tears have fallen, and then wiped clean

No matter how much I try to put BeautyEyes out of my mind, I can't stop thinking about him. I'm torn because I would so like to enjoy just savoring his existence, but I also know that there are unbearable limits to what has flowered between us. Limits that my lofty fantasizing has finally hit and now I feel a burning, choking oppression somewhere between my chest and my throat. It is simply, pain. There is a pain of not-knowing. There is a pain of disconnect. There is a pain of loneliness.

Where I work, the people around me are mostly conservative, homophobic, xenophobic, reborn religious zealots who openly judge others in rhetorical, demeaning ways. I continually listen to their crap and am silenced because of my own hesitations to speak out. My coworker today took note that I am too "middle-of-the-fence". Yes, with strangers this is true. It takes a long time for someone to gain my trust, so I don't offer personal opinions readily. Which is what makes it that much harder to stumble upon such an intimate connection, only to have it slip away for the given set of circumstances.

H has mentioned in the past that he really feels it would be ridiculous to expect that he and I have a connection that is unsurpassable -- that: it would be unrealistic to hold on to the notion that I can only have that type of intimacy with him, and no other; and it would be mistaken to believe he could be angry with me for establishing other meaningful connections outside of our coupledom. I know that he understands this concept on an analytical and philosophical level, but at the same time I don't feel it gives me carte blanche to be free and seek out those intimacies with other people. And that is because I do know how very very painful that situation can be. I know that you can not think yourself out of a raw, emotionally torn position. I know that once wounds have been created, they never fully heal and you're then involved in a life-long commitment to tending them. Perhaps that's what marriage is truly about... a lifelong commitment with someone other who is as fully involved with the wounds -- wounds that are no longer your own, but rather something amorphous that is shared and becomes a child, reared by both parents.

So, by not allowing these wounds to even occur, does that mean I am patronizingly protecting us? Am I doing it for the child's own good -- for the good of our stability? Is this a moral place to be?

I hear the same blanket ads coming from these conservative, xenophobic, reborn religious zealots: "A strong family unit is what's best for society. The problem with society these days is the breakdown of the family." What the fuck is that? Of course the assumption is that "family" = husband, wife, children. But within these roles, I feel like I'm lying, and thus my spirit is dying. Within that framework, I feel caged and as though my genuine, vibrant smile is a big fat plastic fake. Yet with H, all of that melts away and we just exist -- we just have a place in the world where things do make sense, and sometimes we move in and out of various roles, but they don't have to stick, unless we want them to. That is precisely why I feel so disconnected right now. By not giving in and opening all this up, I feel like I am pressing down such a fleshy part of who I am, and thus am excising parts of me from the unit that is us. That is the most painful of all. It's not the not-knowing where BeautyEyes is on the issue of what we've done. It's not the distance between our two big cities. It's not the loneliness of being away from him. It's the peeling myself from the mass that was me and H. It's the distance that I've put between us. It's the carving of my own space that is pulling me apart at the same time. Like the siamese twin who dies after surgery, despite owning her own set of healthy organs and limbs, there is a shared spirit that once severed hurts so bad it can not exist alone.

I hate this feeling of wanting to "come out". Sometimes I feel like I would very much like to attend a queer support group. Though I'm comfortable with my sexuality and orientation, I actually am in a particularly marginalized social structure within the grand scheme of things. I just don't know how comfortable I'd be in attending a group meeting...