I stopped making New Year’s resolutions for a number of years now. I guess the point of making them was to be able to wash away the sins of the year that just passed. To make right on some things in your life that you have come to the conclusion are detrimental to your existence. You make new goals that aspire to make yourself out to be the image of what your personal perfection is.

Pitty.

Why live a whole year with carrying those extra pounds and then put that weight (sorry couldn’t resist the pun) on yourself in January to eat right and exercise, to lose those pounds and look like those images of physical perfection paraded in movies and television to our believing eyes.

Why after being a total douche bag to those that love you or a doormat for everyone to walk all over and take for granted, you decide that on January 1^st that you will make the effort to be kind to those who love you or punch that tool of a person that has had in for you.

The time to act and make change in your life is right now, right in this moment, whether it is July 21^st or December 31^st. Life is too precious and un-promised to each of us to spend time living with circumstances that negatively affect you.

So with all this high horse inspirational rhetoric that I am spewing out to all five of you reading this, I oddly enough find myself in the position of making a change that coincides with the coming of 2013. Though we are more than two weeks past the New Year, I feel that I must take control of a part of my life that has been grossly mismanaged most of my adult years.

I title my column Larry Life because its about the whimsical little things that I experience or feel inspired to share. Some things are just plain silly. Some more serious, but all have a message I want to express in one way or another to either humor you or make you think…if only for a moment.

I write my words with sincerity and with as much honesty that I can. If I didn’t, I would feel that what I do here is just a farce not worth your reading or my writing.

So I have been Gay for as long as I can remember being self aware…surprise and BFD right?! This is not an issue for me, and I do not wear it as a badge of honor or feel the need to shove what I do with another consenting adult down society’s throat. However on those rare occasions when I feel it necessary to share this inconsequential little tidbit with someone for a reason, I do.

This is one of those times.

I was talking with an acquaintance that is the father of two children and after being married for 20 plus years, divorced and has been single now for close to five. He comes from a large family and as far as he knows, no one in his family knows that he has engaged in any type of homosexual activity.

So he thinks.

Hell, he even has a girlfriend that he declares to be in a committed relationship with for almost two years now. Well that is all fine and dandy but infidelity is infidelity be it whether with someone of the opposite sex, same sex or animal. Though I think screwing the pooch is illegal, so I would caution against that move.

With all this being said, this acquaintance finds it totally acceptable to have relations with another man because he simply says “well that’s different”…so he cruises the personal sections of Craigslist to satisfy his desire.

Now this subject has be debated for years regarding how wrong what he’s doing is on so many levels. Regardless, its unsettling to think that the person you are committed to is having relations with someone other than you.

For me, cheating is cheating, and if you act out either physically or emotionally with a person other than your committed partner without their knowledge, it is wrong. So if you feel what you’re doing is so justified, than why not share what you’re up to with your partner…right?

I do not past judgment on my acquaintance; we all have a path to walk and will have to deal with whatever is at the end of it. Truth be told, I feel pretty sorry for him in that he will probably never be able to find true love completely in just one person.

He says that he is totally happy and that he is truly in love with his girlfriend. Maybe he is on to something and I am the one getting it wrong.

Love for me has been traditional and normal (insert your definition of traditional and normal here) with the exception that who I am able to fall in love with is of the same sex. I have been programmed this way from the very beginning. However, I think true love has been very elusive for me and after this conversation with my acquaintance, I find myself really questioning what it is.

My mother says that true love is being able to wipe someone’s rear end after they have made a bowel movement….love ya mom! Of course she used more descriptive wording. I was just watching a movie when a teenager asked his mother how she knew that she was in love with his father. She said when it hurt when she thought of him. A very Hollywood mellow dramatic response I thought.

A couple I had lunch with at a function recently has been married now over 55 years. When I asked them about their relationship and yes, their love for one another, they smiled, looked at each other and clutched hands tightly. They went on to say in agreement that though their love for each other has evolved from how it was in the early years of their marriage, it’s still very much as solid as it was in the beginning and they could not imagine life without each other.

As I enter my mid 40s, I fear that I have never really experienced true love…or maybe I have and just don’t know how to define it based on who I am and what it means for me. For something that is so glamorized to be the strongest power than man possesses…you know that “love will conquer all” stuff…it is very complex and can be extremely destructive when it goes array.

So now, I find myself on this path to really define what it truly means when I say “I love you” to my partner. It is a belated New Year’s resolution that I find myself declaring.

Guess I’ll lose a few pounds while I’m at it.

L!