fibromyalgia since 1988 after a car accident, which resulted in not walking for 18 months and walking with a cane for years ( I was in my 20s) In my current condiditon and pain levels I will be heading for the cane again shortly. And yet I studied for two years to become a advanced massage therapist and healer...

After recently turning 45 last yr, A switch fliped in me and suddenly my life was nolonger acceptable in its current state, I thought I nolonger wanted to be married to a woman, whom has done nothing but love me with all she is, I have been unemployed for the last two years as a landscape contractor even though I have several commercial properties to my credit. I am having to face that I can nolonger do the physcial labor required to provide for my family (wife and three cocker spaniels) What kind of man am I ?

My wife whom I respect and admire deeply was also downsized this year and so now we are subsisting on one unemployment ck. She has Lupis the bad kind that attacks her blood. We now have no medical insurance. We like many others we are one unemployment check away from homlessness,

So here we are in current time and place, with all of the above swimming arround in my head and heart, I have heavy waves of saddness and menoncholy, and also waves of grattitude and joy. I want to explore the various aspects in the above mentiond pharagraphs as seperate hubs, I welcome feed back and the sharing of life expeiences. I am using this a washing system for my emotions and and to be washed by my fellow brothers and sisters.

until the next post

Peace