2011. Who knew?

I have been quite apprehensive to try and describe 2011 to myself. There were really two different trends that circulated and interwove into and around the timeline of a year; looking back at all of the events I can't help but feel like last year was so long even as the feeling of slipperiness coalesced in the moments. The year flew by like gravity pulling water through the cracks of cupped fingers. Once I move my hands though, the lake beneath my hands seems deeper than I could have imagined. In all reality, the two ways of describing this past year are as the surface experiences that shape the landscape of a tale and the unheeded transformations I experienced in the simplicity of events occurring in twelve months. What is more important or valid? I'm not entirely sure, but both ways of depicting 2011 scare me slightly. In a way, I haven't even finished digesting the metamorphosis of myself... so how can I justly understand and place into words my life?

Well, part of understanding is forcing the indescribable into language and having that language envelope the moments until truth is found. At least, that's how I see it.

Most tales start from the beginning. I must start in the past, a past I dealt with through language here in The Writer's Landscape in poetry and verse; I shall be blunt. The end of 2010 found my mind questioning the foundation of my self and my relationship of eight years. This relationship was the boundary of my self: the cage of my freedom, the prison of my self expression, and the torture of my physical expressions; the harbor of my love, the shelter of my confidence, and the belief in my memories of perfection. The juxtaposition of these feelings was the vortex of questioning of a relationship that started just as I realized who I wanted to become. That entity, that destiny I later realized, was hidden away because of love and devotion. We shall return to this thought in a moment.

Thus, 2011 came into existence with one resolution (for lack of a better word). I resolved to be completely open, honest, and uninhibited with myself and the people in my life. No smoke and mirrors, no subtle lies, no half truths or denials. I discovered that I was lying to myself, telling myself I was happy with who I had become, who I was denying, and the path I was walking down. I believe it was January 21st when I officially broke up with my boyfriend of nearly eight and a half years, after a week of limbo, of talking and discussing the possibilities of relinquishing our relationship or fighting for the love we so to which we vehemently clung. That moment set everything in motion. I was already in my dream school, already taking some steps to become the person I longed to know. That day I broke my heart and didn't realize it; broke it apart into the first of several sunderings I would experience in twelve months' time. The first true relationship coming to the first true death. Unfortunately its dying was long and arduous...

I very quickly met my next love. Call it rebound. Call it truth. Call it the first fold unraveling in my journey toward myself. This love hit hard, hit fast, and hit painfully. After two and a half months, the second sundering crushed my world. The smoke and mirrors I left behind found their way into my world from another source and his words, though of good intent, made the situation undeniably worse...

Beauty came from this quick affair with my heart. Great poetry flowed from me, spoke from a place I've only been able to reach a few times in my life. I also found one of my best friends in the entire world from that brief love. On May 4th, my newest best friend and I celebrated the ending of my first semester at my first pick college. That night, my first night at a gay bar I found the next person who would enrich my life and unfold yet another aspect of my true self. He would help define what I needed from a relationship; because in lacking is the search for want. I wrote something one morning on my iPod, of all places, which sums up his and my relationship nearly perfectly:

Watching boys be boys made me feel even more of an outsider to his world. No matter the love, the intensity of appreciation or admiration in his eyes, the smile upon my arrival or kiss or stare, his efforts never attempted bringing me into his world. However, I know his intentions never veered toward keeping me out of the man's verse. They simply attracted me, and himself to me, and allowed us both exist where we desired. Such an action simply stirred my heart even more. (July 10, 2011)

I wrote it lovingly. Now I see the underlying intensity of sadness that fueled the words. Even now, I long to change "action" to "inaction" in that last sentence, because it would more accurately describe what happened. Words are chosen purposefully and even now I dare not change the verse. After a while, I fell in love with him because I could see who he was and who he wanted to be; but I didn't love him because my heart told me I loved him. Hell, I never even told him in person that I loved him. It wasn't until too late that I desired to let him know.

My necklace carrying my protection in a pendant and charm broke in the middle of July, and the next day I totaled my car. With the totaling of my car, this boy stopped seeing me. His explanations for not seeing me were vague but understandable. After all, when you work till ten or eleven at night you don't want to ride a vespa for forty-five minutes to visit a boy you haven't called your boyfriend or significant other to his face after three months of dating.

July 24th arrived and I flew away to one of the most magical places in the world: DisneyWorld. Seven days to experience being alone amongst crowds of families and friends. It was the most liberating experience of my life. Imagine walking around the corridors of magical displacement and enjoying the post-modern reality created by Disney while seeing the families, loved ones, friends, and lovers walking side by side, glancing in your direction as you walk alone with your iPod as company. By Wednesday I had reached the pinnacle of my loneliness and depression. It was also the day I found out all the information about my totaled car: how much to repair it, how much I was receiving from insurance, and how much I would have to work through in order to get mobility back. It was tough, but Thursday morning I awoke with a new attitude. And that attitude has sustained me since that moment. I realized I didn't need to be with anyone in order to be happy and fulfilled; that my own existence permeates my reality and how well I consume the emotions I emit creates the sensations of loneliness, love, and connection. I went back into the park ready to be alone and happy.

What I found was love instead. It was a magical, fairytale event: love at first sight, instant mutual interest, and a quick phone number exchange. With the few days I had left, I made a bond with someone very special.

Unfortunately, reality called me away from the reality of fantasy. I returned home to my dating world with a new attitude about what I was looking for, which quite frankly wasn't anything solid. I didn't want a relationship, per se, but I wanted to experience life at its fullest. Whoever wanted to be in my life, however they wanted to be in my life (sans commitment) was welcome. I started dating, and dating did I do. I also had a new self-identity that I embraced with fervor. This was a step in life I knew I needed to experience too; and so I became quite promiscuous and embraced the title of "Hoe."

Most people would look at me during this state and be concerned, I'm sure, about my well being and sanity and health, etc. In truth, the time people needed to worry about me was right after the semester ended, on May 4th. The entire summer saw me in more drunken stupors making more bad decisions than I did during the entirety of my "hoe-dom." I was safe. I made practical decisions about who I was sleeping around with. I kept honesty, integrity, and communication at the forefront of every interaction I took part in. Everyone knew exactly where I was emotionally and mentally. I daresay this backfired on me at least twice. One of the people I met during this period I really wish I had made a stronger connection with and actually accepted the fact I was falling for him. I didn't realize this until recently; but I don't regret what happened. We had a beautiful affair for a few weeks, and he moved on because he knew a relationship was out of the question for me at that point in my life. The other time this backfired on me was with someone I still see almost daily, but whom I feel the connection between the two of us had degraded so far that we have little to say to each other anymore.

The ultimate outcome of my promiscuity was finding a love which I never fathomed could exist for me. I found a relationship with the man I've been looking for my entire life, and never really realized it. We started dating at the end of August. After much discussion, very open-hearted and open-minded discussions about life, who we want to be, what we want to do, and how we wish to experience life, we became a couple on November 14th. We created the perfect relationship, in my book; and people still question the validity of our love for each other with the parameters we've set up with each other. Let me explain.

We both know our love is solid, that it is created from a foundation of undeniable trust and awareness of who each of us is. My boyfriend knows that I have a part of me that likes being promiscuous, enjoys flirting with other men and being in the company of people who find me sexually attractive. He knows that I like being around men I find sexually attractive. Furthermore, we both understand that sex is pleasure and the assigned meaning of love and devotion is constructed form a world that we don't belong to. I'm a witch, and he's fluctuating between beliefs as he searches for a truth he feels comfortable with. An open relationship is technically the term we should label our commitment with, but even that isn't truly accurate. We experience sexuality together, and the paths we take to find out what we enjoy is taken together; but we have permission to do as we please. This is the perfection I've been looking for, that no other man has every given me or felt free to take from me.

And here we come to the new year, transitioning from a year of endings, of discovery, of truth and honesty. I've received SEVERAL amazing friends, including one which resurfaced in my life right before the new year commenced. I'm eternally grateful for this tumultuous year, and I feel the words to express it reside within the telling of this tale. Furthermore, the meaning of my transformation exists deeper than the words, in the underlying pretense of shifting mindsets all permeating the choices and paths I owned without preconceived associations. I am who I always wanted to be: a man in love, desperately attached with the heart but free to enjoy the multitude of life's pleasures without judgments. 

Now I have to judge whether these words are enough to convey the reality of existing as myself... and I fear these stories, these marks on white digitized nothingness, cannot truly give the experiences I felt. Feel free to question my world, and I shall tell you more.