What should I do with the filthy past? Bury it deep, tear it apart, raise it on a flagpole? How much of me is that old me, the me I no longer am, the me I hold up to see, to say look how far you’ve come ?
I harbor few regrets, and most of my damage was interior. But there was a moment, in the beginning of my five-plus year relationship, when I lied. And that lie, as lies do, gathered surrounding earth in its downhill descent. Was the relationship built on a lie? That’s a bit dramatic. But maybe we were sustained on lies. Then things changed. As David Sedaris put it, As a perverse and incredibly boring experiment, I am now trying to prove that I can get by without the drugs and the drinking. As the experiment continued, the lies stopped working. I couldn’t do both, something had to give, and eventually it was us.
And now I’ve wrapped romance around Ski; distorting his simple, handsome features into a mask I’d energetically French-kiss as my personal movie’s ballad swelled up; our embrace bathed in rosy, soft-focused lighting. Oh, we all do it, I know. But the mask has tormented me for over a year. And if I’m gonna share a little cabin with him next month up at the River, the torment’s exit is required.
Why do I glamorize the down-to-earth? Why do I imagine I could fall helplessly in love with a good-hearted, sexy man whose last favorite book was the Harry Potter series? I’m an asshole, I know. But such love only works in the movies.
As the Tattooed Monk put it last night, I like to think about things. I live a lot of my life through my thinking, I think about living, I question life and I question myself and you know what? That’s probably not going to change. The Tattooed Monk and I can talk easily for hours. Ski? Um, no. As much as I hate to admit it, no.
As with the Ex, I could fall for the what-you-see-is-what-you-get-ness, and later fuck things up when my desire for intellectual stimulation led me astray. What I need is blue-collar looks, grad-school brains. Does that make me a snob? Or just hard to please? I belong, firmly, in the camp that finds prison, the military, the gym, the ranch, and the delivery truck unquestionably hot. Circuit, chicken, Queer as Folk? Not so hot. I’m a cliché, I’m a stereotype, I’m a market niche. But I’m me, the now me, the truer me. The me I’ve always wanted to be. (And…cue Enya soundtrack)