08/02/18
Who could have known that a series of misadventures would lead to the discovery of a serious heart problem. A dear friend passed away in Jacksonville, almost around the same time that I found out that my father had lung cancer. Another friend asked me to help him so I thought that I could make a few bucks helping him out and visit my father and family at the same time. How was I too know that my car was going to get stolen from me along with my wallet and my phone.
Or that the person I came to help would end up screwing up my checking accounts so bad that I would end up losing one of them due to fraud. Which also led me to lose my credit card and cause so much anxiety and tension between my roommate and myself that I would end up becoming homeless once again and put me in the hospital for almost 2 complete months.
During the hospital stay I was to find out that the lower artery of my heart was completely blocked. I also found out that since my partial nephrectomy that both of my kidneys had shrunk and that dialysis was looming ever closer to my future. Further, I discovered that my roommate in Jacksonville wasn't as much of a friend as he claimed to be because not only did he tell me that he changed the locks and that I couldn't come home, even though I had paid my rent. He ended up taking everything I owned and left me with only the shorts and t-shirt that I left Jacksonville with. Not to mention that since I have been out of the hospital he hasn't tried to contact me once. Wonder why I even considered him a friend.
On July 15th I had heart surgery and was soon released from the hospital. Actually on the day that I got out Travis text me and told me that supposedly we had been evicted from the apartment and everything I owned was lost and gone forever. I have since learned from his Aunt and other friends that he lied about it. Sorry to say that I once considered Travis Young a friend but I found out the hard way that he was nothing but a liar, user and a thief.
Starting over is never an easy thing to do. This time it was going to be especially hard just coming out of major heart surgery, having lost everything including my car and all my worldly possessions and not having a cent to my name. I really had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew that going back to living on the street wasn't an option for me this time. My health was too poor to handle the situation. I had already been in Daytona almost 2 1/2 months by the time I was released from the hospital and all of my medical supplies and medication was left in Jacksonville. I had never imagined that I was going to be stuck in Daytona as long as I was. Originally I was only supposed to be gone a couple of hours and then all of the bullshit started happening and I got stuck and trapped with no wallet and no phone.
So here I was released from the hospital with no place to go, and nowhere to turn. I ended up spending the night at my father's house and contacting my friend in Orlando to see if I could come and stay with her. Once I had done all of that I contacted Progressive to see what they had determined to do with my insurance claim on my stolen car. To my dismay they decided that it was better to total the car versus fix the damage that was done to the vehicle and so I am homeless and pretty much stranded with no exit strategy in place.
My friend Judy agreed to let me come stay with her because she is about to have surgery and wold need someone to help her during her recovery. So it seems like making the decision to come to Orlando was the right decision after all. My friend Jack bought me a bus ticket to Orlando and I was soon off to start over once again. I have only been here a couple of days and I have already gotten my cell phone service re-established and my internet account set up, also have transferred my medicare and gotten a new primary care physician. I am well on the road to recovery from my folly!
If things continue at this pace I will be re-established with the VA and Ryan White and all the other services that I need in record time. When I moved to Jacksonville it took me almost 4 months to get totally established and recover all the things that I had to leave behind in Daytona. Sometimes making the wrong decision can work out in your advantage as I am finding out. It will not take me near as long to get myself back to where I was when I left Jacksonville this time. It is true that I lost all my clothes, shoes and hats. Most of my important papers are also gone but I was able to come to terms with this loss so much better. Maybe it was because of the amount of time I was in the hospital and how serious my illness was, but honestly I am finding it so much easier to cope with loosing things this time around.
Plus I have come full circle in my life, who knows what my future may hold, I could even end up back in Atlanta. Seems like forces are aligning towards that direction in my future. Kerry and I have been talking again and once he recovers from his craniotomy we have discussed us moving back to Atlanta together. Kerry and I have a long history together spending close to 12 years dating off and on. I am not saying that we are destined for one another or anything like that. All I can tell you is that our story isn't finished yet, there are still several more chapters to write in that book. For those of you who have been following my blog from the beginning you might recall my experiment of love from the past. The series of misadventures that Kerry and I had in Daytona, Los Angeles, and so much more!
Life has pulled us apart, but every 4 or 5 years or so we are drawn back together. This is actually our 5th year apart and he almost came to visit me in Jacksonville back in March, to be honest with you I was really disappointed when he couldn't make it and ended up back in LA before we had a chance to get together. You never know if we would have gotten together in March things may have turned out totally differently, but since it didn't happen that way there really is no need to speculate. Just understand that we are talking again and things are different between us then before. I am worried about him, he has to have surgery on his head again in a couple of weeks and I don't know what is going to happen.
But I am learning that the key to surviving and even possibly living is you must have the ability to adapt to whatever situation life throws your way. Further, if you really want to overcome the obstacles and hinderances that people throw in your way you have to develop and attitude of not caring. You have to look out for yourself and put your own well being before that of others. This has been a major problem for me ever since Joe and I broke up and Sterling and I started dating. When Sterling and I broke up and Kerry and I decided to become a couple and life began to change dramatically for me. It became clear that I was a nurturer and that I felt the compulsive need to take care of someone and with Kerry that need was filled because of his aneurysm. Who really knows what the future is going to bring I certainly don't. What I do know is that life gets far less complicated when you aren't burdened with carrying the things from your past with you.
It is true that I have lost everything that tied me to my past, I lost all the stuff from my relationship with Joe and the 12 years that we were together and the things that I managed to salvage from that relationship. Then I lost everything from my time in Florida and Georgia, and California because I couldn't afford to pay for the 2 storage units I had. So when I left Daytona and went to Jacksonville I had pretty much already lost everything that tied me to my past and all the associated memories that were with them. The truth of the matter is despite the loss of my physical possessions I still have the memories intact. There is no way that I can forget all that I have been through and the people that I have met along my life. The truth is what I have done in the past has become a part of me that have molded me and shaped me into the person I am today. These memories are mine and can never be taken away from me, the people I have history with are still a part of my life and I theirs. Though I don't get to see them as often as I like we have a shared past that is unique between us and can never be changed or broken, a bond has been forged and lessons learned.
Though my future is unclear as to where I am going to end up and who I will be with. The truth is that at this moment I don't really care. Those that are important to me are still in contact with me. Like I said it really should be more but they have lives to lead and I have mine to get back on track so I can understand the distance, though it really doesn't help the lonely feelings that I experience from time to time. I just know that at some point in the future we will see each other again and things will not feel stained or strange.
Sterling, Jason, Scotty, Kerry, John, Alan, Allen, Jaime, and all the other friends that I have made throughout my life, we will see each other again of this I am certain. It might not be this year, or even next year but it will happen. Its funny that life has been throwing curve balls in my direction. Yet, even with them life seems to turn out just the way it is supposed to be and I end up in exactly the right place at the right time. It will happen for you too if you are just open to the future of possibilities and live learn and adapt to anything that life deems fit to throw your way.
As always my hopes and dreams are with you!
Uncle B
Showing posts with label grow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grow. Show all posts
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Wow i have been living in it!
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
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
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Trust is a Must No Negotiation
Friends we have talked about trust extensively before, but maybe it is time again to revisit the subject. You would be surprised at how many people out there are just having sex and jumping right into relationships. No groundwork has been laid, the two individual know absolutely nothing about each other and yet because they have had sex and it was good or adequate they automatically think they are in love, What is actually happening is folks are replacing love for lust and thinking that they can build relationships off of that. Unfortunately that is flawed thinking and nothing lasting can be built on that foundation. You have to begin each relationship in the manner like you are creating a friendship, and here is another piece of information I have learned along the way, if you don't know someone you have no basis for trusting them. Trust comes from knowing a person, spending time around that person and seeing how they react to certain situations and how they handle the trust that you extend to them. If they don't earn it or display back what you have given them then are they truly worth you spending your time on? The answer to that is no they are not.
A friend of mine once told me that life is like a checkbook, we make deposits and withdrawals from it all the time. However, if there is someone in your life that is withdrawing more than they are depositing what happens? Well, just like in a checking account if you have more debits than deposits your checkbook will go negative and will be impossible to balance. The same thing holds true for your own life. If someone is not giving you as much as you are giving them, your life becomes negative and you go out of balance. Balance is very important in a relationship, and helps you start building up trust with another individual. You can apply this to your love life, as well as your personal life.
A relationship is a relationship whether it is a friendship, love interest, family or any other type of social interaction you might have or experience. Just a couple of days ago I was talking to you about this very subject and that I approach each new encounter like I am creating a foundation of friendship that will last long term. I don't want to throw my care and love away, I want to build something that reflects how I am feeling, and I do this by making new friends and cultivating them the same exact way. But you may be wondering to yourself by this point what does this all have to do with trust, well let me explain something to you. Trust is the foundation on which friendships and relationships can be built upon, it is solid, unbroken and strong. The Bible tells us that we should build our relationships upon a rock or firm foundation that sand or clay as the foundation wouldn't be sturdy enough to hold up a building let alone a relationship. What do I mean by stating this fact? I mean that a firm foundation of trust is a must. You have to be able to have faith and trust in your partner or your relationship is doomed from the very beginning just like if you tried to build a house on a sand or clay foundation. As soon as a strong wind comes against the structure it will fall or fold under the pressure if it is built upon the sand or the clay. A foundation of trust is like building your relationship/friendship on solid stone. You can add weight, pressure and even dimensions to a strong rock and it will not budge or falter.
Do you know what happens when those closest to you betray you or break your trust? I can tell you that some of it would be anger, resentment, maybe even hatred. Most importantly is the fact that the trust you have has been betrayed or broken which could cause emotional trauma that might lead the other person down a very dark road, which ends up in their destruction. It is important to respect each other and continually strengthen the bonds of trust. There has to be clear lines of communication, and I am not just talking about telling someone how your day was or what you are up too. I mean really communicating, listening as well as speaking. You can't grow as a listener if your are always talking and vice versus, there has to be a happy middle ground. Trust grows with each passing day and with every interaction you have with another person. If there isn't, the relationship can become stagnant almost certainly diseases and depression can occur. Trust is one of the most important things you can build between yourself and another person.
In a previous article I mentioned that we truly will never know what another person is thinking. You might wonder what I am trying tell to you. Is that no matter how long you have known a person, you cannot be 100% sure of what they are thinking or how they might act. Humans are very secretive in nature, they also have a tendency to lie directly to you. All of these things shape how you look at relationships and who you let get close to you. Each of us has built walls inside ourselves to avoid hurt and pain that others have inflicted upon you. Once you have been hurt you immediately go into a tailspin, you feel hurt, anger, betrayal, resolution and finally you get past the hurt. However, one thing that happens is that a wall is built up so that another person cannot do the same thing to you and hurt you all over again. It is the process of grieving that we each go through when a break-up occurs. Therefore, it is going to take an extra special person to break through that wall, and it is going to take you sometime before you can open your heart up totally and let someone in.
I hope I haven't lost you along the way, but these two things are important for any relationship to have. First, you have to build trust and get to know a person. Secondly, you are going to have to study the person and figure out their patterns.. Each of us has a routine or pattern that we constantly update and work on. If you can figure out the other person's pattern you can start to understand them better. Because you can predict how they are going to react in each situation. But, you must be observant and really get to know the person. Once you figure out a persons pattern, a foundation begins to be laid, a friendship begins to form and stabilize. The more you get to know a person, and their patterns trust starts to build between the too of you. When this foundation is finally laid and you really start to get the person and can understand how they work, their moods, and their behaviors it becomes easier see if the person is being 100% truthful with you and can also begin to see through their lies if they do happen to lie to you. However, remember what I told you at the beginning of this entry, if someone lies to you or you breaks your trust you need to let them go. More debits than deposit throws your whole life out of balance and brings in negativity.
Please keep this in mind that trust flows both ways, and both people in the friendship or relationship have the potential to break each others trust and cause hurt. Therefore it is very important that you are open and honest with your friends and partners. Please keep in mind that if you shatter the bonds of trust with those you love you could tumble them down a dark path . Those bonds of trust may never be able to be recreated again because they have lost faith in you and there is no going back once that trust has been discarded. Family and friends can hurt you just as bad as someone you have just met and are trying to get to know on a more intimate basis.
In the gay community, males have a tendency to be attracted to good looking people. I believe that our priorities are screwed up and off balance. Don't get me wrong looks do play a minor role in getting two people together. But it isn't the most important thing. Mental connection, the ability to make you laugh, someone who can make you feel good about yourself, they build you up and never tears you down. These are the important traits that a relationship should be built on. However, in the gay community we have the tendency to confuse lust for love, we jump into bed with the person we find attractive. Here is the problem with that, when lust is confused for love there isn't a firm foundation you are building your house or relationship on sand, and sooner or later it will crumble and fall apart. Love is something that grows, needs attention and has to have 100 % participation by both people involved in the relationship. If you remember the song "The Rose" by Bette Middler, you understand that love starts out as a seed and grows into a beautiful flower. Patience is necessary in any relationship. You have to be open and receptive as well.
If you want to know if someone really loves you and cares about your well being, try and get to know someone and resist jumping directly into bed with the person. Abstain for at least a month and if the person really cares about you they will understand and will wait for you. Once sex gets comes into the equation our feelings get all messed up, we get confused and lust takes over, and yet there might be a seed planted, it hasn't even started to grow yet. Learning another person, exploring everything about them is just the first step in building a relationship, but it also the first step towards building trust. Remember, that relationships/friendship are tenuous things at the beginning and if you don't cultivate them correctly they wither and die before they have a chance to grow deep roots.
It is my hope that by you reading this you will be able to cultivate new friends and relationships. Love is grown and cultivated in the same way. A seed is planted, watered with attention, weeded with knowledge and before you know it it will have bloomed into a beautiful flower with strong roots and can stand any storm that comes it's way.
So when I tell you that trust is a must, you can see that it is essential for both a budding relationship as well as a full bloom relationship. Trust is the foundation that is solid and allows a relationship to be strong and stable. Words, deeds and lies can destroy even the strongest foundation and cause a relationship to spiral downward and break apart. Remember that once that lie comes to light they are going to loose all faith in you and then there is no going back.
Please understand that if you want to be in a relationship you are going to have to work hard at it and build it on a firm foundation with compromise and open heart and mind. Remember being forewarned is forearmed.
All I can say from here is trust in yourself, find the goodness in others, cultivate every encounter with the mindset of forming a lasting friendship and sit back and see what happens. If you feel it is right plant the seed of love and cultivate it properly.
As always my hopes and dreams are with you,
Uncle B
A friend of mine once told me that life is like a checkbook, we make deposits and withdrawals from it all the time. However, if there is someone in your life that is withdrawing more than they are depositing what happens? Well, just like in a checking account if you have more debits than deposits your checkbook will go negative and will be impossible to balance. The same thing holds true for your own life. If someone is not giving you as much as you are giving them, your life becomes negative and you go out of balance. Balance is very important in a relationship, and helps you start building up trust with another individual. You can apply this to your love life, as well as your personal life.
A relationship is a relationship whether it is a friendship, love interest, family or any other type of social interaction you might have or experience. Just a couple of days ago I was talking to you about this very subject and that I approach each new encounter like I am creating a foundation of friendship that will last long term. I don't want to throw my care and love away, I want to build something that reflects how I am feeling, and I do this by making new friends and cultivating them the same exact way. But you may be wondering to yourself by this point what does this all have to do with trust, well let me explain something to you. Trust is the foundation on which friendships and relationships can be built upon, it is solid, unbroken and strong. The Bible tells us that we should build our relationships upon a rock or firm foundation that sand or clay as the foundation wouldn't be sturdy enough to hold up a building let alone a relationship. What do I mean by stating this fact? I mean that a firm foundation of trust is a must. You have to be able to have faith and trust in your partner or your relationship is doomed from the very beginning just like if you tried to build a house on a sand or clay foundation. As soon as a strong wind comes against the structure it will fall or fold under the pressure if it is built upon the sand or the clay. A foundation of trust is like building your relationship/friendship on solid stone. You can add weight, pressure and even dimensions to a strong rock and it will not budge or falter.
Do you know what happens when those closest to you betray you or break your trust? I can tell you that some of it would be anger, resentment, maybe even hatred. Most importantly is the fact that the trust you have has been betrayed or broken which could cause emotional trauma that might lead the other person down a very dark road, which ends up in their destruction. It is important to respect each other and continually strengthen the bonds of trust. There has to be clear lines of communication, and I am not just talking about telling someone how your day was or what you are up too. I mean really communicating, listening as well as speaking. You can't grow as a listener if your are always talking and vice versus, there has to be a happy middle ground. Trust grows with each passing day and with every interaction you have with another person. If there isn't, the relationship can become stagnant almost certainly diseases and depression can occur. Trust is one of the most important things you can build between yourself and another person.
In a previous article I mentioned that we truly will never know what another person is thinking. You might wonder what I am trying tell to you. Is that no matter how long you have known a person, you cannot be 100% sure of what they are thinking or how they might act. Humans are very secretive in nature, they also have a tendency to lie directly to you. All of these things shape how you look at relationships and who you let get close to you. Each of us has built walls inside ourselves to avoid hurt and pain that others have inflicted upon you. Once you have been hurt you immediately go into a tailspin, you feel hurt, anger, betrayal, resolution and finally you get past the hurt. However, one thing that happens is that a wall is built up so that another person cannot do the same thing to you and hurt you all over again. It is the process of grieving that we each go through when a break-up occurs. Therefore, it is going to take an extra special person to break through that wall, and it is going to take you sometime before you can open your heart up totally and let someone in.
I hope I haven't lost you along the way, but these two things are important for any relationship to have. First, you have to build trust and get to know a person. Secondly, you are going to have to study the person and figure out their patterns.. Each of us has a routine or pattern that we constantly update and work on. If you can figure out the other person's pattern you can start to understand them better. Because you can predict how they are going to react in each situation. But, you must be observant and really get to know the person. Once you figure out a persons pattern, a foundation begins to be laid, a friendship begins to form and stabilize. The more you get to know a person, and their patterns trust starts to build between the too of you. When this foundation is finally laid and you really start to get the person and can understand how they work, their moods, and their behaviors it becomes easier see if the person is being 100% truthful with you and can also begin to see through their lies if they do happen to lie to you. However, remember what I told you at the beginning of this entry, if someone lies to you or you breaks your trust you need to let them go. More debits than deposit throws your whole life out of balance and brings in negativity.
Please keep this in mind that trust flows both ways, and both people in the friendship or relationship have the potential to break each others trust and cause hurt. Therefore it is very important that you are open and honest with your friends and partners. Please keep in mind that if you shatter the bonds of trust with those you love you could tumble them down a dark path . Those bonds of trust may never be able to be recreated again because they have lost faith in you and there is no going back once that trust has been discarded. Family and friends can hurt you just as bad as someone you have just met and are trying to get to know on a more intimate basis.
In the gay community, males have a tendency to be attracted to good looking people. I believe that our priorities are screwed up and off balance. Don't get me wrong looks do play a minor role in getting two people together. But it isn't the most important thing. Mental connection, the ability to make you laugh, someone who can make you feel good about yourself, they build you up and never tears you down. These are the important traits that a relationship should be built on. However, in the gay community we have the tendency to confuse lust for love, we jump into bed with the person we find attractive. Here is the problem with that, when lust is confused for love there isn't a firm foundation you are building your house or relationship on sand, and sooner or later it will crumble and fall apart. Love is something that grows, needs attention and has to have 100 % participation by both people involved in the relationship. If you remember the song "The Rose" by Bette Middler, you understand that love starts out as a seed and grows into a beautiful flower. Patience is necessary in any relationship. You have to be open and receptive as well.
If you want to know if someone really loves you and cares about your well being, try and get to know someone and resist jumping directly into bed with the person. Abstain for at least a month and if the person really cares about you they will understand and will wait for you. Once sex gets comes into the equation our feelings get all messed up, we get confused and lust takes over, and yet there might be a seed planted, it hasn't even started to grow yet. Learning another person, exploring everything about them is just the first step in building a relationship, but it also the first step towards building trust. Remember, that relationships/friendship are tenuous things at the beginning and if you don't cultivate them correctly they wither and die before they have a chance to grow deep roots.
It is my hope that by you reading this you will be able to cultivate new friends and relationships. Love is grown and cultivated in the same way. A seed is planted, watered with attention, weeded with knowledge and before you know it it will have bloomed into a beautiful flower with strong roots and can stand any storm that comes it's way.
So when I tell you that trust is a must, you can see that it is essential for both a budding relationship as well as a full bloom relationship. Trust is the foundation that is solid and allows a relationship to be strong and stable. Words, deeds and lies can destroy even the strongest foundation and cause a relationship to spiral downward and break apart. Remember that once that lie comes to light they are going to loose all faith in you and then there is no going back.
Please understand that if you want to be in a relationship you are going to have to work hard at it and build it on a firm foundation with compromise and open heart and mind. Remember being forewarned is forearmed.
All I can say from here is trust in yourself, find the goodness in others, cultivate every encounter with the mindset of forming a lasting friendship and sit back and see what happens. If you feel it is right plant the seed of love and cultivate it properly.
As always my hopes and dreams are with you,
Uncle B
Monday, August 13, 2012
What is a powerful thing? Read these two poems and see for yourself
Never fear mother dear, I heard your heart beating within your womb,
and even as I grow old I will continue to grow and bloom
until this body fails and makes a fleshy tomb.
Though I entertain all manner of thoughts, the worlds weight can be processed and sorted out at night as I lay down in my room
and though I have fought and loved, triumphed and soared, felt the pain of loss and so much more none of these scars were worthless and none of the cuts too fatal to ensure my doom.
I have never failed you or let you down I helped you to be born, I stayed playful and wise
as you grew old in everyone's eyes.
Even when you slept at night, I worked on all your fears and cries,
No weight was enough to crush my ability to see through the stress and lies.
When you were wracked with pain from a broken heart
I built the walls to let your wounds heal by keeping you and others far apart.
Who am I? I am your mind, the Brain!
When does life begin?
Some believe it is before we are born, others claim it's when we begin to think.
I don't know for sure you say.
That I can understand.
Why does my body get older yet my mind is timeless?
Again I don't know for sure you say.
The world doesn't revolve around me they say. But why do I feel it's weight upon my shoulders at times?
Again you say you don't know.
How can someone be stabbed and scarred and yet bear not one visible wound?
The answer to these my friend is the brain is a powerful thing.
When the brain animates the lungs and blood begins to flow through the heart is when life begins.
As my body grows older with each passing year. The brain measures it differently my Dear!
My mind takes on fears and worries of those all around and that is the when I feel the world's weight upon my shoulders.
Then my mind allows my heart to love. The pain I feel from that allows my brain to comprehend the wound and cuts of words and deeds that cannot be seen. Scars that are hidden from view but are plain to sense when I try to get near to you.
The brain is a powerful thing!
The brain controls the subconscious which runs my body even when I sleep.
The brain stays nimble and quick as it sharpens it wits, even as I grow old and feeble.
The brain is strong yet can be burdened with stress and depression. Bowing me down under the weight.
The brain controls the tongue that can soothe or maim and leave no wound but guilt and shame.
Isn't the brain a powerful thing?
and even as I grow old I will continue to grow and bloom
until this body fails and makes a fleshy tomb.
Though I entertain all manner of thoughts, the worlds weight can be processed and sorted out at night as I lay down in my room
and though I have fought and loved, triumphed and soared, felt the pain of loss and so much more none of these scars were worthless and none of the cuts too fatal to ensure my doom.
I have never failed you or let you down I helped you to be born, I stayed playful and wise
as you grew old in everyone's eyes.
Even when you slept at night, I worked on all your fears and cries,
No weight was enough to crush my ability to see through the stress and lies.
When you were wracked with pain from a broken heart
I built the walls to let your wounds heal by keeping you and others far apart.
Who am I? I am your mind, the Brain!
When does life begin?
Some believe it is before we are born, others claim it's when we begin to think.
I don't know for sure you say.
That I can understand.
Why does my body get older yet my mind is timeless?
Again I don't know for sure you say.
The world doesn't revolve around me they say. But why do I feel it's weight upon my shoulders at times?
Again you say you don't know.
How can someone be stabbed and scarred and yet bear not one visible wound?
The answer to these my friend is the brain is a powerful thing.
When the brain animates the lungs and blood begins to flow through the heart is when life begins.
As my body grows older with each passing year. The brain measures it differently my Dear!
My mind takes on fears and worries of those all around and that is the when I feel the world's weight upon my shoulders.
Then my mind allows my heart to love. The pain I feel from that allows my brain to comprehend the wound and cuts of words and deeds that cannot be seen. Scars that are hidden from view but are plain to sense when I try to get near to you.
The brain is a powerful thing!
The brain controls the subconscious which runs my body even when I sleep.
The brain stays nimble and quick as it sharpens it wits, even as I grow old and feeble.
The brain is strong yet can be burdened with stress and depression. Bowing me down under the weight.
The brain controls the tongue that can soothe or maim and leave no wound but guilt and shame.
Isn't the brain a powerful thing?
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