Have I Been Wise To Shut My Eyes And Play Along?

It's almost funny in a macabre sort of way when you think about it.

I mean, back in the day I really honestly thought that, because I was so unhappy day in and out over living a live, once I came out I'd be happy as a clam from that day forward. Once I was in a relationship with a guy I really cared about? Twice that happy. By the time we'd been together for years? I was sure that we would spend our days in purely pastoral bliss, caring only to gaze upon each other's countenances the way cherubs are said to care only for gazing into the face of God. Of course, like cherubim and fairy tale endings my imaginary future was just that - imaginary. Turns out that no matter how much you think you've got things settled and all the problems knocked your only real way of holding on to supreme happiness is to drop dead the moment you feel it so nobody can take it away from you. Isn't it amazing just how horribly life sucks sometimes?

Here's the thing though. Back in the day I didn't set out to live a lie, it just sorta happened that way. I told my ex-wife the day I met her that I was gay. She said it didn't matter, we could just be the best of friends. But then she said, "I think I can change you," and even though I laughed and said, "I don't think so," I stood right there and let her go ahead and take a whack at it. So to speak, anyway. I let myself be led into a lie without ever actually telling one. This time it's different: I think this time I've really gone and told a lie because I didn't want to admit that I didn't really know how I actually felt.

He asked me to stay with him. Every day he tells me that he loves me. He comes home on every break from work, he calls frequently and he constantly makes some very poesy gestures and protestations of love. He tells me whenever I express a doubt to him that he wants to show me that things are different. I don't think they are different. I don't believe for a minute that all of the romantic gestures and syrupy compliments in the universe can be taken as the true measure of someone's intentions. I've said so. He rather heatedly disagrees, and asked me the other night point blank exactly when I thought he could be doing ANYTHING I didn't know about as he rarely has more than fifteen minutes in any given day during which he can't independently verify his whereabouts. I didn't tell him that he had to be on my leash all of the time. I don't personally believe you can prove a negative. I also don't think one person can ever earn another person's trust back again. Do you? If you do, then please tell me how in the comments and don't be brief. At this point I'm willing to do just about anything.

What I can say for certain - as much today as ever - is that I love him. Really love him, the kind of love that makes you rush into burning buildings and sign your life away without a second thought. I don't think you get to decide who you're going to fall in love with. I only know what happened to me that very first time I saw him: I said "Oh, it's you!" even though I'd never met him. My life would have been so much less without him in it. I want to hold him in my arms at night. I want to tell him every day that I love him, that I forgive him, that I finally believe that in a real way it isn't his fault, it's his father's, his mother's, society's fault... But then I hear in my head how false that last part rings and I never say it. I don't really believe it. No matter what happened to you as a child there's got to be a time when you can finally put it behind you as an adult. I can accept that he's not there yet but I won't accept that he may never be.

I love him. Truly, honestly, deeply. From the deepest part of my own heart his face looks out at me. I just wish this wasn't so very damned hard. But like I said with my opening line, it's funny when you look at it right.

Irony always is.

Title lyric from "Carnival" by Natalie Merchant.