It is funny because someone asked me yesterday why it seems that I keep going back? Back to Atlanta, back to ex-boyfriends, back to people who hurt me? You know I didn't have an answer ready for that question. As a matter of fact I didn't sleep much last night at all because my mind kept mulling over that question. No matter what I did or tried to do, I couldn't get my mind to shut off at all and so I laid in bed and I thought and I thought. This was a troubling thought because I had just written an entry about letting go and leaving it alone. But the hours wore on and still no answer came to me. It wasn't until I was in the shower that I heard the answer to my unspoken request. It is funny that when God chooses to answer you it doesn't matter where you are or what you are doing. So I was in the shower washing my hair when I heard the answer like someone was there talking to me.
Some of you have known me since high school, others from just out of school, others more recently, then there are the people that have never met me except through my blog. I may never get to meet some of you, and others I have, but the long and the short of it is I have been living in fear. That is right I have been letting FEAR hold me back and not let me move totally forward like I should have been doing. See the fear of rejection has had me captive, my body and my mind have been willing participants in this war of attrition that I am apparently losing. I have written to you before about my inner feelings and how I felt that my life as a gay man was over. I now had scars both internal and external. I had the colostomy bags and stomas to contend with as well as trying to figure out a way to hide the colostomy bag that I now have to wear constantly. Fear can keep you locked firmly in one place if you let it. Which apparently I have done for years and didn't even knowing that I was doing it. I knew that I didn't like them and it took a long time to come to accept that they were now a part of my daily life and I would have it always and forever.
Not only were the bags the thing that was holding me back but my mind played into that battle as well. I had to come to accept myself all the changes in all, before I could hope to have someone else find me attractive. But I have finally come to grips with both my illness as well. See, I don't believe that an individual has the ability to change, I believe that we adapt and grow to accept certain things, but I don't think we change at all. The core being of who you are remains intact and only the barest of outside changes to the eyes of others. I call this evolving. We adapt and change to the environment we are in so that we can survive and make the most of what we have at our disposal.
It has just been in the past few days that I have become comfortable with myself and the bags that I can talk about them freely, I can now educate others on them and how to use them. Before I would hide them any way. I would put them under ace bandages and clothing, so no one could see them if they looked at me. But the excess of clothing and the ace bandage made me sweat in the Florida heat, and for no good reason as I would sweat the adhesive on the bag would start to come off. Also if I showered and didn't dry the adhesive quite thoroughly with a hair dryer it would also start to come off of my skin. But, now that I have come to grips with my situation and have realized that there is absolutely nothing I can do about the condition. I can tell you about it and show you but it is the one thing that is keeping me alive and well at the moment, and I believe that it is important for me to continue doing that since I believe that God still has some more for me to do.
So what am I talking about? I am telling you that I couldn't move forward, I was stuck and kept looking backward. I know that I have been telling all of you that you can't move forward if your eyes are constantly looking backward, and you also can't move forward if you are carrying the baggage of the past with you. I did not realize that I was always looking backward till a friend of mine pointed it out. So just like the entry that I wrote to you the other day that sometimes we don't know what we have and it has been there all the time and right under our nose. Here I was doing what I was telling you not too and the answer has always been right there under my nose.
Fear can paralyze you and keep you from taking a step forward or backward. You become motionless and nothing you do will allow you to move from that exact spot. So my fear of rejection and acceptance because of the colostomy bag and the scars that I have on my chest, may be real, but it is something that I can let go of. I have come to accept me for me, and I don't really care what other people have to say about what I have been through. I swear that I have taken the blinders off of my eyes and I have stopped looking downward, and I see so many things now that I never saw before. But beyond all of that I have come to realize that my friend was right and I have been hiding and craving the past to return. However, the problems that caused you and your ex to break up are still going to be there. So it never works out exactly as planned. I am no longer afraid, and I have decided to put my heart and my life back out there and see what happens.
I had told my best friend that I have given up on love, and I am just looking for a companion that I can go to the movies with and who wants to hang out with me. I have grown and my knowledge has increased and with that I think that I can move on and finally leave the past exactly where it belongs in the past.
As always my hopes and dreams are going to have to take the backseat as I start chemotherapy on April 10, 2015. I hope you will you will read and get it right from the beginning. Please don't make the same mistakes I have made. Look around you the person you are looking for is right there in front of you. Neither one of you may even be aware of it. But sooner later the love that you feel will be get stronger and before you know it will be in full bloom.
My concerns are real, the gay community is all about the looks, and guess what I don't have them anymore since of all the surgeries. I know that I probably will never find someone that would be able to accept me for me and look beyond the illness's and scars that I have. But I am content in the knowledge that I have had it, been it and done it.
As always my hopes and dreams are with you,
Uncle B
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