No, this isn't another blog about work starting up tomorrow. Though I've been at my apartment almost seven months now, there are still boxes I haven't gone through. It's ridiculous, I know and I don't really have a good excuse. I'm just lazy.
I did go through (and eliminated!) a box and found an old journal I wrote in June of 1994 when I graduated from high school. A couple weeks before I graduated I was forced to deal with the death of a friend. Her name was Marsha and she died at 38. This happened right after Memorial day because we had just gotten back from the annual Trinity Lutheran Church retreat at Lake Arrowhead in California.
During that retreat, my brother Matt and I became really close with Marsha. She rang bells with us in our church bell choir - The Jubellation choir. Get it? I remember that weekend really well. Marsha, Matt and I hung out a lot together during those few days. I remember sitting at a table outside the dining hall and just talking until late. We went to see the movie Maverick and laughed because a black smudge on the screen gave Mel Gibson a mole. Most eerie about that whole weekend was that Marsha drove me home that Monday. I needed to get back early due to work, but my parents were in charge of running things that weekend and had to stay until everyone left. Marsha offered to give me a ride home.
According to what I wrote in my journal, Marsha dropped me off at 3pm, called her mom at 4:30 and made lunch plans for the next day and was found dead on Wednesday. Later, I would be told that I was probably the last person she knew who saw her alive. Marsha's death really hit me hard. I started the journal the day I found out about her death and for pages, she is all I could write about. At one point I mentioned that my mom was worried because my journal seemed to be only about her. I guess in a way Mom was right - though why the hell did she read my journal? I go on for pages and pages about what I was feeling about her death and then talk briefly about my actual graduation day. It's like that milestone of my life was greatly overshadowed by her passing.
It was really weird going back and reading about my life back then. I read my thoughts from when I was 18 and cringe! I was SO immature back then. I guess I can blame that on my being a late bloomer. I tried my hand at awful poetry and I also had REALLY bad penmanship! I was also a major Jesus freak back then! HUGE, even! I talk a lot about God's plan and His will. I talk about him calling Marsha home to be with him and marvel at the sentiment that the pastor shared at her funeral - she had passed before the eyes of God.
I have lost a lot of that. Not the poor penmanship...I still have that. But I'm not nearly as spiritual as I once was. A lot of that has to do with my sexuality. Unfortunately, the two don't go hand in hand that well. Back then, I was in denial about being gay. I don't even mention it in the journal, though I am certain I was dealing with it. I think it's missing from those pages of my life because I was afraid that someone would find and read it. I know that I was aware of it back then, though. I just wasn't willing to accept it. Part of that must struggle must have come from my strong spiritual nature.
I imagine a confused 18-year-old boy at odds with himself. He has no clue where he's going to college - something that everyone else in his class had taken care of earlier in the year like he should have - yet he is willing to commit to the Columbia House CD club. He is a young man that bitches about a "witch in the Principal's office" who refused to give him graduation tickets early even though he is going to be on a field trip when they would be handed out later. Life seems so unfair to him. He hates his job as a janitor, cleaning the school owned by his church, and is thrilled when someone mentions that the bathrooms have never been cleaner.
His penmanship is sloppy and scribbled. It reminds me of what he must have been going through at the time. By legal standards, he's an adult. He can vote, but mentions that he forgot to go vote in the primary elections. Society sees him as an adult, but he seems so very young - so very unprepared for life. And worst of all, he seems clueless about a lot of things.
Fifteen years later, I hope that boy is more grown. His penmanship is still really sloppy, but now he journals on a computer so it doesn't really matter. It's not even called journaling - now it's called blogging. College is now a distant memory in that boy's life. Even in college, he seemed to have no direction. Decisions were made fleetingly, choices were haphazard.
Hopefully his writing has improved! He no longer writes bad poetry. Now he likes to write fiction, particularly about confused gay teens like he once was.
I think there is growth in him, though. He's no longer a scared gay teen. Now, he's comfortable about that part of his life. Some may see the shift from his once powerful spiritual life to an acceptance about his homosexuality as a perversion. Some may see that as a lack of growth - a step (or perhaps several steps) in the wrong direction.
I see the young man that scared teen boy became and I do see growth. He's a proud member of a gay chorus - one of the best in the nation! Okay...it seems he sometimes still brags. He is taking chances, now. He moved to an apartment closer to work and got rid of his car. It was a scary move, but he did it and he succeeded at it! He decided to try something different at work by taking a job he doesn't usually do. It was another scary move on his part, but he is boosted by the success of his recent move into thinking that he's made another right choice.
Does he screw up? Often. He's a bit heavier than he wants to be and doesn't do the things he should to get himself healthier. He is afraid of always being single, without a romantic partnership, yet he can't find the courage to go out and find someone to fill that void. As he was back in 1994, the young man is still very unorganized and sometimes sloppy. He is lazy and doesn't want to make the time to get his apartment in order even after seven months.
Will he ever find that strong spiritual side of him that was so strong back then? He might. In fact, I think that it is still in him but the nature of that spirit has been changed by the difficult differences he has faced between his sexuality and the views of the church where he grew up. He recognizes the lies he was told as a teen - the lies that made him so scared and confused - and he believes with all his heart that they were (and still are) indeed wrong.
He has done a lot of growing these past fifteen years, but he has a lot of growing yet to do. He's not a bad person, but he is far from perfect.
He is me and he is doing pretty damn good.
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