Like you said, we’ve had a pretty unusual trajectory. From a simple ‘Hey’ on an app I was playing around with, we got so close so fast. I’ve only met you once, but when I was with you, and between the distance from here to you, it felt like you’ve always been there. You never felt like a stranger.

Anzac Day 2010. What a magical first date. My first real date with a man, and my first with you. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. You came all the way down for Canberra to meet me. Who knew it would go so well? I thought we’d have dinner, and I’d be back home by 11pm.  Instead we had dinner, desert, and a late night stroll around the harbour. It was all so natural and comfortable. We stopped on the bridge, took in the view, and you kissed me.

We stood on the bridge, and you kissed me. We walked around the harbour some more, and you kissed me. We found a place outside the gardens, sat there, and you kissed me, and talked to me, and held me. You liked my upper lip. And your tongue was super keen. I still remember the little noises that you made, and the way you looked at me. I’ve never felt so wanted or attractive than I have there, sitting with you in the cold with a red nose and your arms around me.

Thinking about it now, and all of the late night chats we’ve had, you can still make me smile.

But then during one of our usual late night chats something seemed to happen. You started trying to dissuade me from waiting for you. It was all so confusing. One phone call later and it seemed like you wanted to end it because you didn’t want to do another long distance relationship and you had your thesis, and I was just going to let you. We held off for another night.

What a difference a day makes.  I had started to understand why there are so many love songs, and I’d started paying more attention. But I remember hearing this lyric the day after …’you gotta show me you want to stay, don’t turn and walk away’… I didn’t want you to be the one that got away.

So I did something kind of embarrassing, and I’m sure very uncool. I started fighting for you. I laid it all out on the line for you. I told you that I wanted you, that I’d wait for you. And… it wasn’t really enough was it? You were still unsure. But we didn’t end it. We still kept trying. Well I did anyway.

But then the further I reached out to you, the further away you seemed. I’d never felt the distance between us, until then. I asked you out on a second date and you said yes. But even then, it seemed like you weren’t committed to it. After all, we never got the chance to have one.

You were unsure of yourself. You had your thesis to do. We lived too far away. That’s in essence what you said to me. If we wanted to make it work, then we would. I would have made time for you. I would have caught a bus to Canberra every weekend if I had to. But you pushed me away. I would have been yours if you just asked me to.

Oh and, ‘You deserve more than I think I can give you’. I’ll decide that for myself, don’t shift it onto me when you’re the one who’s decided this by yourself. I wonder if you know what an amazing man you are? You’re the kind of guy I’ve always wanted. You’re a real gentleman.

In the end all I can do is appreciate you, and wish the best for you. I’d only want you to be happy after all. I had a perfect first date, and a perfect first kiss. Only two months right? And only one date right? It sounds like a big deal over nothing. But I’m not going to trivialise this experience. I hope you don’t listen to the doubts in yourself. And if you do, I hope you say to them ‘fuck you’, and build yourself up again. I can tell, you’re going to be even more amazing if you let yourself.

And here I am left with all these conflicting thoughts. The mixtape you sent me with mostly emo music really doesn’t help.

Is love worth it?

I need to be able to live alone forever if I have to. In the end I’ll only have myself for sure anyway.

Is love turns out to be anything like what my parents have, I don’t want it.

Will I be alone forever?

People tell me I have high expectations, but you exist.

Someone I wanted was attracted to me, maybe there’s someone out there who’ll want me back enough to fight for me. To give the us that was hanging in the air, the chance to come down so we can grab it and run.

The thing about being up in the air is that beside the fact it sucks, is that I never knew what to call you. You were never just a friend, and in thinking about how I would describe this experience and describe what you are to me, I came up with this:

You’re not my first love, but you’re the first man I’ve wanted to fall in love with. You just never gave me the chance.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, or what I’d do or how I’d feel if I did. Inside, I’m still secretly hoping you’ll change your mind. I’ve left the door open for you, but I really don’t know if Ill still be there to answer if you ever knock.

Thank you for being you, and thank you for the little us that we were. I don’t like the idea that you’ll find someone else to watch movies on the couch with every night and cuddle up with in the cold. And I hate that I never got the chance. But In the end, I’ll only ever wish the best for you.

So what was I saying? Oh yeah, partner. I’m not on the gay scene. At all. Clubbing is not my thing. I’m such an old man inside. I just like to spend time with people, it doesn’t really matter what we’re doing as long as we’re communicating. And its really hard to hear you over the music in a club. And even though I apparently give off ‘a person who has lots of casual relationships’ (read: dirty whore) vibes to some people, I’m really not interested in being someone’s trick for the night. I’m not asexual, but when I think about what I actually want that’s not it. I have actually thought about whether I’d be okay with being in a relationship without having sex. The answer was yes, though that may be a case of not knowing what I’m missing out on.

Fuck I seem to be digressing a lot.

So what do I want? When I think about this I invariably come up with little about the physical. I perve as much as the next guy, but though you may be attracted to someone because of their looks, there’s no point if you’re repelled by their character. But let’s not kid. It’d be nice if they were cute. The main things that keep popping up in my head?

• Self awareness and insight. Because when you’re aware of yourself, there’s a good chance you will be aware and considerate of others.
• An open mind. The willingness to listen to other points of view, and angles of truth.
• A sense of self. There’s no point being willing to listen to all of these things if you end up getting lost yourself. Discern what is yours and what is not, and have the strength of character to be who you are.
• Emotional maturity. I’m not interested in playing games. Games are fun, but people aren’t toys to be played with so easily.
• Confidence. Not arrogance or cockiness. But a genuine kind of soul confidence in themselves. You can see it in their presence, in their carriage. The way they glide through, like there are no burdens on their shoulders.
• Wholeness. I actually think that whole two halves making a whole you complete me kind of thing is kind of romantic. But there is no way I want that for myself at all. Co-dependency is not cool. Like I said before, to want to be together, means more to me, than needing to be together. But then, I haven’t been in love before.

When I think of these things, I know too, that these are the things I want most for myself. Forget about careers or money or goals or possession. When I think about who it is I actually want to be and see in the mirror, these are the attributes that I want to have.

They seem to be kind of high standards to ask of someone else, but I won’t settle. I don’t expect some kind of perfect movie star. I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. And that’s okay. Knowing what our shortcomings and our insecurities are is one thing. Not taking that frustration out on other people, but making the choice to at whatever pace address them, is another.

I know I have high standards, so that’s why I don’t think its fair if I haven’t gone some way to reaching them either. After all, I don’t want someone to just settle for me. And this is why I haven’t met anyone yet, because I don’t think I’m good enough to have them.

Whether you think I’m good enough for you or not, I’m going to be good enough for myself

But I know that even if I’m moving so slow that I feel stuck, I’m still moving. And even though when I start to compare myself with others I doubt it, I know that I have my own pace to life. I really am a late bloomer when it comes to life, and that’s okay too.

But however slowly, and however long it takes, I have been and am, letting go of the chains I’ve bound myself with. I won’t hide anymore.

However slowly, I’m taking control of myself and my life, and I’ll take responsibility for that.

When I look ahead, what I really see is potential. We all have the potential for greatness. That doesn’t mean we need to single handedly save the world. Life isn’t about the number of accolades we receive, or the amount of money we earn. To face myself in the mirror and honestly be able to say:

I like myself

I’m proud of who I am

I am a person of integrity

I’m happy

I would rather be able to do this, to be able to laugh at myself and all my embarrassing moments with the people I love and who love me, than to have one, shining moment of glory.

From before we’re even born we change the world, we have an intimate impact on someone’s reality. And as we move through life we inevitably share and shape our worlds with countless people. People we remember, people we love, people we like, and people we don’t.

How will they remember us? With fondness or with enmity? Are their lives richer for having had us in them? What kind of company do we keep? Do we move forward, backward, or not at all? How these questions are answered are testaments to the content of our character.

Are you happy with the answers? If you’re not, what are you going to do about it?

The future is just tomorrow’s today. who you were is who you were. Who will you choose to be now? The past already happened, the future hasn’t yet. This is the time of your life, for its the one that really matters.

So enjoy it, live it.

And thank you, for the life that you’ve lived. My life is richer for having been entwined with yours.

♥ Jaimie

This is a (slightly modified) letter I wrote the other day for a friend of mine. It was part of her birthday present where what she wanted was some kind of inspiration letter from all of us about the future. My headspace was kind of busy thinking about all the stuff I have to, yet haven’t, done for uni so I ended up writing this on the train inside my little tiny notepad where the paragraphs had a lot more oomph and the letter spanned pages and pages and actually took a whole train ride (hour) to write. I ended up writing it out again because train ride handwriting is not good handwriting, and I discovered I can’t tear perforated pages properly.

But anyway as I was writing the initial draft on the train I was kind of thinking to myself, sure this is stream of consciousness but lets say this does inspire her, and she shows it to her friends, what do I want to say?

Thinking about it now, there’s so much I could say about the content of this letter. From me to her, and now from me to you, its very personal. I can remember explicitly, and vaguely, the contexts surrouding some of these ideas. The line “From before we’re even born we change the world, we have an intimate impact on someone’s reality.” for example I actually really believe. In my darkest time this realisation is what moved me to choose life.

So basically, this like an open letter to humanity. Filled with lessons I’ve learnt and my philosophies on life. If anyone else ever chances upon finding this, and reads this, I hope you find a place where you belong, and hearts to belong with, life is so much better that way, when you have the space to be free and be more of who you can be.

Actually the main reason I managed to remember about it was because I’d posted all 38 (I’m highly ambitious!) goals onto the side of this webpage, and I want to take them down now. Not because I haven’t done them all, or I’m consigned to failure, on the contrary I’ve somehow managed to do a few of those things, and of those few, I know at least one of them was a massively important milestone in my life. I want to take them down because while I’d still like to do some of those things, I just don’t think that that list completely reflects where I’m at right now.

It’s hard to describe but, I feel like living this life, I’ve already lived a few. Not in terms of the depth of my experiences perhaps, but in how I feel, how people relate to me, and how I relate to myself and my memories. I know that at the core of it, It’s just been me as the same continuous person, but I’ve changed so much that when I look at old pictures of myself it really does feel like I’m looking at a past life or something. I know, like I said its a really hard feeling to describe. I can’t be the same person I was before, because I can’t go back to being that limited.

I like to think that I’m more than who I was, more of who I have the potential to become.

So little random self-reflection out of the way, what the hell did I actually do in that list?

2. Eat a piece of fruit everyday for at least a month

I ate so many bananas last year I felt like a monkey

4. Take a kick boxing class

I love kickboxing! Once uni starts again I’m gonna become a member since I’ll actually be able to commit to some regular classes. I also have really good form! Thank you childhood karate!

5. Take a yoga class

I’m actually pretty good at it and vinyasa yoga can actually be a damn good workout in its own way. You start feeling your body a lot more. I can do the wheel! But the crane….wth how do you do that!?

11. Get a job I enjoy during uni for some pocket money

So I got a Christmas casual job over the break and I think they’ll keep me on, aside from the drastic change in mood that the presence of a particular manager has on the whole floor, its pretty fun! Well, when I’m working with my friends anyway.

12. Buy myself at least one thing every month

I know I’ve definitely been doing this with food… does that count? I’ve actually started slowly revamping my wardrobe, and i’m feeling sexy!

19. Exercise for four days a week for at least a month

24. Vacuum the house once a month

37. Come out to my parents

Out of everything I had on the list, this is the most important one that I did.

And then I saw Obama’s speech. First, little snippets on channel 10, and then the whole thing on SBS. Wow.  What an amazing orator. In their analysis they talked about the power of his rhetoric, and it was powerful. I think this will be one of those speeches that will be remembered for a while to come. 

I had to write some kind of post about this. Listening to him, even though I’m not an American, I felt so hopeful. And touched. The kind of ideals he talks about, how far societies have come, hope and change, their not just American ideals. And watching him I thought, wow, what an inspiring, presidential president he looks to be. Comparing the way the last president came across, I’m really very sure that the world will look at America pretty differently.

.

Since I’ve been so busy doing assignments I’ve also been taking lots of breaks doing random other things, among those was following American politics, the election, and prop 8. I look at what that proposition represents for me on the other side of the world, and I really, really hope that it doesn’t pass.

Even it does pass though I guess there still is the overwhelming propensity for change in my lifetime. How lucky am I to have been born at this time in history, where multicultural difference was my norm growing up, and where I have the freedom to be an out gay person and be accepted wholly for that by the people I love and who love me. 

I have the tv on in the background, and its really inspiring. This really is a time for hope and a chance for change. What makes Obama such a good communicator, is that he talks with conviction and integrity about ideals that are universal, but about which people find so much harder to believe in. Looking at the jubilation in the crowds, the tears on the eyes, a visible hope, it seems that people have a renewed belief in those ideals.

What an amazing moment in time.

There was a miscommunication at the beginning, well actually aside from some gigantic non communication at the beginning which led us to having a lot of free time for the first half of the event. But once we all came back, got briefed, got into our positions, and got ready for the walkers, the atmosphere was full of fun and a lot of enthusiasm and laughter! I guess because volunteers at an event have that common bond of being a volunteer, that it wasn’t that hard to have a few laughs, and once we felt like we were doing something you could tell that everyone was getting excited to see the walkers finish.

When the first trickle of walkers runners came through we were all competing to get them to come through our rows, but man once it got busy it was crazy! I was handing out the showbags and once my row ran out of the already unpacked bags and had to start hurriedly opening new boxes I moved to the opposite row to start on their mountain of showbags and man it was absolutely crazy.

But it was amazing! So many people came through and so many of them were just beautiful and smiling and appreciative! We could tell that they appreciated us, it was a wonderful feeling.  A kid high fived me!

My face really hurt from smiling last night, It was amazing!

Looking back on it, I’d been busy. Not busy enough to forget about what was going on inside of me, but it seems like I had for the most part forgotten about the whole ‘coming out’ issue with the folks. So my dad suddenly confronting me in my room while I played word challenge on Facebook was… a surprise. I’m pretty sure my word score didn’t end up being very high either.

When I tell the story now, the funny little part of it is that my dad confronted me because over a week ago now he’d found some porn. Yeah. Awkard. I must have just been lazy hiding things, buttons were pressed, videos were played, naked guys were doing stuff to/with/on/in each other. Apparently he couldn’t sleep that night.

I would have liked to have been able to say that I did it text book. That I had the courage to sit them down and say ‘yo, I need to tell you something…’. But honestly, even though its a little embarassing and the inititating conditions weren’t picture perfect, I’m out! Who gives a shit!?

The touching part of the story, at least for me, is that just like Randy Pausch, I really lucked out in the parent lottery. I’m their son, and they love me, accept me, and want the best for me, always. And I never knew that more than that night. Yeah they probably are still dissapointed and sad, and I know I broke their dreams for me, for a wedding with a nice girl and grandkids, especially grandkids. But I never knew more than on Tuesday night, how much they love me, and I didn’t realise how far away I’d kept myself from them. I relate to them complely differently now, little things that used to annoy me don’t even matter anymore, and I just feel like, home, feels more like home now.

And then I got bombarded with the questions. When did you know? How do you know? Do you have a boyfriend? Will you tell us if you have a boyfriend? Which one are you? (WOAH awkward much huh? I just said ‘I dunno’). I also found that they have high standards for my future partner. Bums need not apply.

When it all happened and as it all unfolded, I though I’d be more scared. I knew there’d be crying, but I thought there would be so much more to be scared of. That’s probably more to do with me. I only feel like now, that I’m really starting to grow into myself, and I’ve really made peace with who I am. And I felt it. The whole time, inside I felt whole, and secure in the knowledge of myself. So that after the initial surprise and lame attempts to avoid the questions, I could face them. With my truth.

It was intense. While mum cried because of the hopes that she’d realised she lost, and I cried because of the freedom and support I’d gained, my dad was this pillar of support for both of us. But even though they know now that there are things that I won’t be able to give them, I think we’ve all gained a lot more. I don’t think they know it, but even though they’ve lost some of their hopes for my future, they’ve gained more of me.

And then everything was normal again. There were random questions here and there but life went back to how it was, instead it went forward instead.

There’s also that creepy part where some creepy/sleazy older guy keeps watching you, and in the case of one person followed me and watched me from behind a wall in a shopping centre. I know its a stereotype but yes, the person actually was middle aged and bald.

Then of course there’s the whole straight guy crush. It’s not like you do it on purpose, its just that really, its kind of hard to tell for sure even if someone does conform to stereotypes. I’ve actually had someone’s jaw drop when I told them about me. That’s my trophy coming out story.

Of course its easy to tell when someone’s straight when you hear they’re going out with a girl. Which is what I heard about the guy.

Which is fine really. Sure it might be fun but I don’t see the point of keeping that going. And so I’ve realised that hey, I’m now completely single. I’m not holding out for anyone anymore. I’m still alone, but I’m nowhere near lonely, and I’m not desperate.

And you know what? I’m feeling pretty damn good about myself anyway.

I’m not even really your friend. Just an acquaintance that happens to know you through some other people and goes to the same events you do. When I catch you alone, the conversation never flows smoothly. I try my best to make conversation, but when there’s silence I don’t even know if it’s comfortable or not.

I hardly know you, I don’t even know why I’m thinking about you so much. But I remember a time when I caught your eyes, and looked a second longer then you should have. And I remember when I first started seeing you smile. I remember thinking, I didn’t think he could be so light hearted, cute.

And today, when you weren’t even trying to hide what you were feeling, I couldn’t understand enough to know what not to say. Sorry.

When I think of you I feel confused. But if I’m thinking of you this much, I guess that means I don’t not like you, right?

Damn it.