(June 7, 2022 at 4:18 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: In the spirit of something completely different - because fuck it why not - I'll share the most painful mistake of my life. ....thusfar.....
I was just coming out of lochloosa, turning left in hawthorne from 301 from citra onto US20 into gainesville (which had been widened since I last saw it and I remember thinking "fuck, this is nice..there's pavement and errything!")...when my ex wife popped the question. Some background.
I'd taken her to Micanopy before to walk the (still) unpaved streets and show her what made me, where I was from. I sang my heart out to Sherry Fraser up and down the slave fence row. It just echoed and echoed on the endless flat expanse of central floridian swamp. It was one of the happiest places in the world for me, from earlier times. Where they always did the 4th even if you couldn't see your hand in front of your face for the fog - fuck a bunch of safety..there was a holiday to celebrate! THE holiday. The triangle between 301, 20, and 441 is my church. The seat of the divine. The one place on earth where I feel fully myself at all times. The place I take people too....when I want to show them my soft belly. Where I know every rock and tree and creature. The place where, like no other place, I have no need of a guard, I have no need of cover, I have no need of anything. It's all there for me, and no thing and no one could ever dislodge me. What the back of my eyelids are painted like so that anytime I close them I see that.
The question...not...would you marry me...but, "be honest.....do you like women? Have you ever been with a man?" I was floored. I was trying to drive a little red celica through the swamp.... while floored. OFC I like women, here you are, we have a child, was I less than enthusiastic in producing her? It didn't seem that way at the time. This, though, was not the day after our little stroll. This was after a tough relationship, where we'd been married for some time but only saw each other for a few months. IDK what prompted it. Maybe I was too friendly with a gay friend, and she felt unsure. I can't even be angry that she asked. If you find yourself wondering if your life partner is actually attracted to you..you might wanna speak up. But there I was, in my church, in my holy place. I couldn't lie. I couldn't withold the truth. I couldn't bend the truth. If I couldn't be honest there where could I be? So I felt compelled to explain to the woman I'd won over in the cheesiest nerdiest way that.... (some maya angelou shit, took two tries - as in, she didn't notice me so I snuck back under her window low and took off my shirt and walked back in front of her window high.......then pointed to her book that I saw her reading...and said...hey, if you want to know why the caged bird sings, you don't have to read that - I can tell you")....... yeah, okay, sure I am attracted to women but I have been with men.
I knew I'd fucked up...immediately. We'd be divorced and separated by 1k miles in just a few short months. It was the last straw for her. Maybe not that I am what I am, but that I'd never trusted her enough to say so.
@Irreligious Atheist Go pound sand.
Thank you for sharing that. I understand that you take this military stuff super personally and I respect that as this is your life or was your life, but we all just need to accept that different queer people are going to have differences when it comes to positive representation. I never came out to anyone until last year, at the age of 34. Thought I would go to my deathbed never admitting it, but my daughter came out as pan and NB, so of course being me, I had to respond by saying you're not special, and that everyone is a little gay.
