Holiday Let Down

Every year after the Holiday's the nation goes through a huge merchandise return period, followed by the yearly let down that people begin to feel as their family and friends leave and head home.  Refrigerators are filled with leftovers and the nation goes through a period of feeling bloated and wishing that they hadn't over eaten.

This yearly cycle starts right around Thanksgiving and goes pretty much up till New Years.  Every year we go through the motions of stating our New Year's resolutions and for some of us we struggle for months trying to keep them.  Some give up in a day or two, others try to keep up with them longer, but eventually they are usually all broken by June.

I didn't have any big expectations for this year at Christmas, my partner was in Jail and I was spending the holiday's with my two best friends and called all my family and friends that I could think of.  But other than that I just wanted a quiet time to myself and read my books then deal with a lot of people filled with cheer and gift giving.

Unfortunately, things don't always pan out as they are planned, I had thought that I would have enough money to pay my phone bill this week and keep it from getting shut off, but unfortunately, my funding fell through and it looks like my phones are going to end up being turned off till I get paid on the 3rd of January.

This put's a wrinkle in my plans in keeping in touch with my partner.  It also limits me on some of my other plans that I had going on for the end of the year. But in the end everything is going to be alright eventually.  I am not too worried at this moment. I am trying to get things situated to so that I can move into a new place after the first of the year.  I am hoping that with all my planning and working through Miracle of Love to get into a very nice place works out smoothly so that by the time the dust settles and the partner is home that the new place is ready to move into.

I have also taken this time this holiday season to apply at Lyft and Uber trying to drive with one of them.  Unfortunately,  my background check came back with some issues and I had to send in to get them disputed and corrected.  So I am back in the waiting phase for that.  I have also put in my application to AT&T through Spring Mobile who I used to work for in Jacksonville and I am hoping that I hear something back about going back to work for them.  I really enjoyed my position in Jacksonville and I have been trying to get back in with them since they let me go due to faulty information that they pulled during my background check.

All in all the new year is looking much better and more hopeful then 2018 did.  Yet, with the holiday let down and my mood being all over the place, I have been strolling down memory lane lately and going through old posts and pictures from Facebook and Twitter and other areas of my life.  I started reaching out to people from my past trying to rekindle lost friendships and relationships along the way.  I think that getting back in touch with people that have meant something to me in the past is an important part of how I am going to move forward.  Now that I am 50 I realize that I am missing out on a lot of their lives and I feel alone at times.

For the most part the contact has been positive and well received and I am looking forward to what the future may bring with the coming months and even years as we progress on a new journey of friendship and companionship.  I look forward to reaching people who from my distant past seemed to have drifted away and I haven't heard from in years. We will see if things pan out the way I hope and pray they will.

Don't let the post party let down get to you.  Don't feel like you have screwed up irreparably your diet because you indulged during your family gatherings, you have a whole year to lose those pounds that you have gained.  Family and friends are just a call or text away, and you can stay in touch with them easier now more than ever.  With technology the way it is today there should be no reason why you can't keep in touch with those that are important to you.  Life is full of unexpected moments and we need to realize and take advantage of them as they happen. 

The year is winding down and things are finally drawing to a close for 2018.  It is time to start looking forward to 2019 and all the excitement and adventures that it will bring to your life.  Forget about everything that you went through in 2018 because it is over and done now and can't be changed even if you wanted to.  That is what is funny about the past it is the only thing that is set in stone and can't be changed! The future is fluid and elastic and isn't written till you stumble through it.  We don't even know that we are in it till it is past.  Because the present is constantly changing and fluxing as we make decisions.  Our feet may be on the path, but until you take a step the present doesn't change to the past.  Just think about it.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Christmas Spirit and Holiday Cheer

For several years now I have been reluctant to spend Christmas with anyone, nor did I decorate or celebrate it in anyway.  But this year here in Orlando, I am surrounded by the familiar and I have been watching Christmas movies nonstop on Netflix and the Hallmark Channel.  This has rekindled a sense of nostalgia and a sense of longing for the time when the holidays meant something too me.  Then to top it off Facebook shows me a memory from 6 years ago, to the last festive holiday gathering that I had.  It was full of warmth, laughter and love and was spent 3,000 miles away on the West Coast of the United States.  Kerry and I were in Los Angeles sharing the holiday season with his family and my friends.  That was the last Christmas that I had a tree, decorated the house, had a holiday meal and really enjoyed the Christmas Spirit.

6 years later I am in Orlando with my friend Judy whom Kerry and I spent our that wonderful holiday season with.  She is in the holiday mood and has a Christmas tree up and is slowly decorating the house.  It is taking me a long time to warm up to the idea of celebrating Christmas again.  But as I  was sitting there binge watching holiday movies, I got a message from my ex's mother who shared my holiday photos back on her wall and commented on them.  There were pictures of me and Kerry, his sister, his grandmother and his mom.  We were at the mall doing Christmas shopping when we took those pictures.  A sense of longing and loss filled me as I looked at those pictures and I wished that I was back there during those days once again.  That truly was the last time that I felt a sense of family and belonging.

But as this year is progressing steadily toward Christmas day and the annual count down has begun and the Spirit of Christmas is slowly creeping upon me.  I am beginning to feel the stirrings of Holiday cheer in my heart and I am wondering where it is coming from.  I am wondering if it hasn't been there all along and I have been suppressing it along with the feelings of loss and longing that I normally feel at the holidays?  I would have to hazard a guess that I was burying all emotions and memories of the holidays for many years, because my aunt, my grandmother and grandfather all died around the holidays and left a huge hole in the family.

This year I have something forward to look forward to.  This will be the first year that Dominic and I get to spend a Christmas together, that Judy and I are back together for another Christmas and my ex Matthew has moved back to Orlando and will be hanging out with us to celebrate the holidays.  It isn't the family that I remember or had in mind but they are the family that I have with me at the moment and it seems like the right opportunity to try and enjoy myself once again.  As most of you know the last 3 years have been rather hard on me, and during the last 3 holiday seasons due to circumstances beyond my control I was homeless for each of them.  2015 was the last Christmas that I can honestly say that I was in a stable environment for the Holiday season.  This year I am getting my feet back under me and I am in a safer, stronger environment than I have been in for quite some time and that alone is enough reason to feel festive.

Yet, I cannot help but have melancholy feelings about the last actual Christmas that Kerry and I spent together.  We were happy then, everyone had smiles on their faces and it was a fun time where we spent a lot of time with our family and friends.  I haven't felt that sense of belonging since that time and I wish for it again.  My relationship with Kerry might not have worked out and we aren't together now, but that doesn't mean that he isn't my family and that he doesn't hold a special place in my heart.  He is now and always will be forever a part of my life, my personality and will be a part of my family, even if him and I never get back together.  We spent 10 years of our lives together, we went through way to many experiences, traumas, dramas, and life incidents that have created a bond and a relationship that can never be broken.  Our mutual experiences alone, mean that there is no one that can ever take his place, he will ever and always remain with me.

I have a new life, and I am living back in Florida, I have dreamed of him and I getting back together, but back earlier this year he told me that he was thinking that maybe it was time for him to find a girl settle down and have kids.  That would mean that I no longer fit in his new life and world, but that new world cannot and will not ever replace what we mean to each other or replace the things that we went through together.  It just means that we have grown and are on a different path from each other right now.  But 10 years is a long time to spend with someone and the future is uncertain, there may come a time and a place where we realize that we need each other and eventually find ourselves back together.  No one knows!  I can only speculate that he is happy in his new life and I am trying to do everything in my power to get to the happy spot in my own life and be comfortable with myself, who I have become and who I truly am.  I am content with who I am with and I love him dearly, I can't honestly say that I want anyone else but him at this moment in time.

But this post is about the Christmas Spirit and Holiday Cheer, it really isn't about me or my needs, wants and desires.  Christmas Spirit is about loving and giving to one another, uplifting those around us and making those around us feel loved and special.  It is about caring and giving, being selfless and loving.  It is about family, friendships, relationships and bridging past hurts and making amends, it is about forgiveness and moving on.  LOVE is the one word that I would use to describe Christmas Spirit.  What word would you give it???

Celebrating the holidays with family and friends is supposed to be a joyous time a year, where we set aside our differences and come together in love and unity.  It is about giving presents and gifts from the heart and giving of yourself, selflessly without expecting anything in return.  It is about fostering and kindling new relationships, rebuilding old ones and moving into a new year with Love and Forgiveness and Peace.

I am curious what does Christmas Spirit mean to you?  What do you expect when you think of Holiday Cheer?  What are you expecting this holiday season?  Is it coming true for you? Are you happy, who do you miss?  What is your Christmas Wish for this Holiday Season?

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

50 years and still going strong

Despite my many health issues and set backs on this very rough journey I call my life, I am surprised and amazed at reaching my 50 year mark.  I have come through some really difficult spots in the road, but I made it through relatively unscathed.  My personality and body have battle scars and show definite signs of wear and tear but all in all I am still going strong after all this time.  In this blog we have covered many of the battles I have faced and overcome, and many people get the wrong idea that I am a super strong person.  They think that I have gotten life and all it's mysteries figured out and they would be so wrong.  I am an everyday person who wakes up and faces demons both inside and out of my body.  I have a mental addiction to narcotics, and I suffer from severe depression and anxiety to mention just a few of them.

I am also plagued with self-doubt and self-worth issues, and I deem myself unworthy of finding and keeping love.  I repeat my own follies and don't seem to learn from my own mistakes, but I have learned that I have the gift of helping people and that by sharing my experiences in this journal of sorts many lives have been touched.  I see comments on Facebook and Google + that people leave me regarding what I write and it encourages me to express myself more.

I have just come through a health crisis that has left my body weak and tired.  I have found myself lying bed and sleeping most days away.  The doctor's tell me that my body is on the mend and that I should be getting my strength back and the sleepiness that I am feeling should fall away from me soon.  I hope this is true and that this really isn't a side affect of bout of depression which is keeping me locked down inside myself.  I find that when I write in my blog and I purge my soul to you my readers I sometimes feel better about my situation and I find the needed strength to carry on my daily activities and I can cope so much better with the stress and depression I have been feeling.

So here I sit at my laptop and I am pouring out my heart to you once again, even though I just wrote in you just yesterday.  But, I couldn't seem to drag myself out of bed today and literally slept till 5pm this evening. I did get up to go to the restroom several times throughout the day but I couldn't bring myself to crawl out of my room or leave my bed for more than 5 minutes at a time.  This is not my typical behavior and I am wondering if there isn't something more wrong with me that the doctors haven't figure out yet.  For almost 6 weeks I suffered from internal bleeding and on Thursday of this past week I had an endoscopy where the doctor went in cauterized the ulcer that he found bleeding and took some biopsies and sent me home.  I was told that I would feel sluggish for a little while, but this hit me 2 days after I had the minor surgery.  The at home nurse from Humana suggested that I may be suffering low blood counts with my hemoglobin so low from the blood loss that might be the reason why I am tired all the time.  I honestly don't know what my reasons are for feeling like this and I need to look at my schedule closely for the coming week to make sure that I don't miss any of my follow-up appointments because I am hoping to get back on the road to health and start doing stuff for myself and others again.

See, as I look back at what I have been through and all that I have accomplished during the past 25 years I am impressed with the amount of time, energy and emotion I have spent on taking care of others and how selflessly I have given of myself to making sure that my friends and family and extended family were well taken care of.  But, this year I have learned that I can't always take care of others for numerous reasons and that I have to be content and happy with whatever level others allow me to participate in their lives.  The first lesson is that you can't help everyone, and Second you can only help them if they want your help, otherwise you are meddling in things you shouldn't stick your nose into.  Third lesson that I learned is that I can't take care of anyone if I can't take care of myself.  Fourth and probably the most important lesson is that it is okay to focus on myself and say NO when I have too.  Which, brings me to the fifth and final lesson I cannot continue to give myself, my money, my energy, my love, and my all to everyone that asks for it.  I have to be selective and make sure that I am getting back from these individuals what I need to maintain my safety and security and health.  Because No one is going to look out for me but myself.

2018 was a growing and learning year for me and I have had to experience more issues and problems so I could learn these valuable lessons.  Which are lessons I should have learned a long time ago, but had been so busy trying to help others, and keep my mind occupied with their issues that I didn't have time to focus on myself or my own personal needs.  But I was forced this year to take a long hard look at myself and I discovered that by wrapping myself so completely with other peoples issues I was neglecting myself and my own problems and that brought me some serious health issues that I had to deal with over the summer like constant kidney failure, heart issues and long extended stays in the hospital.  I spent more time in 2018 in the hospital than I did in 2017 and almost as much as I did back in 2014 when I had my aneurysm and had to have my gallbladder removed and part of my stomach, then spent all of the fall that year in the hospital and rehab center because of osteomyelitis of the spine.

I have grown and learned a lot about human nature, the people I once considered friends, and about myself in 2018 and I am carrying that forward with me into my 50th year of life and 2019.  I have learned that many people have hidden agendas that we are never made aware of and they have ulterior motivations for everything they do.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately I am not like them, I am what you see is what you get kind of guy, and if I make you a promise I strive my hardest to make sure I make it happen. 

Medical science is still in it's infancy and still cannot predict with any certain accuracy when and if the human body is going to expire.  For years they have been telling me that I am not going to make it and every year there is something new that crops up in my life that has the doctors trying to tell me that I am not going to live to see my next birthday, and every year I find a way to make their predictions wrong.  One day I might not be able to succeed but not today!  My body with the help of the medication that I take daily has controlled the advancement of the diseases that I have been infected with and I am maintaining a sense of health that many of the medical professionals I see are baffled.  They can't figure it out and how I can keep going with so many issues wrong with me.

To me it's a no brainer, it isn't my time yet, and God isn't ready to call me home that there is some work left unfinished that I have to complete before my time on this earth is done. Plus, I haven't figure out how not to get up every morning and live.  I feel like I need to wake up daily and at least attempt to accomplish something.  Like today I feel that I needed to at least write in my blog to make some sort of achievement for today.  Yesterday, I accomplished a lot and I have so much stuff coming at me next week that I am going to be going non-stop.  I have back to back doctors appointment starting at 8am on Monday and going all the way till Friday with a rest of going to Court on Wednesday for my partner but again that is an early morning as well.

This year isn't going to be typical for me.  Ever since I lost all my relatives at Christmas the holidays haven't been special to me or held any special place in my heart.  Dominic and I have not spent a single Christmas together in 5 years until this year.  I don't really like to decorate or get presents or do the festive holiday themed things that everyone seems to get trapped by.  To me it is just another day of the year.  So far this year is turning out the same way and I am hoping that something will change this week that will make the difference for me and bring me back to the Holiday festivities and celebration.  But I am not really holding my breathe and counting on it.  But I am striving towards that as I write this entry. 

But here I am with 7 terminal illnesses, I am now 50 years old and I am still going strong. I am still looking out for my partner and friends and I am still taking care of myself. But I am now also following the lessons that I gleaned this year! That is the most important thing that I have found that I need to focus on myself first and take care of everything else after I have done that. 

I promise you that if you take the advice given in this entry you will have a more happy and fulfilling 2019.  Look forward to pampering and taking care of yourself first.  Let those that depend on you take a back seat for once to your own needs.  This is not selfish behavior it is truly human nature.  Like me you have fallen into the trap of co-dependency and you let other take advantage of you and use your kindness for weakness and your big heart has become a target for abuse and misuse.  Take back your power and live.  Please don't wait till you are 50 to learn the life lessons I have just now learned.  Something I should have known and exercised years ago.  Take care of yourself, Love yourself and then look at those around you and see who really is worthy to receive your love and energy, you might find like I did that none of them are worth it and have to move on.  If that becomes the case then so be it. AS Long as you are Happy nothing else matters.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Family Ties

This evening I am sitting here thinking back over my family and wondering what happened in my life that there are no Family Ties.  My mother and I are pretty close, I call her when I have the time and I am feeling up to it.  But, I hardly speak to my father or my brother.  I am trying to figure out what happened to these two relationships that makes them so difficult and hard for me.  My father and I got along pretty well when I stayed with him, but since I moved out and have tried to make it on my own we have had some troubled times and have shared some harsh words and feelings. 

My brother on the other hand we were closer when we were younger but ever since I moved to Atlanta back in 1997 we have drifted further and further apart and we hardly speak to one another unless something bad has happened in the family.  I see some of his posts on Facebook but I don't even have an address or phone number to contact him on. I have asked my mom several times to send me his number she says that she will and never does.

But my family hasn't always been this distant to one another. When my dad's mom was alive we were a much closer knit family, and all of the relatives talked and we saw each other quite often. Since her passing the whole family drifted apart and seemed to go their own separate ways. My dad's youngest brother died just last month in November and that leaves only my father as the last of my grandmother's children.  Though all of us grandchildren and great grandchildren are still around my dad immediate family line is completely gone except for him. This must make it lonely for him, though he drifted further and further from his family as the years went by it must be a terrible feeling knowing that you are the last one standing.

I really don't know what caused the rift in my own immediate family and I don't know what is keeping us so far apart from one another. I call my dad when I am go into the hospital, and I try to check up on him every couple of weeks, but he really doesn't reach out and call me like that unless it is my birthday or a holiday.  As far as my brother, I don't know what happened between us, when we are together we seem to get along fine and we talk to one another as far as I know there is no hard feelings between us or a reason that is keeping us apart.

I don't know maybe it has something to do with me being gay and always being in a relationship that has kept him away.  I don't know, or it could be that I have been sick for so long and everyone has thought I was going to die so many times maybe he doesn't want to get close to me because losing his brother to illness and death might be too hard to bare.  I really don't know the answer to that question.

How can a family turn out to produce 4 individuals that are so different from one another?  It is almost like we are total strangers to one another, we don't seem to confide in each other and we are all dealing with our own illnesses on our own and trying not to involve the other family members.  I think this is totally strange. I see so many families that are so close, that the brothers are best friends and are there for each other.  My family is nothing like that.

Maybe it is because of the difference in our ages. I am 7 years older than my brother and that is quite a bit of distance. He had to follow in my footsteps go to the same high school I went to and deal with the same teachers I had, who all probably remembered me.  Maybe there was too much comparison between the two of us as he was going to school and he felt like he was treated differently because I was so much older than  him.  Again, I cannot tell you the answer because no one has told me how they have felt.  Now back in June my father and I did have a heated discussion where he frankly told me that I have made his life miserable for the last 50 years and that I was making his death that much worse than it could be.  We have made up since then but the words still haunt me to this day.

No, I wasn't the perfect child and I missed some very important life lessons along the way, and I am don't know how to correct that which I have never picked up or learned.  I can tell you that I care deeply about people and I am a nurturer and that I try to take care of everyone around me.  Most people including my parents are not like that.  I may be stuck in a codependency issue at this point, because I feel like I need to take care of everyone and everything around me. Yet, many times I end up losing control of the situation and get myself hurt.

I struggle with these issues as well as self-esteem issues and self-worth issues as well and none of my immediate family seem to suffer from any of these problems.  Some of these feelings I can attribute to my early age of having cancer and the scars and surgeries that needed to be done to correct the issues that I had.  Some of these surgeries have left physical scars and permanent damage to my body that can never be reversed and at the age of 24 dealing with these life changing events can be traumatic. Not to mention that I suffer from severe depression and anxiety and in 2014 was diagnosed with PTSD. 

I am actively seeking help through VA counseling and seeking psychiatric help as well.  Nothing that my parents, military or friends taught me helped me deal with my body, illness and disability.  I have had to learn to adapt and cope with this on my own.  Luckily, I have made some very good friends along the way and have created a pretty manageable support network through them.  I also am a writer and I use writing as a sort of coping mechanism that helps me deal with the issues that I am facing. There used to be a time when I wrote every day, but I haven't had that luxury in several years, though I am trying to get back in the swing of it. Because believe it or not it really does help me calm myself and focus on the things that are relevant and important to me at the moment.  Writing not only allows me to express myself in words, it is an outlet where I can channel my frustrations and ask myself questions like I am doing tonight when talking about my personal family.

My writing is personal and based on my own life and experiences, it is an outlet and a medium where I can put my thoughts, ideas, poems, and prose into action to help others who may be facing or going through something similar to what I am going through at the moment.  Not everyone can benefit from what I write, but I am read by over a million readers a day and I have followers in 40 countries and that is something to be proud of. My words are reaching people across the world and who knows who might be benefitting from my experiences.

Every day I remind myself that I have no idea who might be watching me, who might be learning from me by seeing how I function on a daily basis, nor do I know who is reading and hearing my words.  That a simple casual conversation can lead you to an unexpected place.  Fate, Destiny and Karma bring us to the place that we need to be at exactly the right moment that we need to be there.  Plus God promises us that if we keep the Faith that he will not give us more than we can bear, for just as long as we can stand and will be with us through it all.  He will carry us when we falter and lift us up when we fall. 

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Intolerance and Hatred Not welcome

Earlier tonight someone posted something on my Facebook page which I took very seriously.  For anyone who knows me, they will tell you that I am one of the sweetest and kindest people that they know. I have over 300 signatures and comments in my high school yearbook that will back me up when I tell you this, plus I have many friends from high school that will further attest to knowing me for years and that I am a solid individual who hasn't changed a bit since high school.

But there are several things that I will not tolerate and one of them is hate in any form.  If you have  problem with my sexual orientation or my being gay/homosexual then you need to keep that information to yourself because after living with this for 50 years I have found peace with it.  Whatever your personal opinion is, mine is that being gay/homosexual is not a preference, it is not an illness, and isn't a decision that any sane person would make for their lifestyle.

If anyone has a difference of opinion they are ignorant and full of intolerance and bigotry and they are not welcome in my world or sphere of influence.  Your opinion is not something that needs to be shared to me or to any of my readers, we have been through too much to hear your rhetoric, and we do not care what your opinion is because as far as I am concerned there is something terribly wrong with you.

Now this person didn't just go on to say that being gay was my personal choice, they brought my mother into the conversation and stated that I made a conscious choice to ignore her advice and that I went on to do just what felt good to me.  I am sorry, this person knows me and my medical history. She used to work for my doctor's office and for her to state a blatant lie like that offended me to the core.

Not only does this woman not know my mother or my father, she put her own personal bias on my page unsolicited because she disagreed with me and my desire to bring my extended family together and to create an environment of love and laughter.  To me this is highly problematic because Mommas House for Wayward Homosexuals is a dream that me and hundreds of my friends have talked about for years.  For her to state something negative about a place that is being developed out of love, without expectations and recriminations of the past is shameful at best.

My followers and readers know that I have had extensive bowel issues, cancer that has destroyed my large and small intestines, which alone has caused me great deal of personal issues and anxiety in regards to my standing in the gay and straight community,  and had me feeling isolated, lost, alone, alienated and unlovable. 

You dare to come on my page JoAnn Duran and spout your nonsense hurts me to the core and has left me with very little regard for you and your ignorance.  I lashed out at you because your own son is one of my closest friends and has spent hours and hours around me and has no personal problem with my sexual orientation or my identification as being gay, even though I don't have sex in that manner and haven't since 2008.

Whether you consider me gay, straight, neuter or otherwise is your personal opinion and I recommend that you keep it to yourself.  You and I have talked on numerous occasions in the past and you have never brought any of your contempt or hate up to me verbally, for you to do so on Facebook is cowardice and shameful.  I am embarrassed for you and I hope that you understand that Intolerance and Bigotry and Hatred are not welcome here!  I have fought my entire life against society and people like you who have a warped opinion of reality, who refuse to see the truth of the situation and cling to the belief that Gay is a Choice.

Let me be the first to enlighten you!  It is not a choice, it is not a lifestyle that is accepted or easy to live, and unless you have tried it you wouldn't understand the prejudice, hatred and pressure we get from everyone around us that want us to be just like them.  No matter how hard I have struggled, endured and come through, I still wouldn't want to be someone like you a bitter lonely woman whose own son has used and abused,  for the sake of his drug addiction. 

Your words struck a chord in me and caused me to lash out towards you, to fall back from them and re-assess who I thought you were.  I once thought you were a friend, someone who understood me and accepted me as a person.  I never knew that you harbored such feelings against me as I saw glaring off Facebook this evening.  I am overwhelmed with pity for you and feel sorry that you have missed out on love and companionship of people like me. Because there is definitely something broken inside of you to make you think less of a person because of their personal identity.

I do mean personal identity, because no other term fits my description.  I have not participated in Gay Sex or Straight Sex in years, yet I have a boyfriend whom I love with all my heart, I have been by his side for 5 years and I had another boyfriend before him whom I was with for 10 years and just one more before him that I was with for 12 1/2 years.  I am not promiscuous or prone to having multiple sexual partners.  I find someone who similar tastes and beliefs as myself and who enjoys being in my company and I in his. 

I didn't wake up one day and just decide that I wanted to be gay, that it was cool or fun.  It certainly wasn't for the pleasure because let me explain, it had nothing to do with sexual gratification it has been more about who I felt more comfortable being around, and who I could express myself around totally.  I many not be your run of the mill gay person, and I may not have a conventional relationship because it is based on something other than sex because me and my partner haven't had the luxury of participating in that event since my colon cancer and loss of my anus and large intestines.

I define myself by a sense of belonging to a community of individuals who are like minded who are attracted to members of the same sex, and I love as hard and as deeply as those with sexual relations.  Unfortunately, I am unable to participate in the activity in the way or manner that I like so I tend to avoid it now. I have come through some dark times, battled depression and I have come to terms with my limitations and yet I still identify myself as being gay.

Whatever your opinion is of my lifestyle I am telling you to keep it out of your mouth and off of my page.  I have dealt with people like you my entire life and I will fight you and I will tell the world your sad little story if you want me too and you know I know it.  I don't want to make this a war, because I am sure you don't want your personal business spread out for the world to judge and see.  But that is the major difference between you and me.  See I have been in the Gay Community and a leader in it since 1986 here in Orlando, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas, I organized the first gay pride march in downtown Orlando, was instrumental in starting Gay Days at Disney and instead of hiding myself I have been out there on the front line, I know what hatred is, and I have battled against intolerance.  I am and advocate for equality, and gay unions, and I am a public speaker.  I am an award winning author who wrote the play "The Changing Face of AIDS" and I am a member of the Positive Champions Speaker's Bureau who teaches and battles the myths and misconceptions the public has against HIV/AIDS.  I am not some quiet person who doesn't have a voice.

I have published many articles, stories and poems, have even penned some science fiction in my time.  My blog Uncle B's Corner has over 2 million visitors and read in every country in the world.  I have a platform and a forum. I also am attuned to my writers voice and I know that you are hurting inside yourself and don't like you own life, but you have no right to place your burdens on me or my readers. 

As I have said before and I mean it.  Your Intolerance and Hate is not welcome here and if you don't have something positive and constructive to say I invite you to stop reading my blog, and my Facebook post because they are intended for my friends, and people who care about what is going on with me and what is happening in my life.  Middle aged old bitter women with hidden agenda's personal bias and bigotry are not welcome here!!!

My name is Bryan Zepp, I am known as Uncle B and I write about my own personal life and experiences.  I talk about issues that impact my life and I try to help people avoid the mistakes that I have made and try to soften the hurt that they might feel if they screw up.  I am here to make people feel good about themselves and who they are.  I preach love, happiness and light.  I eschew negativity, hatred and idle prattle that means nothing.  No one has the right to invade my space with their own bias, let alone their own rhetoric of intolerance.  If I wanted that I would listen to mainstream media and espouse the national solidarity which I find utterly laughable.  The Moral Majority with the anti-gay marriage stance is archaic and belongs in the middle ages.  We are no longer saved by the law. We are cleansed and saved by Grace.  Spoken by the apostles all over the new testament.  The old covenant between God and Abraham was done away when the temple veil was torn in two and Christ died on the cross.  If you are a true Christian and believe in the resurrection of Christ then I advise you to pull your head out of your ass and read the new testament of the Bible where you will learn that We are now saved by Grace and washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb.  We no longer need intercessors we have a direct link to Heaven through Jesus Christ the Son of God.

He who hath ears let them hear, He who hath eyes let them see.  God is giving us a chance to change our fate and save our world.  We have it in our power to change the course that we are on.  Jesus only preached love, compassion, understanding and tolerance. The world would be such a greater, safer and happier place if we all just learned that simple lesson and accepted one another for who and what we are and embraced each other in love and kindness.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Walk away While you Can. You don't know when your last moment will be.

I may be preaching to the choir, but many of you don't seem to realize the truth behind the message that I am trying to send out to you.  For years I lived in Atlanta, and in 2012 I moved back to Florida because I was having severe issues with my kidneys and many of my doctors thought that I wasn't going to make it.  When my father offered to buy me a ticket from Atlanta home, I took the offer and I have been fortunate ever since.  I have been back and forth to Atlanta many times since then, my last visit was in 2014.  I had gotten stuck there and ended up landing at my friend Chris Tucker's house and stayed with him till I could find a way back home to Florida.  I had gone weeks without my medication and had run out of Colostomy bags and I was in a miserable place spiritually and emotionally.  If it wasn't for my ex's mother, caring about me I would have gotten much worse than I was, she took time out of her schedule and drove me to the VA hospital in Atlanta, and got me some Colostomy bags so that I could hold on till I found a way back home.

But it is now 2018 and the world has gotten darker and each morning I wake up to news that I have lost another friend or acquaintance because of an overdose.  Drugs have become a major problem for the middle and lower class society here in America and it isn't getting better no matter how much money the government spends on their war against drugs.  Prescription pain killers, Methamphetamines and Heroine are the drugs on the street, easy to come by and readily available.  Fentanyl is being used to cut many of the substances that are readily available to drug users and is the leading cause of death from ODing.  Since 2017 I have lost close to 150 friends and acquaintances to overdose, and that is way too high.  The number needs to be zero!

By December of 2017 I had my fill of the drug culture and society that Daytona Beach, Florida hosted. I was tired of being homeless, hungry, scrounging for drugs and constant theft.  I was tired of freeloaders and others that were just around because they knew that I was connected and could find them their next fix.   So I packed up what few things I had left and I moved to Jacksonville, FL where I started over.  Within a few months I was on my feet and doing well for myself.  I had gotten a job, got myself back into care and was making improvements in my life.  Things were going good for me and I wanted to share them with my boyfriend and partner, Dominic.  Unfortunately, after being in Jacksonville for a week he decided that he missed the old life so much that he went back to it and left me sitting at home.  He kept saying that he was coming back that he wanted to be with me, but every opportunity he had he squandered and stayed struggling with his addiction in Daytona.  Now there is a reason why I am telling you all of this and it is to paint a picture for you and to tell you my story.  What happened to me and why I am thankful now that I am finally clean.  The setbacks and mistakes that I made along the way and how I am focusing on myself to avoid making them again.  Each of us can relapse at any moment, it happens, and it is something to be expected from time to time.  But let me tell you something that you might not be aware of.  You never know when you draw up that last shot or snort your next line if it might be your last.  God is with you and is going to continue to be with you, but He only gives people so many chances to change their ways before he takes those chances away.

In late February I started talking with a friend of mine and Dominic's, I listened to what he told me, which turned out to be my mistake, because I went from the frying pan into the fire.  Will had painted a picture of Dominic that was very easy to imagine, used words and arguments that Dominic and I had in the past that only could have been come from him to Will.  Will had me so convinced that Dominic didn't love me and that Will was the better person who was going to come and take care of me and sweep me off my feet.  The reality was so much different then the fairy tale, let me tell you.  Yes, Will did show up and get a job within the first couple of days being there, but the cost of bringing him down from Pennsylvania, and then the expense of having stay with me, began to take a heavy toll.  Not to mention that he chose to leave the 1st week of April supposedly to go to court, yet I found documents that he left behind showed that he really didn't have court, he just took off.  Trying to minimize my losses I tried to close my bank account which never happened because he over drafted it by 800.00.  I ended up cancelling the credit card that was used to rent the car he drove to Pennsylvania, but even today I am being sued by Hertz because there was damage to the car, it was turned in late and in the wrong city.  Now let's talk about the reason why he left.  Plain and simple he brought drugs into the home after he was told not too.  I ended up doing them with him and relapsed.  He got funny and stayed away from me but accused me of trying to pick up the neighbor and some random kid off the street.  It got so bad that he got physical with me and when that happened it was literally over between us.  Dominic and I were together 3 1/2 years before there was any violence between us, and after all the fighting Dominic and I had been through and the associated abuse, there was no way I was taking it from someone else.  I was determined and shut myself totally down.  I wouldn't give Will a break nor another chance.  It just wasn't in the cards.

Meanwhile Dominic had been left in the cold and locked up in jail in Volusia county because he failed to appear in court even though I had sent him back in enough time to make the court date.  Because I was so angry with him and I wanted to make sure that he was the right person for me, I wrote him a detailed letter explaining what I thought I knew, everything that Will had told me, I explained that I understood that he wasn't attracted to me and didn't want to be with me and that Will was there now and we had made plans and things were going good.  I did however send Dominic a care package as I normally would have but I let him sit in jail. I really thought it was the best thing to do and I thought that it would teach Dominic a lesson and everything would turn out for the better.  What I didn't know is that my roommate's partner was going to die and that my dad was going to find out that he had stage 4 inoperable lung cancer and that my world was going to fall back apart.

I ended up going back to Daytona, at first to get some drugs because my roommate really needed them to cope with the passing of his partner.  But I went back on the promise of making some money by helping a friend try and get a car.  I figured this would help me recover some of the losses I took when Will left.  But it only made my life so much worse.  I ended up getting my car, wallet and Iphone stolen.  My checking account was flooded with fraudulent transactions and I got extremely sick and ended up in the hospital from the end of May till the beginning of June and then to make matter worse from June 20th through the end of the month, then ended up back in there from the 1st of July till the 28th.  Again my car was stolen and this time was involved in a couple of accidents.  I lost my place in Jacksonville, was strung back out on drugs the entire time I was in Daytona and was extremely sick on top of it.

Dominic got out of jail while I was going through this series of events and was so angry with me for the way that I left him and let him sit in jail that he wouldn't talk to me and only wanted to fight with me.  This made my situation that much worse because the one person who I thought would understand what I was going through would be him.  But he turned his back on me and left me to my own devices, which on hindsight was probably for the best.  In Mid-July my father and I had a blow out my step mother drove me to the McDonalds.  I ended up having a minor heart attack and ended up back in the hospital till the end of July, Dominic got caught shoplifting again and was in jail and I ended up having no place to go when I got out of the hospital.  I ended up calling my life long friend Judy in Orlando and asking her if I could come and stay with her till I could get on my feet again.  I have been here since July and it is now Mid-December and I am still here.  Dominic and I eventually start talking and set our differences aside and made up with one another and when he finally got out of jail I brought him to Orlando to stay with me and Judy.  Unfortunately, that wasn't going to last because in October when I took Dominic back to Daytona to court he met up with some friends to get some of his clothes and jewelry and the next thing I know he has brought drugs into the house.

This led to major problems.  Both of us relapsed and he ended up cheating on me with someone else and I got hurt. He fought with my friend and roommate and was asked to leave.  It wasn't pretty, but it is what it is.  I took him to a friends in Deland where his relapse continued till he ended up back in jail on November 25th.  He is still in jail today but we are hopeful that he will be out by the 19th of December and we will be able to finally spend our first Christmas together. Since we have never been able to share a Thanksgiving, my birthday or Christmas together since we got together in 2013.

I went into this whole story to show that everyone no matter how hard they try is prone to relapsing and falling back into a habit and pattern of usage over and over again no matter how far or how hard they have tried to get away from the drugs and the people that have them.  Because we are all human and we suffer from anxiety, depression, insecurities it is hard to stay away from a long term habit like that. I used to think that by changing the people you hang around, the place you live and your entire surroundings that you could totally escape it.  That isn't the truth! It will be a life long battle trust me when I tell you this.

But now let me talk to you about the friends and loved ones that weren't so fortunate as me and Dominic, those that didn't escape the epidemic that is sweeping the nation and the world.  Many of my friends are no longer here, so it is my job to convey to you their story to leave with you the last thought that they each had before the past from this world to the next.  Like Dominic and I they thought that it would never happen to them, that they were stronger than the addiction and that they could do just one more line, one more shot and it would be okay.  But, in all cases they were wrong.  My dear friend Jade was found outside of an abandoned resort so desiccated that they could not identify her by anything other than the serial number on the pacemaker that was installed in her heart because like many of the young ladies in Daytona she contracted Cardio myelitis and cardiotoxicity associated Methamphetamine usage.  Neil was found blue and in his car dead because of a hot shot that had been laced with heroine.  So many other I could name have lost their lives to drug use and overdosing.  But drug use alone is not the only cause of loss of life, many of the gay people I know are heavy into the use of methamphetamine to get their high and intensify the feeling of sexual activity. Many of them have poor diet and end up forgetting or stop taking their medications and before you know it they have complications to HIV/AIDS that they are dealing with.

To sum up what I am feeling and the fears that I have for you I am going to include an earlier post that I made a couple of days ago.  But first let me tell you that each time you pick up that needle, make your next line, you are taking your own life into your own hands.  You think that you are strong enough, that you don't have an addictive personality or you can handle it just one more time.  You are wrong too many of our friend are no longer here because they too thought that way and felt that they could beat back the addiction that was plaguing them.  We are not strong enough alone to combat this demon, and it will never be a battle that can be fought and one by a single decision. This is a life long commitment and a struggle that will consume you for months and possibly years to come.  But I have known others that have fought and won, some days are harder than the next, some days might be easier to cope, but after a time the fight will become second nature to you and you will stop focusing on the battle and will begin living again.  Reach out to those around you, tell them about your issues, your addictions and ask them for help. The first step in dealing with a problem is knowingly acknowledging that you have one.  Do not be ashamed to ask for help or guidance it may just save your life.  So now I want to dedicate this to my fallen friends, lost loved ones and anyone else who is battling this dreaded demon of Drug addiction.

To all the friends, family, loved ones, acquaintances that I have lost my heart goes out to you and I want you to know that my world has become less bright and so much smaller since you are no longer in it:

Listen everyday I wake up and the world has become a smaller place. I have lost too many friends, relatives, and people I care about to this drug epidemic that has hit Florida. My heart is in Daytona Beach and everyday some is ODing or getting locked up. What will it take to get you to see that the few minutes of a high is not worth your life! The grief you have to go through to get the stuff, not to mention the constant loss of clothes, material possessions, the couch visitors and homelessness that accompanies it all. The daily struggle, the daily loss, sickness and just miserable feelings!

Please understand I am your friend I am trying to look out for you. I got tired of being walked on, homeless, struggling for food and housing, I got fed up with asking for help and never finding it. The constant drama that followed not being able to always supply demand. I want better for all of us. I want to stay clean and sober, if I could I would continue to help everyone!

Yet, I reached a limit and had to put myself first. Everyone else second. It doesn’t mean I love you less, it means that I finally realized that if I am not clean I cannot expect anyone else to get there either. That if I couldn’t take care of myself I couldn’t help anyone else. I am struggling right now but I am moving forward. Staying away from the drugs and bettering myself. I have a hope for the future and I am working hard to create a reality of safety and security. I am going to get this right and lead others to follow me.

We have lost enough, suffered enough, endured enough. We have survived so far and have changed, grown stronger and wiser. We have heard it all, know all the excuses and will not tolerate anything but the best from the rest of you. Join me we can beat this thing together. Grow stronger and make a difference!

-B

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Nothing prepares us for the future

My birthday just passed on December 1, 2018 and I reached my 50th birthday.  A mark in my personal history that I thought I would never reach.  Many of you know my story and my history and have known that I have been sick for a very long time.  That almost 27 years ago now I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Large Cell Lymphoma that destroyed most of my Large and Small intestines.  I have been lucky and have survived through many things throughout the years. But nothing ever prepares you for the future.  It is true that with each illness I have gained knowledge and strength, I have been surprised with the ferocity that the illness returns each time.   Even now I am being plagued by internal bleeding and not knowing what is actually wrong and causing it.  I have spent most of the month of November in and out of the hospital, had to have blood transfusions and a battery of tests that were inconclusive and didn't shed any light on my recent illness and lack of strength.

2018 has been a strange year for me. It moved fairly rapidly and many things happened that have left me with my head spinning and less of an understanding regarding human nature.  It is also true that the strong prey on the weak, and people constantly try to take advantage of the ones that they think are weaker or nicer then themselves.  I have been constantly embroiled in a battle since 2010 where I have been continually used and abused by people I struggled to help and who I thought I was doing good by.  When I ran into difficulties of my own, I found myself struggling alone and there was no one around willing to help me in the same ways that I had helped them.  I bounced around and was struggling constantly battling drug abuse, homelessness and hunger.  Several times I attempted to change my circumstances and twice things rebounded on me and I ended up on my own and all alone again.

I lost a lot of friends and acquaintances over the past 2 years to drug overdose and complications to HIV/AIDS it hasn't been a comforting thought.  I never thought that I would face such loss.  Now that 2018 is drawing to a close I am reminded that some of my very best friends are no longer here.  Every one of my family members is sick currently, and none of the prognosis's are good.  My father is battling in operable stage 4 lung cancer, and my brother is battling end-stage renal disease, my mother is paralyzed from the waist down and has been extremely sick since June.  All of us have been going through hospitalizations and multiple doctor visits.

We also lost my dad's youngest brother in November to Lung cancer and the family is still in shock about that.  It is unfortunate that as we get older our bodies tend to weaken and our ability to heal slows and we don't recover as fast as we did when we were younger.  It is hard to believe that I am 50 years old now, that I have reached middle age and haven't really grasped the essential concepts of how to live and survive on my own.  My entire life I have been constantly surrounded by other people and have been a care-giver.  I thought that by now I would have at least learned the basics of survival and living on my own.  But unfortunately, somehow I missed those life lessons.

Nothing that I have been through has prepared me for the future that is looming in front of me.  I am suffering from the loss of many of my friends and a support network.  I am in love with someone that I realize doesn't honestly feel the same way for me.  I struggle with depression and dependence issues and I also have a desire to change my outlook on life.  With the possible loss of my family closing in on the horizon, I am afraid of what I am going to find when I am all alone.  I have never learned how to survive on my own and I struggle daily to overcome my own depression and weaknesses.  I am afraid that once I loose my parents I will be totally lost and will not know what to do with the rest of my life.

None of my dreams ever included me outliving my friends, peers or my parents.  I thought when I was diagnosed with cancer that it was the end for me but I have survived longer then most other people and I have overcome so many obstacles and outlived so many predictions of my demise.  I am not sure what I actually thought my life was going to be like, but this is not what I imagined when I left Orlando the first time and followed Joe Royer to Atlanta.  I never imagined in a million years that I would suffer from Colon cancer and that I would become disabled at such a young age.  I never really faced the truth of it all preferring to loose myself in drug use and addiction.  I surrounded myself by like minded individuals and created relationships and sexual partnerships with those that were lost in that world.  I have clung to the tapestry of my life and my existence because I really knew no other way.  Now I am back in Orlando, back where it all started and some of the same people that I have known from my past are here as well. I am trying to rekindle those lost friendships and relationships trying to rebuild my life and change the course of self-destruction that I have been on.

I don't understand what the future has in store for me but I know that I don't want to continue down the path that I have been going down for so long.  I want to change and by doing so I need to change everything about my life and what I have going on around me.  I want my partner to be with me, but if he doesn't want me in the same way that I want him then I am afraid that I am just waisting my time all over again and just setting myself up for heartache and pain.  I am going to stop writing tonight and continue this more in morning when I have more time to reflect on my life and situation.

Till we meet again in the morning!  Well it is actually a few days later I am picking up where I left off.  Today is now the 9th of December and I have gained a few more insights into the world that I was writing about the other day and I wanted to finish up on the topic of Nothing Prepares Us for the Future.  From the previous written dialogue you can see that I wasn't given a manual in which spelled out the answers to all of life's problems and made it easier to live by.  No after Joe and I broke up my life changed dramatically, I couldn't seem to pull myself together in any way that mattered.  I have struggled from that moment on till now, I can't explain it.  But the lessons I should have picked up along the way I didn't or maybe have forgotten. I pushed myself further into my misery and drug addiction and as I said surrounded myself by like minded individuals.  I lost myself and my direction and it has taken me years to come back to the realization that I am a person and that I do matter and that I do count and that I have purpose and meaning.  I still haven't made it back to my go out and get what I want personality but I am striving daily to reach it.

I realized not too long ago that when I left Orlando and went to Atlanta I had a go getter mindset.  I saw what I wanted and I set about getting it.  Years of being with Joe softened me and then illness struck and I lost heart and hope.  I gave up literally because I couldn't see a future with me being the broken and lost person that I was.  I suffered and still do at times from the illusion that the Gay lifestyle and world couldn't accept me, that I was a broken person and that I had no place in either gay or straight society. I was hurt and lost, I drifted aimlessly for years feeling sorry for myself and I left so many friends and loved ones behind in my self-pity trip.  Luckily many of them have stayed on the edges of my life all these years and I hear from them every once in awhile.  But here I am now at 50 and I am looking at my life and wondering where to go and how to begin again.  As you may be aware I have never figured out how to give up or surrender.  I just couldn't figure out how to stop living, waking up in the morning and going on with life.

For many years I dedicated myself to the service of other people, trying to help out where I could and take care of those that needed it.  I threw myself into trying to take care of everyone and being there to help others that were in need.  In other words I gave myself over to the service of others and I put their needs ahead of my own.  In a sense this worked to give me a purpose and I woke up daily to take care of those that I felt were less fortunate than me and who needed my help.  By focusing on their needs I was able to put my own to the back of my mind and focus totally on them.  This maybe the very reason why I am still with you today.  I selflessly dedicated myself to helping and taking care of others. I created a huge extended family and I struggled to take care of each and every person that I cared about.  This may seem crazy to you but I believe that by doing this I was able to live a much longer and fuller life than I normally would have.  I believe that my dedication to others is what helped me survive all the sickness and illness that plagued me through the years and helped give me the desired will to survive so that I could continue taking care of those that mattered to me.

Food for thought:  We are not able to chose our own family but we do have the ability to create and extended family that we can relate to and who is there to support us and nurture us and we offer similar support back in return.  Many of you are in my extended family and I am grateful to have each and every one of you in my life.

As I am looking back on the days that have gone by and I be extremely honest with myself we endured a lot and overcame so many hardships that bonded us together in ways that others just couldn't understand.  Despite that we are all separated by distance now and have scattered to the 4 winds.  Some of us still in Atlanta, others in California, Florida, Texas, Chicago and other places we are still a family and what brought us together is apart of us forever.  Our mutual experiences and the challenges that we faced and overcome together have bonded us in ways that make us irreplaceable in each others lives.  No one can take the place you hold in my heart ever and no one will ever be able to replace what you mean to me and how you are a part of me.  Each of us has left their mark on the other and that has helped shape us into the people that we have become.  I know that it might seem like I was complaining earlier about my life and the losses that I suffered and have endured but the truth is I wouldn't change any of it for the world because if I did I wouldn't be the same person that I am today and you wouldn't be in my life making me a better person.

I may not have learned how to take care of myself and learned how to live alone, but I learned something just as equally important.  I learned how to take care and appreciate others, I learned how personal sacrifice and dedication of the heart and spirit to the wellbeing of others is helpful to ourselves. If I hadn't I probably wouldn't be here today.  Many of you would have to visit my resting place and wouldn't be able to talk to me like you can today.  So let me thank you for helping me learn this lesson and for giving me the strength to carry on when all seemed so hopeless around me.  Understand and know that you are the life source that has kept me alive and healthy all of these years.

Now that I am looking toward the future and many of us have been scattered to the 4 corners of the earth I am struck by the over powering desire to reconcile all of my differences with everyone, to apologize for the wrongs that I have done and the sins that I may have committed against you.  I want to rekindle the relationships the friendships and bridge the hurts, the harsh words and bitter emotions that might be separating us. I want to be your friend again, and be able to count you as mine and for us to be there for one another because lets face it none of us are getting any younger. We are going to need each other and we once supported one another and will probably need to do it again as we move forward.

I was feeling melancholy when I started writing this entry into my blog, but I am feeling better now that I am drawing to a close.  My desire above all else is for us to all come together again in person.  I still have a dream that has been with me for a long time now.  In the future we are all of going to need a place to call home.  Many of you might remember us talking about and joking about me starting a retirement home, I used to call it Mommas Home for Wayward Homosexuals.  It is my dream to buy a huge mansion one day and bring all of us who know and love each other back together again and have our own place.  A place where everyone has a place there are no expectations, no recriminations and everyone can live out the rest of their lives in happiness and friendship, surrounded by love, light and happiness.  This is not an impossible dream or goal and might be something that we could all accomplish together.  Creating our own compound where we all live and work together to build a stronger and brighter future for ourselves and where each of us is able to live stress and debt free.

Please let's try and make my dream a reality.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B