facing fear

there is a slow sigh of relief as these words appear on this canvas. my heart was stuck at my throat for a whole hour, sitting on the queen bed, distracting myself with carpet lint and toe nails.

i don’t know what got into me to invade the private space i have been afraid to walk into. but this evening, before i call it quits again, i made a choice to face my fears. to talk about it. ask for help. took me a while to spell out what goes on underneath the surface and speak plainly.

to my brother, my lack of confidence drove him to frustration. we both have so much to learn. so much to grow. so much tracks we need to cover. we are not there yet. no, not yet. we need our God, more and more.

it feels like i just finished a triathlon and my heart rate is recovering at a steady rhythm and a new found confidence. freedom, we are each discovering the meaning, as the earth opens up and consumes us day by day with these challenges. i am stepping up, out, to work this through, come what may.

messy creatures we are meant to be. this, is the essence of humanity.

broekn

This early in the night, my pharynx feels a little dry, itchy, sticky static running down the walls. These triggers come and go as they please and i find myself time and again at their mercy.

What is my hope? It dims by the moment, like the passing daylight suggesting the passing of summer. My search hits, time again on furrows and roots pointing in the direction my eyes have been averting for more than a decade. I still remember the first day i walked into the room, wanting to be anonymous, only for a fellow churchgoer meeting me in my tracks and asking, point blank and sprightly, what i was doing this time in the evening on level 2 of the building. i looked at her, scared out of my wits, my confession not yet ready to proceed.

“I’m going to… ch..choisss…” wanting this moment never to exist.

“Oh, CHOICES! …” her eyes rolled up in intent thought and looked back at me with the same pleasantries and said, “That’s great! Wow!”

I returned the look that said, “I’m trusting you, just so you know, I never intended you to know.”

Inside, were men, women, people perhaps just like me, who have a story to tell. A story that is still not quite complete. A story waiting for the savior’s direction to complete. A story waiting for the sequel, for answers to this quiet desperation, shunned, even by the people loving church community.

Worship was difficult. I was distracted for most of the 20 minutes. You could tell the atmosphere was intently sensitive and discreet. I could see who the newbies were. I hated feeling new, like vulture fodder.

Then I met my facilitator, S, and the rest of the ones who put up their hands, who signed for the course. Turns out, it wasn’t a clinic. It was a support group for men and women wanting to recover their original intended sexuality. All my expectations of a clockwork orange therapy were dispelled. I wasn’t going into a chamber to be cleansed of my sin. I was going to work it through, step by step, as Jesus would have me, like Mary at His feet.

And, I’m still working through it. Some may say pit stop victories were had, but this evening, the bullet went much too deep to take. My brother found me in front of the balcony, tears, blood and all. My memories had consumed me and I had punched the stool too hard, broke one of it’s legs and holding on to it’s fracture, mourning. To be honest I am sick of it all. All that I have put my hands to have come back to bite me. All the steps I have taken still leading me down much tumble and trouble.

Like the last relationship that ended like a flash flood. Deadly, quick. You don’t know where it comes and how it begins. I still have no capacity to embrace with the strong arms of a father, a protector, a husband. I hate it that the women in my life suffer in my lack. I hate it that there is still so much about women that turn me off. I still have my wires all unbridled inside. I am still unrighteous to believe in a future that my folks can be proud of. That, perhaps, is their answer to why I am the last one standing.

This is my mess, given the give and take of my hostile history. Faith is not something i can just easily talk about.

I think about the ones from the support group, who have gone before, almost all of them reversing all the work, all the struggle, all the red flags collected and threw it all in the white. Some of them found happiness. Some of them, my best of friends, who believe I am still crazy, who believe I will one day join the unbeaten.

“You just haven’t found the one…” my brother chided in tears. If these stupid songs could fix it all, I’d sing it all day long.

I look around my present community. My peers all taking part in God’s pro-creation decree. My immediate family, my big brother, finding himself falling in love more and more each day head over heels with his first love of 7 months. My buddies getting engaged within one short, eventful year. I begin to feel more and more irrelevant and set apart from all of God’s good and perfect will. My hunchback of notredame pointing fingers, old demons laughing at the pure jeopardy, stone throwers carving cracks at my window. All my defences have failed and my distractions stopped working. What I have denied, averted and escaped from is coming back at me with fangs, clubs and deadly swords. I’d give anything to walk straight this path.

Save me, my God, my song of ascents. Speak kindly of me when these waters submerge my earth. Keep me away from these trials and error. Protect me when i face these gun shot wounds head on. Rip out all the bandages and well meaning theories that seek to numb and fix. Give me strong shoulders to ride upon and never let me let it all go down in history. Give me another day, a new day.

To still believe, in spite of everything.

“I know you can, I have seen you in action, exceedingly, exceedingly, you have it in you…”

I’m not running. I am facing these triggers head on. Come what may.

renew

it all happens in a split moment. A trigger. A dejavu button on the face of a familiar friend.

I had a dream last night. Not quite a nightmare. For I felt nothing in the proceeding. Two friends died. One, a close brother living with me. The other, away in Sydney coming back this weekend. Perhaps the onslaught news of an aussie celebrity departing suddenly in manhattan lent some fodder for the morbid. I had crashed 12 hours, with lights on all through the night, right after dinner. I had hit a low pressure system and disengaged myself with my present humanity. When it hurts and when the weather turns, my tide loses its sight and I’m submerged in my whirlpool of insecurities. If the noun, can be plural, that is. Some things, I’m still learning to control. I still need to be forgiven. And times like these, there’s the picture of grace.

The Bendix is fixed. And my laundry smells like they have been washed 15 times. For so they have been. Apparently it was soaked and overloaded with water. And so explains the jammed door. I’ve saved us $120 and I should be pretty happy about it. Since moving in, there have been many road blocks, the annoying kind. We were out of power for 3 days, in 41 degree heat. It took two weeks wait to get online. A week to find a washing machine on eBay for $90. Yes, frontloader. And two days to discover how it actually works. My little brother broke his toilet cistern and we had to go buy a brand new one, help him drill new holes into the toilet wall, fix the pipes, cut the pieces to size and collaborate on some old skool plumbing. But the house is looking better. Good enough to have people over to fire up the dinner.

I woke up feeling strangely real. The sound of running water had stopped and the house was the normal quiet morning still. As I walked through my door, the familiar smell of cologne and fresh soap lingered to remind me that this is real. That my dream was just, a dream. I was grateful, relieved, that they are still alive and we can still make the first gig of the year to open for a friend’s CD launch. I went back to my dream and this time, gave them a hug and told them that i loved them deeply. It was enough to resurface above the horizon.

And so we did dinner again. To me what felt like a rehash. To do good what the meaningless yesterday eluded us. Conversation over dinner. There is something about it that gets me. Something about it that heals and mends the broken pieces inside. Something about food that simply brings us all together. Something about that communion. Something about supper that makes us all human, simply being the common hope that is thicker than blood.

Like I said to a friend in a text message after my citizenship test, this year will be an awesome year.

overtime

it is supposed to bring colour into my world, make the past year go away. instead it drives me the other direction, fill me submerged and overflowing with the ironic. i know, i hate it too. inside, it all goes knots and needles, all fuse and trouble. perhaps my time is not yet. oh, how long will this wait? i’m still here on a skinny, useless bells with whistles, the dead calls unto deep, i don’t want to sink. i don’t want to sink. i don’t want to sink again.

perhaps this overtime is doing some good. make a good killing and spend the rest of my free time thinking up creative things to do with it. have i become such a robot that i forget all the good things beckoning the life in me? like, how she lights up the room and brings with her the summer, wherever she goes. some things die hard, even though i am afraid to admit.

sunset

it’s been a while since i wrote. the year 07 has come to an end and 08 is only beginning to unfold. i had written about the pretty shit year but it didn’t feel right trying to sum up a year that felt like four. the last of the four was a series of recklessness. drinking, intoxicating and if i remember what my brother said in an email, “till he is ‘filled’ with the spirit”. i thought it was quite funny. well, the story is a little too overplayed and it sounds like i have become alchoholic leading up to the festive. while this is no disclaimer, i seriously have not gotten so much as drunk. seriously. perhaps not many people know how much drink i can hold, although there was one amplified moment where even the party heads thought i was drowning my sorrows. “whatever will we do with you… must it always end this way? *insert picture of me lying down on a couch looking zonked out*”. OK. No. Don’t believe the hype. I was probably even trying to write a song and singing it to a japanese friend i just met. I do enjoy the spirits, but not many people realise that I only wreck the bar in the safety of a few friends i know i can be myself with. They know who they are. And for that I am grateful.

This is the first of the coming out party of engaging with my mess. The way I know how to. Everything is good for something. Although I must say, looking at myself in the mirror, i think i just aged ten years. Dehydration is not the best for skin regeneration. There’s always hope in good food and exercise. Something I am still living without, not till i properly move in with my life set up around me. Can’t wait for Sunday. Can’t wait for my bro to come back. Can’t wait. Living in limbo, out of a suitcase, out of a car, is only fun as an idea. I hope never to do it ever again. I need stability for my sanity.

What can  i look forward to in 08? Well, it’s more like, what do i want to look forward to? Having made so many resolutions, I am really not sure. I just want to stop grieving. I think a whole year of it is enough. I don’t want to be like a fatherless widow. If God is the one with the promises, I am going back to find my roots and reclaim my lost family. It seems i have been unbridled all because of my estrangement. A boy without his family will never find the man he is to become. No matter how dysfunctional that unit may be, blood still runs deeper than water. For the countless time, here’s another shot at faith. Not to test God but somehow try and believe one more time that age, space and time has made it fonder. There is still enough naivety to try and find the foundation God made us all to launch from.

Now if only the remaining stars will align, for my heart is ready and eager to take the flight.