skytrick

My life as Trick
2002-02-19 03:49:29 (UTC)

The Big Easy and why I hate it. - Part One.

Today I went thrift store shopping.

I LOVE thrift store shopping. I love going through other peoples'
discarded junk and trying to determine what it was that made
someone own a tiny mirror with a painted-on frame that says
"You're dynomite!" on it.

And I love to look and see which place has the most easy-bake
ovens. People always seem to buy them, but throw them away
more quickly that used-up tissue...

(Today's winner was the Salvation Army, with 10 of them. On
their own rack.)

Inevitably, I wind up running about the store, trying on
mismatched clothes and laughing out loud at the fact that some
of them were once expensive and difficult to find items.

And then I relize that there are people there buying items, not
because they are campy and remind them of days gone by, but
because they need a coat.

And I remember a time when things weren't alway so good for
me.

The summer of '93 was not a hppy time for me. I had just run
into the (then) love of my life and I was crazy for him. Literally.

It wasn't easy being gay and Southern Baptist in high school. I
wound up going to a therapist who diagnosed me as being bi-
polar. I went to approximately 4 sessions with her, and, as I had
a problem verbalizing my thoughts and feelings, got nothing out
of those sessions. I quit the sessions and decided that I could
do this without her.

Somewhere along the way and over the years, I learned how to
talk to others, and made friends. I got out of high school and
went on to college, and I met a young man named Elliot. While it
was NOT love at first sight, I did fall in love. The Big "L". It was
a one-sided love affair, though. I was looking for him. He was
looking for anyone else.

I decided that our friendship would just have to suffer if it was
going to, because I was going to tell Elliot that I was in love with
him. And when I did, he would be so overwhelmed with my
outpouring of emotion that we would be together forever. I had
the entire scripting of events worked out in my head.

Too bad nobody gave him the script. ;)

Now, as I said before, I have never been the type of person that
is very good at getting my point across, and, instead of telling
him that I loved him for the myriad of reasons that I really DID
care for him... it came out as crazy jibberish that ultimately
wound up with my eventually driving him away and my
attempting to slice my wrists with a dull razor that put me into a
mental rehabilitation center. And on Prozac.

I stayed there until I finally snapped to and realized that I was no
more crazy than anyone else in this world, and that the only
difference between me and them is that I was weak enough to
think that the only way out of my problems was to give up. So, I
could give in and be crazy or suck it up and be a man about
things and move on with my life.

I'm going to let you determine which venue I chose :)

Being crazy takes a lot out of you mentally, and I let my grades
slip during that unfortunate semester, and I was in danger of
winding up failing out of college.

PLUS, my father decided that I had faked the entire hospital
ordeal in order to get out of college so that my grades would not
count that semester, and to get back at him for some pre-
conceived wrong that he had done to me and my family. I've
always been afraid of my father, but that is another story for
another time. Let's just say we don't "click" right now and be
done with it. O yeah. And I decided that that was a good time to
tell him I was gay, too.

Halftime! Let's recap. Currently, Trick is:

In love with someone who didn't love him back.
Not able to express those feelings without sounding like he's on
crack.
Failing college.
Coming to grips with his being gay.
Having to explain to his father whom he fears more
than anything else at this point that he is gay.
Is suicidal.

Oh. One more tiny thing. If there are two choices presented to
me. I make the wrong one. Every time.

EVERY TIME.

I decided at that point that if anything called for a road
trip, that was it.

New Orleans was 3 hours away from Jackson, and 4.5
hours away from my father.

HAD to be the best choice.

HAD TO BE.

We'll see.




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