July 18, 2009

Parts of my personality had gone missing. Much like that shirt left at a trick's house. That camera forgotten in the seat pocket of a plane. Those gloves left on the Haight street bus. Gone. Forgotten. And never again. But, unlike those material objects I'd lost, miraculously, that missing part of me has reemerged. Thriving. Around.

Robert Polacek, celebrating his one-year wedding anniversary, was in New York a couple week's ago. He had traveled up from Scranton, where he is from, and where he had been for July 4th. He stayed two days in New York with his husband Bryan. We had dinner at the Standard Grill, where among the scenesters, Brendan Monaghan and those fashion bears, also dined. Theron joined us and Georgi did later and we laughed and I left. Smiling. Roby texted me the next morning. "It is good to have you back."

Ryan McKeel and his sister Amanda were in New York the next weekend. Their tickets had originally been booked for my wedding, but you know how that turned out. I spent the day with them drinking wine at the Mercer Kitchen, getting ice cream and cookies, and having cocktails in the sun next to the Highline. We had a lovely time. After, Ryan emailed me that he's always adored me but that he was really happy about the man I'd become.

Their two statements, combined with a note Eric Riley had sent me the week before, made me realize that people were noticing something different.

Then I got my mother's card. I spent July 4th with her in Baltimore. Georgi and I drove down. We met Liam and my mom at Donna's. We hit the aquarium. Jon and Lucas and Keena and Charles met us for crabs. Standard visit. But my mom's card said that she's never seen me happier. That I've never looked better. That a bitterness I'd been carrying had been lifted. That I looked comfortable.

These observations by people I love coincide with my rediscovery of the written word. I have picked writing back up and I am enjoying it. Keeping a blog. A journal. A diary. Has been at times the easiest thing in the world. It has been essential to my happiness. And for other periods it has been work. Torture.

But I have found that part of me, the kid who dreamed big and wrote love letters and bad poetry to his boyfriends. To his mother. To the world. That part of me is back. Breathing. Alive. Happy.

The expression the written word provides, the therapy, the shelter, the relief it provides is powerful. And at this point necessary. Strangers are emailing me saying they're enjoying my observations. Other bloggers are sending me notes saying they're enjoying this return to form. And I am even getting hate mail again! This means I've arrived. Again.

Blogging. It's been a part of me for nearly ten years. And it's never been more enjoyable or valued. My life is a love song. You can hear it on the internet.