When the old you falls away...and the you you've always been embraces moment every day

Every few weeks, I find some time such as now, when the experiences and living of many days can be percolalted down to express where I'm up to right, this coming out of mine.

In recent months, weeks, days even hours and minutes, what I've come to experience and to feel ever more sensitivelty and to myself more openly about being gay, about being a sensual sexual, feeling, sometimes effeminant, and sensitive yet definitetly masculine male, of 'being homosexual' and 'not being heterosexual or bisexual' is the very uniqueness of that being. Of who I am. Now.

Constantly if minisculely changing, metamorphising, growing. While the body gets older, each day I feel younger, more alive, enlivened

Early on I felt a need, maybe a year ago or much much less - more recent, if superficially, often floundering, searching outside - for markers, pointers, ways that maybe I will feel more aligned, if 'acting' this way or that.

Somehow that someone elses 'gay' path or costume or mask was right for me.... But they, you dear brother and sister, never said that, the gay men before me, simply said 'this is my experiece, there are the highs and lows, the bright lights high heels and glitter and the pitfalls, beware...'

We hold each others hands, and share the journey...but, in light of day and datk of night - in reality we each must and do walk our own path.

And the gay man or lesbian woman or transgender or bisexual or whoever we see and label in the mirror is uniquely you, I, me. And the next time we look in the mirror, calmly at the face staring back, weve are evolved a little different a little more.

There is no prescibed template, no cookie cutter, no brand or instruction checklist, we are each complex, evolving, in so many ways unpredictable. Wholely beautiful.

What is gay, it is each droplet in the rainbow. Not to be like this or like that, to go here or there, to belong or not to belong... not to say feeling connected is not important even vital - it is, but to accept in each moment who I am, and then in the next who I am, knowing I have changed a bit, each time, each breath.

I know when I look at a man, standing naked, at two men kissing holding hands, at their embrace, at my own body in the shower or a mirror, when I ponder intimacy as a male - the attraction I find to sitting with another man, not sexually but just there, is so warm, so strong...he is like me. No space to voices that come from another time, when heterosexuality commanded my view. What is found in men cannot be found for me elsewhere, how could it.

And while it is the outside seeing or hearing or smelling or touching that prompts the feeling, the reaction...it is though what goes on inside that tells me who I am.

These gay feelings distinctly truly homosexual. I am inherently happily queer.

In those moments, when allowed to just sit and be with oneself, we can be who we are, we can be truly ok.

The journey has many twists and turns, pebbles to step over and briars to pass between, but also so many flowers, blue sky, raindrops and bird songs.

They too are who I am. And who I am not.

Imjustjulien, who are you.

 

Dear Driedroses, Dear NeonSocks, Dear Soundofmusic, thank you each so much. I am so pleased my words and thoughts have found a place that speaks to and touches you as well, as they express of me.

I am so pleased to be able to stand here with you.

That is the gay we each are. I wonder in this moment how can humanity not love each other as brother and sister. There is gentility and grace to found among we queer folk, that others, and us too, unique as we each are need not fear, but instead walk joyfully proudly outside beside. Be queer.

There is something inherently wonderful, untouchable and honest about this journey.

In the heterosexual world we are born into, everything is a given. And as we swim under the radar, under the water, touching the surface from time to time, connecting that rainbow frequency more and more often, less and less fleetlingly...queer is given oxygen, energy to inflate and rise and lift full and colourfully into the sky.

To float carrying friends with us to show the view below, how we see it, how beautiful the tapestry is below, all around, right here. How we all live together, separate but interconnected, and share the roads, the valleys, pastures, lakes and far of places, the kitchen stools and swimming pools.

Queer is no more a fixed place or identity than is a wave, where does it begin, or dissappear. It doesnt, it isnt

I know I am this queer gay man, in the crowded street, at busy intersections and on quiet paths, we are the myrid strides and words of humanity, without a badge or banner I am you you are me.

There have been poets, painters, sculptures, writers, now footballers, florists, flame throwers, paramedics and parliamentarians, gay librarians, libertarians, actors, CEOs and jet pilots. We are the rainbow, the moon, space, sunshine, flowers, oceans and tears.

I saw below a photo on IG, a snow skiier floating free and daring down a mountainside, the words "it feels good to be lost in the right direction"

That to me what it is to be gay, to be queer, to be...and also not to be, regardless of whatever ones sexuality and relationships to others might be.

Have a beautiful day, because of you I am here, I am your queer dear brother, and queer dear sister too.

Imjustjulien.

PS: I near laughed out loud and definitely gasped when re-reading to know what it was you saw in my words, and stumbled over all the little typos, spelling errors etc.

How gay is that ...lol

 

Hi junebug99, so pleased, take care of you and smile lots. Imjustjulien

 

Hi Rana, there is no distance between us, we are that wave, it is each of us. Thank you.

Organic, thats beautiful. I feel more and more as the years pass, OMG 60', how much closer I am to people, regardless of differences, differing views, beliefs, languages, we are ever interconnected...

To discover at a later age - as we have done, and like so many others - ones sexual orientation is other than the norm of becoming into it as how our lives began, it really is a journey...and not a masquereade, with every mundane train ride, every outing, every painting seen, every moment shared a chance to be alive. Anew.

I love saying these three little words 'I am gay, and "I'm a queer" not because of the label, or to see who is looking (though thats fun...the playful twinkle of acknowledgement and reconition - you too, I see you, I know you...) but because of the fullness and vastness of their meaning.. it is something that until it happens, one just kind of goes along on the ride (Greatwhale spoke of it to in a post I read last night, eluding to the red and the white pill in the Matrix), but somehow, this wave we ride and we are, is abaolutely pregnant and prescient with wonder untapped and anew.

Love it, live it, be.

Julien

 

Hey Rana, thank you.. Julien

 

Dear Confusedeast, your reply, your thoughts, your happiness, your flowering expressed in your relationship, all welled up in me as tears.

Thank you so very much.

To have those words "Embracing ones homosexuality" mirrored back brings feelings I cannot find the words to describe.

And this bouquet of feelings, what we share and experience on and through this journey, if only people knew, life's true bounty is experiential, lived now, and unique to each of us.

Everyword of what you have written is an absolute joy to read, from this:

"After the initial shock of realizing I was attracted in a very real sense to men, the journey that followed took me to a place I never knew existed with me."

Oh wow...

To this....

"It has made it possible for the real me, gay, more effeminant, sensative and happier to finally arrive!" OMG......how beautiful.

...and every word you wrote that follows.

Sweet homosexual friend.

You see me. Now, in these very moments - tapping out letters and words for you and everyone here at EC to read - through the magic of these light sensitive smartphone keys - from here around the other side of the planet, my fingertips reach out to touch yours and everyones - and to know so intimately in our shared writings and stories - we gay men, women, bisexual and transgender people - that we hold hands, touch hearts and minds, and know each other, understand each other, want for each other, commune here without speech a kindness and compassion globally and intimately with each other.

If I am a little verbose here, please accept me I am me. I am gushing, I am gay.

We are here.

 

Thank you Pole star, so pleased to be able to be a small step for you to step upon in your journey, on your path. Your words here are fuller than you realise... ...they are full of your experiences..

 

I like your view. Intrinsic beauty...yes!

Observations and experiences of being immersed in the hetero world (accepting without question...'it's normal') and the homo world (where it seem most everything can get questioned..'it's abnormal') are indeed topics I've been chewing over. Stripping away misconceptions about oneself and the layers we self impose is journey of discovery...to say the least...LOL.!!!

And there certainly is, as a girlfriend (who in a sexually and emotionally torrid and fabulous relationship some years back - opened my eyes wide and empowered me to look directly at my homosexuality - and so began my long awaited coming out in ernest - and brought me to see how) 'rich, layered and textured' the view is...the gay view that is......how wonderful.

The danger of course, is getting beyond a sense of honeymoon and deacending to a normalising, another way of saying 'taking for granted'. But that's a whole other discussion

Reading your words, I find so engaging, maybe because you tap straight to where I'm at...for which I thank you.

 

When pulling in the driveway this evening, and while chcking messages on my cellphone, I took the chance as well to see whats new on EC.

And Sonata, your four words summed it up and much more:

"This thread is fantastic."

...and thought this EC, fantastic.

Love to you Sonata, and as you so rightly embrace, everyone here.
These are our lives, and so beautiful, valid, ripe, real, wonderful, precious.
As I sat reading each comment, the feeling that came spreading through me is that feeling which the only way I want to describe it is 'being gay'

It goes into your footstep, your smile, the twinkle in your eye, the way you see flowers, buds, and the smile of a puppy, of grandparents and grandchildren...of mundane things and works.

Like you said so beautifully Sonata: "..also find something sweet and reassuring in me when l come in touch with the deepest layers of my sexuality."

Wow that is so beautiful...and so revealing of you, thank you, and of we too.

That reluctance to put on the "...label homosexual on myself..." How true!

That truth you have outed so beautifully:

Your words, your thoughts feel so connected. Please forgive me for celebrating all you say by revisiting with here, but it is simply you have echoed for me my own feelings so serendipitously ( is that a word..?LOL)

"l started to realize that regardless of being in love or not, l am defined to a big extent by my unique and beautiful sexual orientation." True true...

And..."...I enjoy being homosexual, whether l am in a relationship with someone or not." Yes Yes...☺

"I enjoy the fact that l have the privilege of being able to appreciate certain qualities both in women and men that are hidden to the eyes of a heterosexual person."

Ohhh wow...."

And as I began to write the above, a movie came on the TV. The scene, in the 1940's somewhere in Eastetn Europe, at dinner, an elderly husband and wife, at each end of the dining table, having dinner with their grsndson, late 20's I guess.

And I watched, and I observed how wonderfully attracted I felt to his image. How alive I feel, when I allow myself to be, to be me. Yet it is only TV program...I smile.

His open necked shirt, short sleeves, neatly combed black hair, but most of all his eyes reslly sweet, his eye brows, his faced really handsome, his nose and his lips, his speech clear, and for my view, an underflying effeminance about him.

I allowed, and found it lovely to do so, to sit and fall in that alive presnt enjoyment. That being of two parts: one that I found him so attractive; and two: that I was/am so aware of and open to be right here.

Here right now as I've written these words, I feel so very homosexual, there is nothing else.

I know now, and it is not a design or a cut out or some produced 'me' but the feelings that are 'me'. That gay man I have always wanted to allow out and be without fear or favour. Honestly me.

And then, your thoughts and words again...

"I feel blessed that l have been to a long journey within myself."

...is so very full of life, being gay is far beyond what can ever be theorised...

"How many people on earth do go to such a hard journey, if they don’t need to? I am glad that l needed to."

Hugs to you.

"ShortButSweet, So beautifully written ❤️ Thank you for sharing."

Hugs to you...so pleased for you.

And "ConfusedEast, your post: "Sonata so well written! You have hit the nail on the head so speak. As I continue on my journey of homosexuality I now know that transition to gay is not a fluke, middle age crisis or an attempt to find something exciting."

So gorgeous to read...

Your writing ConfusedEast is for me, as if you have my pen, as if your experiences are as ink filling my thoughts, and brings the very next things I want to share.I want to open to...

"With a shadow of a doubt if my relationship ended with my BF tomorrow I would be just as gay."

What I find at this moment in time, is how you seem somehow (serendipitously again...) to be, as if, bringing into words, the person who is me... ha ha, the magic of ones own mind, seemingly bounced off the magic off anothers'.

Maybe what is happening, is that of seeing oneself, myself, my nature unfold as it were before ones very own eyes.

Homosexually is, now I sense, so very much more than I ever imagined.

And that is not, in any way to decry heterosexuality, where I have been living, however numb it may been, for so long, for it is, for me in some very visceral, emotional and sensual ways, the same being, not two sides of the same coin, but the whole. Just that now the fuller me is coming out, and homosexual, gay is not just a descripter or label but a be-ing-ness.

How can this be...how wonderful. Dorothy, Alice, Fred Astaire, Rita and King Arthur and countless others of star, stageand life all rolled into one...LOL

As you beautifully expressed:

"I don't mean wearing a label externally per se but rather the internal me, the essence of who I am is 100 % unequivocally forever gay."

This place is so very warm and familiar, like coning home.

While from days of youth and so many occasions of my life, uncomfortable always, and not always understand why:

"All those things I made fun of or used as insults regarding gay sexuality when I was straight are now part of who I am."

Somehow your words draw me out, like in watching the young man on the TV tonight, I feel the yearning becoming so full, as if I could sit with you all and talk non stop for days...

"Yes I do all those things and more, without reservation, without hesitation loving it more and more as time goes on. I want (to) shout out that I find total comfort, fulfillment and complete sexual satisfaction with another male."

... homosexual plain and simple., it is real it is authentic.

Touche...!!!

Thank you all, you're you, and as Minnie said and sang, you're beautiful.