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Reclamation

Crabs skittered beneath rocks flecked with serpentine seaweed strands—nature’s gelatinous boas sopping ashore from parties in the deep. A bloated seagull bobbed their head beneath a small tide pool’s rippling surface; the repetitious machinations, a dance.

Out of the corner of my eye, a Labradoodle’s sand-dusted, curly coat blurred by as he raced full-tilt across the sandbars, his green leash soaked and trailing—his owner walking quickly behind, nodding my direction. JoJo’s ears pricked at the lowly, plaintive gull calls as the wind buffeted her tiny face, her jellybean eyes watering, dampening her cheeks.

There, at the edge of the beach, I felt an internal tug—willing me further, into the great blue horizon pocked with cream sails unfurling in the breeze. The salty air curled in my lungs as I gulped it in—willing it to fill and cleanse my mind, making all the possibilities brim and spill over into my consciousness, borne to fruition.

Certain moments crystallize in our singular perceptions of time. And this was one such instance. There I stood, hours away from Seattle, cradling JoJo: a tired, hairy, heaped mass dripping over my arms. An unlikely duo, we’d forged a necessary bond during a tumultuous time, uncertain if we’d make it. But as my feet sunk into the saturated sand, I could feel us turning a corner. Like the shells around us, we’d been battered and bleached and weathered through various trials—through rough and smooth currents blunting jagged, exposed edges: creating something new, albeit unevenly polished. We’d emerged from the deep; we could breathe.

***

I’ve been divorced for nearly a year and a half. And almost every day, I fret that I’ll become that person who can talk only about their divorce, who can’t just reference it and move on. But, slowly, I’ve recognized that, like so many other forms of loss, divorce isn’t something you can just ignore; every now and again, I have to acknowledge how it’s shaped who I am today.

When I was a kid, I often played Duck Hunt until the Nintendo overheated—the screen still, leaving the duck profiles mid-blast: fluttering feathers and pained expressions frozen in time. Only when the immersive experience was interrupted by real-life variables would I snap out of my trance-like state, pull the piping-hot cartridge out of the machine, blow on it, and shove it back in—all the while knowing the blue screen of death would win, the illusion shattered by the ultimate Game Over. But often it forced me to redirect my energies into something else—another hobby, or self-reflection.

Marital cracks are like those Duck Hunt moments: they bring reality into sharp relief, make you realize the game that you’ve been playing has been convincing, but is still a mirage whose artifice is crumbling. It forces you to decide what to do, who you want to be—and, most pointedly, if you’re satisfied with the person you are when you’re with the other.

I wasn’t. And I’m so much better for having faced that crushing fact.

***

Ricotta-beetroot filling bubbled out of the thin ravioli shell, and oozed down into the spinach encircling it—a wilted, fallen crown. My cider began to hit, lulling my mind into that ethereal haze reserved for tipsy musings that I hoped I wouldn’t let escape my subconscious and rupture through my purple, beet-stained lips.

An hour earlier, I lay sprawled across my bed, nodding in and out of shallow naps as my skin tanned from an afternoon spent outside. For the past week, I’d been forcing myself to do more things after work—pushing myself out of my daily routine and taking advantage of living in a city bursting with life.

Having grown up in a small town, I’d always relished moments in movies where characters would take trains, taxis, or buses to enjoy a night in the city—glamming themselves up in finery and disappearing into the heaping, thrumming mass of people milling through the cityscape. So, I did exactly that: threw on an outfit that made me feel confident and sexy, grabbed my wallet and phone, and jumped on a bus hurtling downtown before descending into the light rail station and watching the passengers cycle between the cars: the crowd growing comfortingly queerer the closer we got to the Capitol Hill stop.

Right as I crested the staircase, the breeze billowed under my shirt, carrying with it music from a nearby shop. I wove through the blocks and streets where I used to live, marveling at how quickly the neighborhood had changed in a little over a year: buildings gone, sidewalks painted, alleys reeking of urine and rotting garbage tidied, sanitized—the grit and personality ground down in a microcosmic illustration of the latest phase of gentrification.

I walked into the restaurant I’d been wanting to eat at for years, and immediately slammed into a line of couples putting their names on a wait-list, their facial expressions morphing from hope to utter dejection.

“How long of a wait is it for one?” I asked.

“Oh, just you? I can seat you at the bar.”

I smiled. Never let anyone tell you there aren’t perks to being single.

She seated me next to another patron, and placed a towering glass of water with an orange wedge on the bar in front of me. A few minutes later, the waiter leaned over, his voice slightly louder than the surrounding conversations.

“You’re not together, I know that,” he said, looking from my neighbor to me.

It wasn’t so much a question as it was a pronouncement, and both the older man and I acknowledged the momentary awkwardness, laughing it away as we both retreated to the nonjudgemental, comforting glow of our respective phones until my ravioli slid onto the bar.

When I left, the air was cooling slightly, and I doglegged a few blocks over to an ice cream shop I’d been to once before. A line snaked out the storefront for half a block, and I inched into it behind a couple of trustafarians bedecked in expensive, trendily-tattered clothes: her crop top exposing a lower back tattoo of a unicorn, his side-sitting hat’s tag poking out from beneath the intentionally weathered rim reading, “Hipster Hats.”

As they groped one another, I rolled my eyes closed, imagining they probably worked for Amazon and couldn’t care less that the neighborhood where they were all but dry humping was where many LGBTQIA people still couldn’t overcome socially-conditioned fears of reprisals for showing a modicum of public affection—even in the gayborhood. A few feet away, a woman in a jumpsuit let her Shiba Inu puppy piss on tufts of ornamental grass before walking into a new, glimmering apartment building across the street. Ahead of me, the couple stepped up into the shop, a passing comment from one of them ending with, “…the Amazon mac and cheese bar.”

With my ice cream in hand, I began demolishing the top scoop as I retraced old walking routes, and waited to lick the dribbling cone until I was in front of a new gay bar, the outside patio blasting with music and conversations. I looked up above it all, and smiled at my old apartment’s window.

A few minutes later, I passed by a softball game in the park, and angled toward a familiar empty bench overlooking a reflecting pool.  Late in 2017, when I first waded back into the dating waters, I sat on the same bench with a Tinder date as we finished our ice cream cones. Our conversation and laughter had been unceasing since we’d met up for coffee six hours earlier, and I remember thinking, Finally. It’s happened again. Days passed with back-and-forths, plans set to meet up. Then, nothing; silence ensued—but still I reached, hopeful: casting a line back into that still pond. A week later I learned why, and was reminded that we all have demons that sometimes drag us below the surface.

I stared up at the darkening blue sky cross-stitched with chemtrails, and tipped the last crumbling cone bits into my mouth.

***

The heat from the day hung heavy in the apartment, and I teetered a bit as I opened the windows, the cider still saturating my thoughts. JoJo circled my legs, and pawed at my feet. After a quick jaunt outside, I put her to bed and, in the process, tripped over a photograph I’d framed earlier—letting it lean against the foot of my bed, opposite of where I’d hang it.

I rifled through my toolbox, grabbed a screwdriver, and positioned the frame at eye level, so that I’d see it first thing every morning, and remember the confident person I was when I took it: reliving the rush of adrenaline as I tiptoed through the mouldering, abandoned Alabama farmhouse, snapping the photo right as I bolted for the front door—my foot crashing through sections of the rotting floor—as the landowner’s heavy footsteps grew louder as he ventured into the ruin where I was trespassing.

After splashing water on my face, I stretched across my empty bed and lay watching the evening streetlights dance across the ceiling.

Wondering about the characters I’ll encounter in this next chapter—who they’ll be to me.

Dreaming of an endless series of future adventures yet to be entertained through this life reclaimed.

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And All That [Gay] Jazz

Something happened to me between the self-revelatory statements “I’m gay” and “WHY DON’T I HAVE A BOYFRIEND?!”

And not just jar after jar of Nutella. (But who’s counting?!)

Valentine's Day 2012

It was more of a self-realization about the dating scene. A realization that a lot of people are having in this iPhone-driven, text-heavy age.

Let me preface this by writing that a few of these problems aren’t necessarily LGBT-centric. But since I’m a flaming mo, my perspective’s a bit skewed.

***

From best friends and family members, to colleagues and angsty passersby, I’ve developed more than a peripheral knowledge of the most effective dating [avoidance] strategies.

Avoidance strategies, you ask?

Well, yes.

Because (1) It’s damn difficult to click with people in person. Like the time I tried to flirt with this one guy, pivot on a dime, and walk away confidently. Instead, I stuttered a goodbye and whipped around so quickly that I slipped, overcompensated, and knocked over a lube display. Classy lady.

And (2) It just gets exhausting writing profile after profile after profile on the most cutting-edge, most widely used dating sites “Proven to get you a date is less than a month!” or “At least get you laid.” Because then you turn into that person whose profile reads, “I HATE EVERYONE. THERE ARE NO REAL PEOPLE LEFT!” with an accompanying profile picture of a pixilated torso.

***

It just became easier to throw my hands up after a few bombed dates, blame it on the economy draining the last of an increasingly shallow dating pool, and sidle up to my computer for a Golden Girls marathon.

Alright, so I hadn’t quite spiraled to the point of a Goldie Hawn Death Becomes Her cat mo—mostly because I’m allergic, and can’t stomach that much frosting. But I did break out the hole-ridden jeans and stained hoodie to venture to Harris Teeter for a sweet treat.

Or treats.

At least self-checkout stations make eye contact avoidable.

Most of the time.

***

Maybe I’d just become so far resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to find someone that I finally did. When I least expected it.

I know, I know. I hate that saccharine “It happens when you least expect it!” bullshit. Because I’d recited that to myself time after time (whenever I took my head out of my chocolate-covered pretzel feedbag).

But I ignored the fact that entertaining that very thought meant that I was still seeking out that ever-elusive complement to myself, even if I told myself I wasn’t.

Then, boom.

Andy happened.

So I figured, “Finally! I’m set. Relationship maintenance can’t be too demanding. The hard stuff is over!”

Oh, naivety.

Now, before I have to sleep in the guest bedroom, I’m not saying the effort involved in maintaining a relationship is bang-my-head-against-the-wall bad. Quite the contrary–it’s made me more mature, more patient, and (hopefully) more empathetic.

Still, there’ve been unexpected issues that’ve challenged us. Issues that I think other LGBTs encounter and, sometimes, can’t quite reconcile.

***

Andy and I hadn’t been together two months before I got horribly sick and had to go to an urgent care clinic, then to the hospital. I could barely keep both eyes open, and had to deal with filling out mountains of paperwork.

Then I got to a page I’d seen plenty of times before when I was single–one I’d never panicked over or had to think intensely about. It was the “right to medical information” page–where you list out who’s able to receive your medical information or request it, and their relationship to you.

The ink blot started to grow larger as I wondered, hesitating about broaching the topic for fear of freaking out Andy and making him think I was moving too fast.

Did I list him?

Should I tell him that I’m listing him?

What if I don’t list him and they run me to the E.R. and he’s not “privileged” with the information regarding my whereabouts?

Would they acknowledge a gay relationship?

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t danced through my sleep-deprived mind.

But one good side-effect of feeling crappy is that you give less of a damn about dating etiquette than usual. And while potential hospitalization isn’t a desired litmus test to see if you have a keeper by your side, it does the job.

We cleared the hurdle.

Even if the “A” was more of an inkblot than a letter.

***

Albeit thankfully short, that situation made me think about my LGBT friends, and the whole topic of “gay relationship time” versus “straight relationship time.” Sure, the latter are good topics for poking fun, but I think there’s a little something to it.

For a lot of LGBT couples, it’s hard to avoid heavy-hitting topics like healthcare, end-of-life decisions, housing issues, and property rights. In fact, like Andy and I learned, you have to broach them much, much earlier than some straight friends. That’s not to disparage our allies, or presume that heterosexual couples don’t have to engage in such intense dialogue. (The latter is clearly not true.)

By and large, though, most LGBT Americans don’t have the luxury of a temporal cushion to lighten the blow of such charged topics; we can’t assume that we’ll be afforded particular rights just because we have a partner of the opposite sex. So, a few months in, Andy and I were well-versed in familial histories, medical issues, end-of-life decisions, health and life insurance providers, and general contingency plans.

But for every story like ours, plenty of others don’t go so well–and not necessarily because of ill-suited matches. Heavy conversations have a way of exhausting a relationship speedily, smothering the initial flames of exuberance with overwhelming, sudden responsibilities and stressors. Pressures specific to LGBT relationships aren’t often understood by the general public. To everyone else, on the surface, it’s yet another failed LGBT relationship; it’s easier to default to that stance rather than think about the heteronormative, theocratically-legislated context in which LGBT relationships are established. Instead of attempting to change that context, though, ignorant people are more content to buy into the crazed, Santorum-ish perception of the “inherent instability” of LGBT relationships—and use that fallacious argument to continue LGBT-based discrimination.

Traversing bumpy relationship terrain early on does have a bonding effect, too. Even if conversations along the way don’t exactly come easily, and may shave off a few weeks from the honeymoon period. Because very few want “More peas?” followed by “Cremation or burial? Organ donation?”

Still, in the span of a few weeks, Andy and I jumped from hesitant-to-fart to peeing-with-the-door-open. Because with other, more pressing matters at hand, who really cares?

(Other than visitors.)

Olympians, sort of

So, while Andy and I aren’t Olympians, we’ve cleared a number of hurdles.

Not without a few stumbles or scuffs.

But we’re still going strong.

And if we can do it, plenty of y’all can, too.

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Then, Him

Children were screaming. Bounce houses were deflating. Rain was pouring down. And my hair looked like the sad leavenings of a Chia Pet porn scene.

And then I met him.

***

With thirty minutes of sleep under my undone belt, I steeled myself for the big day. And convinced myself that, no, I wouldn’t vomit after all.

Sidewalk chalk, a duffle bag stuffed with clothes I knew I’d never change into, and a few water bottles I knew I’d never drink were thrown haphazardly into my car. After all, when the LGBTs overrun one of Raleigh’s busiest downtown streets, there’s no time to do anything. Except do it up right.

Meaning, by the shebang’s end, we’re completely exhausted, dehydrated, and cattier than usual. A year in the making, the festival was the second of its kind in Raleigh’s history. There’d been attempts at other Pride-like events, but this one was different.

Not only was it larger this time around, but it had the fortuitous placement days before a critical vote in the state regarding LGBT rights. Everything had to run smoothly, and every person involved had their liver to remind them just how much vodka-laced logistical mess was involved to pull everything off. Each of us knew there was much more at stake than a few balloons and carnival games. Civil rights, it seemed, hinged upon our ability to garner support in any way that we could. In the eleventh hour. On thirty minutes of sleep.

And I looked fantastic.

My shirt dripped with sweat before the first visitor arrived, and I had Louis Vuitton bags beneath my eyes—minus the classiness. Dried-out contacts demanded tears as tribute for their aggravation at such an hour, while my gut reminded me that Nutella and Salt-n-Vinegar chips contain little nutritive value. An olfactory bouquet of restaurant refuse, cigarettes, and body odor from the previous night seemed to cling to the sidewalks until sweeper crews blew everything into the street and onto me.

So as I crinkled my nose and directed the inflatable bounce house delivery truck to various drop-off points—past the frantic production coordinator slapping paper numbers to the asphalt and crying out “We’re not ready!”—visions of little Gertrude pulling a chicken bone out of her foot skipped through my sleep-addled mind. By the time the puppeteers arrived, I’d come to some realizations: (1) Such sleep-deprivation should only occur if one finds themselves sandwiched between Frank Iero and Sam Trammell; (2) No amount of deodorant will compensate for rotten potato juice splashed on your shirt while moving overflowing garbage cans; (3) Toilet Bowl Basketball is never just like Ring Toss, regardless of whatever the responsible delivery driver emphatically suggests; and (4) No amount of product will tame curly hair when humidity, heat, and the impending presence of hyperactive children conspire against you.

Several hours into the melee, rainbow flags were whipping in the wind, performers were entertaining crowds with their singing and dancing, protestors were reciting our collective sins from behind explicit and color uncoordinated signs, and I was repeatedly convincing parents that, if they tilted their head slightly to the right, the inflatable sea creature crevices out of which their children happily sprung looked less like labias and more like Nessie’s lips.

The wind picked up a bit more, and then the deluge engulfed us—no drippy, misty foreshadowing, just an all-out fallout. While the protestors held their hands aloft and proclaimed the rain to be the work of God, I channeled my inner lifeguard and pulled kids out of the slopping messes the inflatables had become—being the collective buzzkill and nearly inciting riots among the tiny warriors, all the while mentally reciting two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.

Between phoning the rental company and holding up my waterlogged pants, two of the inflatables came down. Sidewalk chalk renderings of families washed with tobacco chew and disintegrating cotton candy into the overwhelmed drains, and I pretended to be elsewhere as I felt my favorite shoes fill with the disturbing soup.

Before long, even God’s wrath became too much for the protesting zealots, and they ran. With wind funneling through the high-rises and whipping the vendors’ tents like spaghetti, OutRaleigh 2012 was called a few hours before its scheduled end time.

But not before my curiosity was piqued. An infinitesimally short amount of time separated the opening showers and the subsequent deluge. But sandwiched within this respite from the maelstrom was a brush with a yet unknown future.

***

With suspicions of an early close dancing somewhat gleefully in the back of my mind, I relieved a volunteer of his post at the massive Screamer Slide. Kids slicked by rain couldn’t get enough of it, and I steadied myself against its outer edge right as two kids crumpled into a wet, laughing pile at my feet.

More than bedraggled, I glanced up and past them to the opposite side. And there was this guy, whose eye contact was far deeper than the puddle at the bottom of the slide, and whose shoes could’ve easily been paired with a technicolor raincoat. He had a slightly mischievous, ear-to-ear smile plastered across his face, and just nodded his head at the kids descending into a rambunctious welter between us.

And then the sky opened up—not for an apropos rainbow or angelic music, but rather fat drops that splattered across our faces and settled the minor feud unfolding at my feet. Man X and I ushered the kids out, and began deflating the slide. And somewhere along the way, he mentioned his name: Andy.

“I like your shoes. They’re really bright.”

As my inner tween made an “L” sign on his forehead and rolled his eyes, I slipped and fell on my stomach, into the float. Andy looked down with another smile, and raised an eyebrow.

Hook.

Line.

Sinker.

***

Months later, I’m sitting on a mid-century-modern sofa he’d purchased on one of our antiquing excursions and surveying my pneumonia-clouded mind—retracing how I’ve ended up here. So many details in between that soggy day and this moment have been etched into memory—the hikes, the ice cream, the brunches.

But I wave them away to appreciate this moment: the fleece he brings me to quell my fever-induced chills, and the chocolate-covered pretzels and gummy worms he spreads across the coffee table before me. He clicks on the complete Daria series, presses “Play,” and gingerly rests his hand on my knee, giving it a slight squeeze.

And I know this snarky cynic is finally home.

Warm, fuzzy feelings and all.

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Edge of Twenty-Seven

He woke me at midnight. I bolted upright, the force of which nearly toppled the carefully arranged historic doors I’d erected as an art installation turned headboard.

“Travis?”

His voice was slurred a bit, but comprehensible. Perfect, he’s liquored up, which means everything he’s soon to divulge about how much I mean to him will undoubtedly be true. Grey Goose: the real litmus test of reality.

“Hey, yeah, it’s me.” Soft and heavy.

I loved that “it’s me”–so comfortable, so familiar: so something boyfriends say to one another. Warmth enrobed my body.

Well, part of it.

“So you know that game we were playing…the other day?” Ice clinked in the background.

I gasped. How could I have forgotten?

We’d just stopped for an ice cream break after walking around campus in our camouflage shorts and tight tees. Much to my delight, we’d spent most of the walk talking about “us,” how we’d make a good couple. I almost hadn’t needed ice cream to make the day better.

Almost.

After he’d asked about “my type” and me his, I was rewarded with the proverbial cherry on top: “You fit.” All I’d needed to make the sundae perfect was nuts.

“You there?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. You mean the ‘My Type’ game?”

“Exactly. And you asked me what my type was. You remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well…”

If I’d been on the rotary phone with the long manila cord my parents had had when I was growing up, I’d be twisting myself into a tangled mess.

“…your friend Andy…”

Or hanging myself with it.

“What?”

“You know, Andy. On Myspace.”

My mouth was dry, the darkness all-consuming. Ice clinked again.

“He’s my type for sure.”

Of course he is.

I felt physically ill–the anger bubbling up from my gut the strength of a thousand lava flows. Why Andy? Why my best friend? And then it clicked. But Travis wasn’t done; the vodka had lubricated his lips and the barbed testimonials to come.

“And you know the other night, when you couldn’t make it out to Michael’s with us?”

I just hummed.

“Well, that night I met this hot Latino gardener.”

I had to sit down.

“And I took him back to my place…”

I covered my eyes.

“…and fucked him.”

I hung up, threw the phone into the dark room, and fell into my bed dramatically, hitting my forehead on a doorknob in the process.

The next morning, my lump-headed self walked into Masterpieces of Spanish Art, the art history course we had together. Our friendship had begun a semester prior, across the quad in The History of Greece, then progressed over the months from a kiss to a few copped feels and plenty of bedroom eyes. But here it would end, as El Greco as our witness.

“Good morning,” he smiled thinly, disguising his forked tongue.

I glared at him. We never spoke again.

***

When I think of Travis, a number comes to mind. “Twenty-seven,” he’d said, “that’s when your brain is fully developed.”

Dubious as I was, I figured he was making shit up to offset the eventual burn from his deflections. And, to an extent, he was. At the ripe age of twenty-one, I’d mentally abused him, demanded what he knew about the world–a late twenty-something just now getting his bachelor’s degree.

Pah! I’d thought, he knows nothing.

But here I am, a whopping six years later, past the cusp of twenty-seven, nearing twenty-eight, and things are just now starting to make sense. They’re still a bit fuzzy, but focusing a bit with each day, each revelation I find in the random bits of conversation, experience, and life that compose my days.

So, I’ve acknowledged that, maybe, Travis was right. At least a little bit.

It’s in the trite clichés, the moments of teeth-clenching retrospection that I understand the value of perspective–how we change. And while I still don’t see the value of his picking-up-a-trick-and-fucking-him penchant, I’ve acknowledged that Travis might’ve been trying to do something good–teach me something.

That’s why I write: to figure myself out through each typed word, watch myself change through paragraphs, and, ultimately, become a different person than I’ve been–one who marvels at how consumed I’d been with a particular thought or person, and how, now, I couldn’t care less.

Self-deprecation has become a fragile truth to which I cling like a sponge, wringing it out every so often to see what parts of me stay trapped within its webbing, and which parts wash away. Life is spongy–it’s porous, and always changing. There’re some things about me that’ll stick and others that’ll stray, and there I’ll remain: forever changing.

And in a few years when I read back through this, I’ll probably roll my eyes, realize how misguided, how full of hubris, and how completely out-of-touch I am currently.

I hope so.