Coming Clean...

[Note: This is a rough draft post and I'm sure you all will find lots of mispellings or missing words. It's the curse of dealing with ADHD. I'll proof-read and fix it later.]

I feel dirty... and not the "haven't showered in a week" kinda dirty either...

Before I get into the details, allow me to do as any good storyteller would do by taking you back to a time preceding the main point of my story, and then drag you through all the boring details leading up to a shocking conclusion. Yeaaaah, I'm gonna make you work for it, =]

The past twelve years or so of my life (from 18 to now) have been challenging, rewarding, interesting, complicated, fantastic, complex, and more importantly... memorable.

I've met some of the greatest people to ever walk this earth and I've unfortunately also met some of the worst. I've experienced some of the greatest high points in my life, and likewise I've had to face a lot of trials and tribulations as well along the way. Boyfriends(*gasp* I'm Gay!), Friends, Family, Co-Workers, Acquaintances, Mentors, etc have come and gone and those that stuck around through it all can definitely consider themselves part of my "Inner Circle". For those people I'm eternally grateful for their dedication, their support, their advice, their friendship, and their undying loyalty and respect.

As with every good person in the world there's equally someone who's out to get you and bring you down their level. While I'm very sad to say I haven't quite found a way to completely remove those people from my life I continue to try to cut them out. We only have one life to live after all and if you're living unhappily because of another human being you're doing it allllll wrong.

But I digress. Part of my problem in life has always been my inability to stop caring about what other people think, their perception of me, or more importantly when to stop catering to others and start worrying about myself. I get so wrapped up in making sure everyone else around me is happy that I lose track of how I truly feel in doing so. This can be especially intense when you're dealing with matters of the heart.

The last time I stood up for myself and told someone how I really feel about the situation ended up with me losing my mother and my entire adopted family. It's been over a year since we spoke and it's beginning to eat me alive. However, we're both too stubborn to apologize, lick our wounds, and move on. For once though I feel that I made the right decision despite my loss because she expected me to cut off my biological family. It was truly a no win situation.

Since then I've taken a very backseat approach to my problems... Hoping my problems will either work themselves out or will fade away if left behind and forgotten. I've generally been the kind of person who hates conflict, I positively loathe it actually... So it shouldn't be shocking to know that when things spiral out of control I tend to let things eat away at me until I finally break. Well things have finally hit a boiling point because I haven't been honest with those around me.

Might I apologize in advance to anyone who feels like they're being wronged by being mentioned here. This is my blog after all and I figured this is the best way for me to communicate my feelings and truly express how I feel. Don't like that forewarning? Then stop reading now.

Ever since things went south (in my mind) with he-who-shall-not-be-named I've been searching for a like-minded soul to spend my life with. I dated and dated and dated some more. Common threads were always found but nothing ever seemed to feel perfect and right. So I spent a good amount of time intentionally staying single and playing the field. The one thing that remained constant was that I felt a distinct closeness to each person I became intimate with but never quite felt like I was in love. The feeling of friendship seemed too strong to want to f**k it up with a relationship assuming things ever went south. As friendships grew in the place of relationships I decided I'd rather keep my intimacy to myself and save it for someone that I was in love with, not infatuated with.

I managed to draw a line, at least in my mind, as to what I wanted in a relationship and what I wanted in a friend. Unfortunately, no one I "had" talked to in the last year struck me as someone I wanted to share the rest of my life with in respect to becoming my boyfriend, lover, partner, or whatever term you want to use. As I mentioned earlier though I tend to have a hard time saying "No"...

When I met Bryan back on May 30th I'm not ashamed to admit it was love at first sight for me. We all know that's called infatuation though so I figured I'd let my feelings simmer for a few weeks and see how I felt then. Those weeks came and went and my feelings for him have and continue to grow and become stronger and stronger by the day. It's a miraculous (and rewarding) feeling when you connect with someone on an intellectual level and not just by the rules of attraction.

Where I got myself into trouble though is while my relationship with him has been blossoming I've neglected to openly tell others what's been going on. What happens in my private life shouldn't be on display so don't take this as a regret for not blasting it out on Facebook. That's not my style anyway. I feel bad because there's been a few people in my life who I've been close to over the last few years and I've left them completely in the dark.

I had an exchange with one of those friends tonight because the pressure to do things with this person was getting far too heavy. I had finally put myself into a corner and the only way out was to reject the advances with malicious responses. This in turn left the person thinking I'm a total a--hole and will probably ruin the chances I have of keeping them around as a friend and compadre.

So whats the moral of this long and overwrought blog? I'm coming clean...

I'm in a relationship, I'm in love... I'm happier than I've been in years and because of professional obligations on both of our parts I can't blast it out on Facebook so I'm doing it here. =]

Weight = Lifted

Of course this IS a blog post, it's like a public diary. I could have posted that last little bit and been done with it but I felt like there's a lot that had to be said. It's online therapy at it's greatest and it truly feels good to have posted about all of this, gotten it all off my chest, and come clean.

Will there be fallout from some people? Maybe, but friends like that are a poison and I'm happier without them. For all of those friends that are happy for me and the rather big change in my life, keep on with that positive mentality because that's why I love you all so much.