The Guilt of Departure and the Hypocrite's Prayer

My dad was transferred from Baptist Hospital to the rehabilitation floor at Lourdes Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, a week and a few hours after his quadruple bypass. A quadruple bypass which unexpectedly led to a stroke. For all the progress he had made at Baptist, my mom and I were filled with questioning trepidation as we left him on the 8th floor at Lourdes, alone in his bed.

We were so excited that he had been accepted into the rehabilitation program at Lourdes Hospital. We waited, less than patiently, all that day for his discharge and transfer to happen. We knew that the focused therapies they offered—occupational, physical, and speech—were exactly what he needed in order to come home as close to 100% himself as possible. I had seen him trying so hard in the days leading up this moment. He was determined to improve. Although I sometimes wondered if he didn’t quite understand the questions being asked of him, pretending he did anyway, just so that he could move on to the next phase of recovery.

Side note: I wish I could make him understand that no one is going to think he is ignorant, dumb, or stupid for not knowing the answers. But I would need someone to teach me that also. Maybe if I can get him to understand it I can be my own teacher.

We left my dad in a small room with a roommate who had just arrived post leg amputation. The room was small. I’m pretty convinced it was actually smaller than his private room at Baptist Hospital. There was only one chair for a visitor to sit in, and no other place except his bed for my dad to sit. This was disappointing as part of his recovery from the heart surgery involved sitting in a chair for several hours every day. He still had to focus on that recovery even if the stroke had taken precedence. His only chair option turned out to be his wheelchair. 

The nurses seemed less than adequate and didn’t seem to care about the patients. My dad had such impressive care from most of his nurses at Baptist Hospital. But nothing about the care at Lourdes Hospital gave me hope. I felt this way the first day. So did my mom. We later learned he wasn’t being given the correct meds and that his information was entered into the system incorrectly on his first day. (Instead of heart surgery or stroke patient he was entered as a hip fracture patient.) His room often smelled. The floors were dirty. No one seemed to care. We missed Baptist so badly.

My mother couldn’t stop her tears as she leaned down and kissed my father goodbye on that first night. My heart ached for her. On our drive home I tried my best to be the emotional support that she needed all the while telling her she didn’t have to be strong for me. I couldn’t practice what I preached. I was scared and discouraged too. I told her so. Why do we find it necessary to be strong in times of stress and grief? Maybe we should all just show what we’re feeling and commiserate with one another in our tears and sadness, then get stronger together through that vulnerability. I’m not one who can speak with any confidence on vulnerability though as I find it so difficult to be vulnerable. 

A couple of days later I found myself alone in my parents’ house listening to the cast album of Dear Evan Hansen, and my vulnerability reared it ugly tears. It was as if the knot in my stomach had decided to loosen its grip, move up to my heart, and squeeze it until I nearly burst. I broke down. I felt broken. 

I felt guilty.

The day of my departure was quickly approaching. I knew that I shouldn’t feel guilty that I've built my life in New York City so far away from where my parents live. Yet the feeling of guilt persisted. I was getting ready to depart this place of corn fields and homemade ice cream and leave my mom and my sister there to carry the weight of my dad’s recovery…alone.

I looked around the living room in my parents’ house and read the sayings that decorate the walls: “Our family is filled with Love,” “Loved you yesterday, Love you still, Always have, Always will,” “Family is where life begins & Where love never ends.” These words seem to vibrate straight from my mother’s heart. I pondered the words as I focused on the pictures. I saw the framed photographs of my niece and nephew smiling back at me. I prayed to God that their papaw would be healed and returned home to them fully himself. They need him in their lives. I prayed that he would return home to my mom. She’s been his wife since she was 17-years old. They are each other’s world. I prayed for my sister who was in agony  over her fear that our dad might not return home our dad. I walked back to the bedroom my parents still share 47 years later and stood on his side of the bed. I looked up to the ceiling, tears streaming down my cheeks. I begged to be heard. I begged for God to help my dad recover. I begged for God to bring him home to take his place back in that bed again.

I felt like such a hypocrite for praying. But isn’t that what we do? We pray when we’re scared. We pray when we feel the desperation that comes with the shock of events like  heart attacks and strokes. We pray as we grasp for hope.

No matter the distance between our homes, no matter the distance between our hearts, I want to walk into my parents’ house the next time I’m visiting and feel my dad’s arms around me. I want to hear him laugh. I want to hear him say my name. I want to listen to him tell a story that may not really interest me but that I care about merely because he is still here to tell it…and that he can still remember it at all.

We won’t fish together. We won’t hunt…anything. We won’t really watch the Cardinals play baseball. But we can sit on the front porch and enjoy a cup of coffee while birds chirp and passersby honk. Hopefully my mom will join us with a cup of hot chocolate and take on the fly swatting duties.

When My Dad’s Heart Surgery Became The Lesser of Two Trauma’s

It was hard to imagine what my dad was going to look like hooked up to tubes. I’d seen it before with both of my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandfather. But there was no real way to prepare myself to see my dad in this way. He had gone into surgery just after my flight departed New York’s LaGuardia Airport headed for the landing strip that is Paducah, Kentucky. By the time I arrived at the hospital the surgery was over. 

Much like ripping off a bandaid, I walked into his room in ICU. I had to. As much as I wanted to hesitate, there could be no hesitation. There he lay—my normally active-to-the-point-that-I’m-exhausted dad—hooked to monitors, floating in and out of consciousness, and ultimately silenced by a breathing tube.

There were more drips than I’d ever seen hooked to one person. Two IV poles with 6-8 bags on each pole. It was alien. Bag after bag of clear liquid flowed into his body, necessary for healing and pain, but still disturbing and ominous.

He knew we were there. He periodically open his eyes, revealing brown irises so large that they seemed to have overtaken all the white space. He wanted to speak. He tried to speak. The breathing tube, of course, prevented that. He nodded instead—communication restored in a primitive way that brought more relief than one could imagine it bringing.

When my sister called me three days prior to the events that led to this ICU layover I was alarmed yet not completely dismayed. She told me that my father was going to the ER complaining of shortness of breath, chest discomfort, and a bit of numbness in the arm. I wouldn’t really let myself believe that my father might be having a heart attack. That just wasn’t on the agenda. Again, not prepared. Is anyone ever? 

My dad is not the healthiest eater in the world. Never has been. And there have been many occasions of trying to persuade him to take better care of himself. But he is strong-willed and stubborn. He wants to do what he wants to do. Arguing eventually gets old and inevitably one gives up the fight.

Recovery was moving along at a rapid pace. His doctors and nurses were astonished at how well he was doing. Thirty-six hours post surgery he was moved from ICU to his own room on the fourth floor of Baptist Hospital. My family and me, we were thrilled with his progress. So what if he was a little confused? So what if he seemed a bit vacant? He had just been through quadruple bypass with all the anesthesia that goes with it. We didn’t know how long it would take his body to rid itself of the anesthesia. Nor did we know how the pain meds, which my dad rarely takes, might be affecting him. What we did know was that he had a hard time turning to the right and seemed to take longer than necessary to register what was said…or who we were. 

My sister, a nurse herself (and struggling to be daughter instead of nurse), knew something was wrong. She told other nurses. She told respiratory therapists. She was met with reactions of unconcern followed with explanations like, “the anesthesia needs to wear off” and “there’s been so much trauma to the body.” But my sister sees my dad almost daily. She knew something was off. It was actually she who came up with the word “vacant” to describe the look on his face. 

Finally, a physical therapist saw for himself what my sister had been seeing and questioning. And the unthinkable began to run riot in our minds. My dad, the strong, independent, hard-headed man I've known all my life, had had a stroke.

I was angry. I was angry at God. I was angry at the doctor. Human being, party of one. I called my best friend, Neal, and spewed my anger to his listening ear as I paced from corner to corner in a makeshift waiting area.  And much like Jesus did in John 11:35, I wept.

I have never been one to deny my Baptist upbringing. Nor have I denied how it has negatively affected me. But I felt the power of all the prayer that surrounded us. I felt the power in his room. I felt the power in the hallway outside his room. Hands were laid upon my dad. Tears were shed. His name was lifted up to heaven. It took me back to the days of my youth when this act was a part of my everyday life. I felt the power that I struggle so hard to have faith in… to believe in. But it was my family’s faith that gave them comfort even as they dealt with fear and anger of their own. And it was their faith, and the faith of their friends, that comforted me by proximity.

We’re all human beings filled with emotions. It’s natural to be angry, to be scared, to be frustrated, to doubt, to question, to feel bad about laughing in moments of sadness, to feel hope when the situation is dire.

My dad and I have never been particularly close. I’ve struggled with that for most of my life. We have our ups and downs…and silences. But I love him, and I know he loves me. I never anticipated a moment when my dad would struggle to find my name in his memory. My heart ached. I stood before him, staring into his brown eyes, mentally sending the name Michael straight into them. I watched as his mouth tried to form the word. I heard the Um’s as he searched. I saw the frustration on his face. I felt the panic in my heart even as I tried to keep my face blank. Then he said it. My attempt at a blank face still had tension that relaxed. Who knew hearing my name said aloud could be so important? But the double clutch of anxiety and sadness barely released its grip on my heart.

As the days progressed, his quadruple bypass became more and more the secondary trauma. It was almost as if he hadn’t had the heart surgery at all. He wasn’t complaining about pain and rarely took a pain pill. He was getting up from his chair more easily. And walking became less and less difficult. 

The stroke became the focus. 

I could see him fighting to find the words for the pictures he was being asked to identify: glove, keys, feather. I saw him miss the word hammock three days in a row. 

Eventually he began to more easily find his words for speaking, but writing them was a new challenge. I watched as the Speech Pathologist patiently taught him the sound of letters like “f” and “s” much like I remember learning them in elementary school. Every day he was better than the day before. Every day the recognition improved. Every day the conversations were more engaged. Every day he was more like my dad. 

We all know that the heart is our emotional center, and I’ve been told that with heart surgery emotions can run high and spill over without reason. That is true. Dad would often get emotional, cry without warning, stop crying within seconds. Sometimes I couldn't find the reason. Other times it was clear that he was extremely effected as he began to realize he was making progress. He was also very moved by the love he felt from visitors, most of whom had been positively affected by the way he lives his life.

On the morning of the day he was to be moved to the rehabilitation center I walked into room 437 at Baptist Hospital and saw my dad…not just the shell of the man. He was sitting in the reclining chair watching my nephew Dylan play baseball on my sister’s computer. He smiled. He was more himself than he’d been even the day before. I recognized that man. 

“There are bridges you cross you didn't know you crossed until you've crossed.” Stephen Schwartz, Wicked.

As we sat in his room waiting for the doctor to make his final round then sign the discharge/transfer papers, our holding-pattern-of-a-day was broken when dad passed gas. It will probably embarrass him that I even wrote this, but it was the most natural thing in the world. However, what followed was even more so. My brother-in-law said, “Her-ca-lees,” a la Mama Klump in The Nutty Professor. The entire room cracked up, including the best sound I’d heard all week…full-throated laughter from my dad. Natural. Easy.

I think the grip of anxiety finally began to release its hold on my heart. All of dad’s progress in such a short time was nothing short of miraculous. We all knew there was a long road ahead. But I’ll take a long road over a grave any day.

The Armor of Expression

Self-examination is necessary, especially when related to your behavior. It’s the first step toward healing, toward change. I’ve been doing quite a bit of it lately. I’ve listed some of my most powerfully persistent behavioral issues below:

• I’ve always cared what people think about me. It’s a charming trait I inherited from my father. No matter how often I read the adage, “What others think about you is none of your business,” I can’t seem to not care.

• I’ve always had to be put together. You know, hair, clothes, shoes, etc. As consummately composed as possible. Even if I’m going for the disheveled look, it’s perfectly fashioned dishevelment.

• I’ve always striven to be in control. I might be the perfect embodiment of a control freak. Sometimes it takes a lot of deep breathing to hold myself together and maintain the constriction that control demands.

• I’ve never really been able to laugh at myself. An exception to this might be if I were in the presence of people I absolutely trusted. Even then it’s difficult for me and can often takes days after the laughable experience has happened. That’s probably because in my youth other people did the laughing…at me. I was a target of mockery, ridicule.

• I’ve always been my harshest critic. My mistakes are not learning experiences. To me, they are failures. And I’m constantly afraid to fail.

Ugh…my issues exhaust me.

As a child growing up in a conservative, Christian family in a small, conservative, Southern town, I couldn’t present myself in any way other than my idea of perfection. Perfection was my armor. Is my armor. But as you know, perfection doesn’t exist, and it only takes one person to knock you down when you’re feeling good about yourself.

When I was in high school, I had a pair of dress shoes that were trending, totally of the moment. They were concrete gray, sleek and long with a toe that was more pointed than round. They laced up with color coordinated gray laces. They had a brown dress shoe heel. I loved those shoes. But I often got mocked while wearing them.

I remember specifically an incident that happened on a bus ride to school one morning. A student who was a grade, maybe two, behind me in high school called them nurses shoes. They didn’t look like nurses shoes. Nothing about them said “nurse.” But he was a bully and making fun of my shoes was his way of belittling me.

I remember pretending the shoes had been purchased at Macy’s on some mythical trip to New York City. Buying them in New York City sounded more exciting. It was out of the norm. And somehow I thought this fabrication would change his opinion of the shoes…and me. In my mind, it provided a reason for why I would have shoes that were different from every other male, even though they were purchased in the same mall where any of my classmates could have picked up his own pair. The lie I told did nothing to change his opinion.

He took away the joy I felt from wearing those shoes. I let him. I was intimidated—paranoid—every time I wore them after that.

Thirty years later, I connect that experience to my present. I’m broadening the way I express myself every day. I’m very gender expansive, which includes wearing makeup, statement jewelry, and fabulous high heels. And there’s always a little part of me that’s on guard waiting for the bully to mock my shoes and in essence...me.

No matter how much I learn about myself—no matter how much I grow and change—my past affects me every day.

When your early life is lived constantly on guard, that guard remains somewhat raised for the rest of your life. It doesn't matter how strong and courageous and brave you become. It's there. I have to fight my inner demons every day to be proud of who I am, to be brave, to not be ashamed.

I continue to express myself as perfectly as I can because it’s a way for me to maintain control and to protect myself. I was the sissy, the faggot, the queer, the butt of the joke. As a boy in that small, conservative, Southern town, I learned that having a sense of style did nothing but draw attention to me--negative attention. And style wasn’t something for which to be praised. At least not by my peers.

Sometimes the elements we use for expression, e.g. clothes, makeup, shoes, jewelry, etc., are more than mere expressions. Sometimes they are armor.

I was recently struck by the lyric “I’m stronger than I feel” from the Miranda Lambert song “Keeper of the Flame.” I paused to wonder: Am I?

That high school bully should have no power over me now. I mean it’s not like he can make me feel shame for the shoes I like to wear. But I kind of hate him. And honestly, I kind of hate myself for being unable to truly feel the freedom I should feel. If you don’t endure something like that you have no idea what it’s like. You don’t know the shame. You don’t know the fear. You don’t feel the residual effects.

A few days ago I watched the extras on the DVD of the film The Shape Of Water. In one of those extras, the film’s director, Guillermo del Toro, said that he finds three things terrifying: order, certainty, and perfection. He goes on to say that the film’s “Richard Strickland" character represents all three of these things. What struck me about this commentary--as if his words had actually reached from my television screen and slapped me--was that del Toro said of those three things, “They are completely impossible. And they are the torture of our life. ‘Cause no human can be any of them.”

And here I am seeking order and perfection with a bit a certainty thrown in for spice--rigidly trying to hold myself together. Am I merely torturing myself? Let me change that from a question to a statement. I’m torturing myself.

There has to be a change. I know that. I also know it’s not going to be easy. I don’t even know how to begin. But that’s all part of life, right? You figure it out as you go. At least I’m aware, and that’s a step in the right direction. So, I’ve challenged myself to the following:

• Accept that I exist in a world where perfection does not. Therefore, I will never be perfect.
• Believe that mistakes are not failures and give myself the freedom to make them.
• Understand that laughing at myself frees me from the weight of my blunders.
• Trust in myself—I am stronger than I feel.
• Allow vulnerability to pierce my armor.
• Stop being my own bully.

My journey continues...

Jesus Christ Superstar

I am broken. This story. That event. It fucks with me to this day. Jesus! 

My mind is adrift. My emotions are swirling, untethered. It’s hard to focus on what I feel.

Being a man who is gay, everything to do with religion affects me. But this story, this story, gets me every time. When John legend as Jesus—while hanging on the cross at the end of Jesus Christ Superstar—said, “It is finished“ I began to weep. And through my tears I looked up at my ceiling and I  asked, Why? 

Why what? Does Jesus even hear me. Who cares? Why does it matter?

“I don’t know why he moves me. He’s a man. He’s just a man.”

I believe that Jesus existed. I can’t help myself. I grew up with it. I continually try to disbelieve it, but I can’t seem to let it go. Even if I really don’t have faith, I just can’t seem to let it go. 

It’s hard for me to describe the feelings that washed over me as I watched Jesus’  story, as told in JCS unfold. It wasn’t my first time to see this musical, and I’ve heard this story all of my life. But as I mentioned in the opening sentence, I am broken. I was broken before tonight’s telling of the story started. So I’m looking up at my ceiling asking, Why. Expecting what...Jesus to answer? 

I’m supposed to believe Jesus died for my sins, but as a gay man the Bible says I won’t see the kingdom of Heaven anyway so what’s the point? And yet I wept. Like Jesus wept, I wept. What was he weeping about? What was I weeping about? It’s just a story. Why does it affect me so? And why is it so enduring?

Beyond even my personal life experience with Jesus I was struck by the similarities of society today and the depiction of society then. We find a charismatic leader and we fall in love. We listen, we follow. Then we change our minds, we betray. Then comes the remorse. But by then the damage is done. Doesn’t that sound like today? Celebrity is everywhere. Nothing is really different. Nothing has changed. We mock, we poke fun at, we point and laugh, we call things #Fake(News). The media shapes the story. And then there’s Twitter...thank you Twitter. 

We have no faith. Or the faith we have doesn’t last when tested. And we’re all tested. But we seem to move on to the next thing much more quickly. And we’ll betray he who we once followed just as quickly. Look at the Trump supporters who have already turned on him. (Of course this could apply to any leader in politics or faith). We protect ourselves. Isn’t that what Peter was doing when he betrayed Jesus three times in one night? Yes. He was protecting himself. 

I myself don’t always have the courage of my convictions. I hate confrontation. And I avoid standing up for what I believe more often than not. I feel like a coward pretending to be brave, courageous.

Jesus, in his story, is courageous. Even as he asks his father, God, to take him now before he changes his mind. He goes. He submits. He faces. He dies. 

Why does his story, his death, continue to affect me so? And why does his story, his death, continue the divide our country? 

If Jesus was indeed a superstar, his story is one that alternately uplifts and disheartens. 

Words To Yelp At: A Review

As soon as I read the words I felt the flush of heat, and I knew it had colored more than my cheeks. I knew my entire face had gone red. I was embarrassed. I was angry.

I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding the encounter between me and the customer who decided to air her dissatisfaction with it by personally attacking me on Yelp.

The truth is: I have been condescending. And I’m very aware that I can possess, at times, a tone that isn’t always the most cheerful. I own that. But I’ve also been the most helpful man in the room, the man who goes out of his way to get the customer what he wants, the man who has ‘em laughing as they walk out the door.

I’m human. I make mistakes. I have bad days. Don’t we all? But to attack someone, citing his birth defect, in the first line of a Yelp review is nothing short of vicious…and a little Trumpian.

For the record, I don’t hate myself, and I’m not miserable.

Customer service is not the easiest of industries from which to earn a living. People can be difficult. I know. I have been one of those people. Regardless of what transpired between this customer and me, I don’t believe such a nasty personal attack was necessary.

But we live in the social media age of the Trump era. We hold in our hands access to a plethora of apps from which we can post a smear about someone we don’t like on whatever platform we choose. (I myself am guilty of harsh criticism on Twitter toward political views I oppose and toward anti-LGBTQ statements.) We can post a picture of a person who pissed us off and caption it in any degrading way we like. My favorite of the social media mores is the absurd behavior of videoing a fight, an attack, an accident, yet refusing to help the person in need because for some reason the footage is more important than the human being.

I sat quietly at work for most of the day after reading my first known Yelp review. Contemplating. Stewing. This customer did not so much critique my bad customer service as point out my crossed-eye, question my gender, and note my nail polish. She viciously attacked my personal attributes and choice of expression. Was she trying to belittle me or shame me?

The more I contemplated the more I wanted take it all off...right then: the eyeshadow, the mascara, the nail polish. I wanted it gone. I wanted to not be seen. I wanted to hide in the corner. That would be the easy way. That would be me succumbing to safer more comfort-filled tropes. But then I said: No! She doesn’t get to have that much power over me. Her comments were nasty, negative, and hateful. But what can I learn from this? How am I going to react? I am strong and courageous and her opinion of what she saw when she looked at me doesn’t matter. Our transaction may not have gone the way either one of us would’ve liked, and I can learn from that. But she has to look at herself in the mirror every day and know that she lashes out with hate.

Also for the record, I regret that my interaction with this customer was unpleasant enough to make her lash out at me. Clearly I affected her day. Maybe she felt better after posting the review. Who can know? I don’t think we often stop to realize how one human interaction can affect another. An interaction I had had prior to the one I had with her could have soured me for the next few hours...or the rest of the day. And in turn, the interactions she had post me could have impacted those experiences.

Actions may speak louder than words, but words have the power to leave a lasting sting. We should choose them wisely. Of course, we would have to care about their power and their lingering effects, and many of us just...don’t. 

thoughts on Call Me By Your Name

SPOILER ALERT

“Elio, Elio, Elio…"

Sexual attraction: it can make your heart pound with excitement; it can fuck you up with cold-sweat agitation; and when you’ve got it really bad, it can do both to you at the same time. Sometimes the response from the one desire is as clear as the waters seen in the Northern Italy locales used in the film Call Me By Your Name. Other times it’s as murky as the mighty Mississippi right here in America.

I’ve seen CMBYN twice, yet I still can’t pinpoint the moment Elio fell for Oliver. Was it at first sight, at first hello, while Oliver slept off his jet lag? Was it at breakfast the next morning when Oliver fumbled the cracking of the egg shell for his soft-boiled egg? Beyond that minor question though, I struggle to remember the kind of passion--and the abandon--to which Elio and Oliver finally succumb. 

I delighted in watching the stolen glances, the brooding, Elio’s misery at wondering where Oliver was, what he was doing, who he was doing. I delighted because I recognized myself. I’ve done all of that before. I’ve waited around just for a glimpse. I’ve felt the electricity of the random brush of fingertips on naked skin by the only person I wished would touch me. God when was the last time I allowed myself to be touched like that? My delighting turned to heartache as I reflected on my current state of affairs: it’s been so long since I’ve allowed myself to be that vulnerable, that naked, with another person that even the muscle memory is hard to recall.

I’ve always been attracted to, and turned on by, men. Women don’t get my sexual blood flowing in the right direction. So, watching Oliver, whom I believe skewed more straight on the sexuality spectrum, fall for Elio, whom I believe skewed more gay, was a joyous experience for me…and a heartbreaking one. I believe Elio and Oliver fell in love with each other over the course of their six weeks together. I believe that those two men fell for each other as people regardless of gender. 

I’m not sure Oliver would ever have acted upon his same-sex attraction. Maybe in the back room of some seedy 1980s bar. But what part would fear have played in that moment? I believe he had more freedom from judgment being so far removed from the prying eyes of his family and the strictures of a close-minded America (especially in 1983). He was able to experience whatever he wanted in life while he was in Italy. I believe Elio, armed with the fearlessness of youth, was dauntless in his obsession for what he wanted…Oliver.

To be able to allow oneself to enjoy a person--embrace the attraction--regardless of that person’s gender requires a personal freedom the likes of which I cannot readily identify. I’m not wired to fall in love with the person regardless of gender or sexual identity. And even if it’s simply that Elio and Oliver were bisexual, I am, again, not wired that way.

I remember my first major crush. I was smitten with him for the entire summer in which we worked together. I feel like it was crush at first sight. He was nice to me. Always friendly. He had big green eyes and a beautiful smile. I liked both. His glasses didn’t really make him geeky or nerdy. They were just there. He was so handsome. I think I found him sexy but I struggle to define what sexy meant to me back then. My heart would flutter if he was in the dining hall when I arrived, or if he randomly stood next to me for dancer warm up. I had it bad but he wasn’t into me. 

My feelings didn’t go away just because he didn’t return them. I watched as he dated one boy then another that summer. I wondered what was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I good enough, handsome enough, funny enough, sexy enough? The same old pitfalls for anyone, but especially for a gay one-year old who was still a virgin. I was a mess.

A miraculous thing happened at the end of that summer: he turned his attention toward me. I didn’t feel like sloppy seconds (or thirds in this case). I was happy…over the moon happy. Seven days and two sexual experiences. It was bliss. At least that’s how time now paints the picture in my memory.

When the summer ended we parted ways. I was devastated. Completely wrecked. There are two people who were with me during that summer who were also with me immediately after. They can attest to the moping, the long distance phone bills, the inability to hear their advice and move on. I was convinced that he would come around and join me in figuring out how we could make us work.

I was a fool.

I don’t regret what happened between us. I think ultimately it was an amazing experience for me. But I felt Elio’s heartbreak when Oliver left him on the platform at the train station. I felt it to the point that my own aching wound, healed by time and distance, began to throb. I can still see his car drive away. I can feel that heavy sadness. 

Elio and Oliver gave in to the desire they felt for one another knowing there was an expiration date. Was it truly “better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all?” Maybe…for their fleeting moment. And maybe so for mine too. 

I saw him, my first major crush, nearly 20 years later. Still handsome. His eyes still large and green. His smile the one I remembered. His face had lost its youth but not in a bad way. I was embarrassed to stand in front of him. I felt all he could see was the boy who had obsessed over him those many years ago. And I felt like that boy who had obsessed. Ours was not exactly an Elio and Oliver love story. I doubt if he looked upon our summer as days wasted, or regretted it like Elio and Oliver regretted the wasted days of their summer together.

Upon reflection, I realize that as my summer drew to an end it was probably that looming expiration date that allowed me our moment at all.

“Oliver, Oliver, Oliver…”

Gunning For A Compromise: Questioning Guns & Society

I grew up in a house with guns in it. My dad is a hunter.

I remember as an adolescent: shooting a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol at a stationary target, practicing to be the hunter I was never going to be. I remember the kick of the shotgun, the recoil of the pistol. I remember the fear. I remember the dislike. Even lying on the floor completely taken apart post cleaning, guns were not my thing.

I grew up in a small southern town in Kentucky. I remember the back windows of many a pickup truck parked in my high school parking lot covered by racks, hung with guns. It wasn’t odd. It was an everyday part of life. However, it never crossed my mind that anyone would take the rifle or shotgun out of their truck and enter the school with it, intent on killing any of us.

So here I am, nearly 30 years since I graduated and left that parking lot for the last time as a student, and school is no longer a safe place. Sure, there was always the chance a fight might break out. And bullying was an issue even then. Hell, getting your car keyed was even a possibility. Been there, lived that...dad paid the repair bill. But those situations are completely different than sitting in a classroom studying algebra one minute and dodging bullets the next. 

I have family members who work in the school system. I have family members who are currently students. Some of them live close enough to the recent Marshall County, Kentucky, school shooting that anxiety must be palpable. I doubt they are even aware of the anxiety it gives me from afar.

I’ve seen many discussions via Facebook and Twitter since the most recent mass shooting occurred in Parkland, Florida—the most recent in a long American line. One of the ideas bandied about is that stricter gun laws won’t work to stop the gun violence; that it is society that needs to change.

Okay, so let’s take all the onus off stricter gun laws and place it all on society. The question still remains: shouldn’t we try something? 

I keep thinking about how as a child my parents tried different things to get me to behave in a certain way e.g. stop throwing tantrums, stop talking back, clean my room, stop cheating at the board game Sorry!, etc. They took Sorry! away from me for a week once, and I was grounded FROM my bedroom due to its lack of tidiness on more than one occasion. I learned my lessons. But not without my parents' penalties instigating the change.

I realize the above situations are trivial compared to gun violence but they are examples of how we can change, how we can adapt to new or different situations. (We do all take our shoes off at the airport before going through security now.) Society is not going to change on its own. If all the previous mass shootings haven’t made us change then we have to try something else.

In order to change the way society behaves (for this piece: in respect to guns) maybe what’s causing the behavior needs to be modified. So how do we modify it? That question should kick off a conversation. Now is the time to talk about it.

I find myself more than ever conversing with people on the subject, always clear to state that I don’t know what the answer is but that something has to change. I hate the conflict that comes with our differing opinions, but I have found that I’m trying to listen and see their point of view, hoping in return that they are listening and seeing mine.

I keep seeing the argument that bans have worked in virtually every country that has chosen to ban guns. Okay. But here in America, we will be up against major push back from Second Amendment devotees and card-carrying supporters of the NRA before the word “ban” can even be heard by people sitting in the back row of a town hall meeting. But what if...? What if there was a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons that prevented civilians from purchasing them? Why would that be such a horrible idea? Of course, that question opens up the floor for debate about those already purchased AR-15’s (or any other gun like it), and plants my foot firmly in the sticky goo of criticism by those who don’t want to buy an AR-15 but want the right nonetheless. I don’t have an answer, just a lack of understanding as to why any civilian needs one.  

Reaching back into my southern roots as a former churchgoer I recall that a pastor is supposed to help his congregation stay on the straight and narrow, right? There are leaders and there are followers but there are followers who need to find their courage to lead. Our country is much divided right now—on more than this one issue. I don’t know what the compromise is. But there has to be one. Maybe honest conversations like the ones I’ve been having, where we are disagreeing, but not arguing, merely speaking civilly to each other, sharing our thoughts, ideas, and points-of-view, are the way to start. You may think I’m being naive and that’s your prerogative. But sometimes the simple answer is the right answer.

This situation is not black and white. It is the grayest of grays. The process will not be simple. But we have to be willing to meet each other halfway and listen to each other without the current, all too typically immediate deterioration into name-calling and finger-pointing. (Guilty.) It has to start with a conversation and with listening.

I still don’t like guns. They make me uncomfortable. But I don’t think I have the right to tell someone else whether or not guns should play a part in their life. I do believe, however, that semi-automatic and automatic weapons do not belong in mainstream society. Let’s talk about it.