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 1st 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 21st or December 31st. 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!
Kelly Sisco • Jan 21, 2013 at 9:10 am
Hi Larry,
I see that you were thinking hard about the new year and how you wanted to improve your life. I have been thinking about that too myself as well. Every time a new year starts most people look back on the past year and say they “Shoulda, Coulda Woulda” have done more or did things differently. For the month of January mostly people give it their all to make this change but as the months and years progress most people fall back into their old ways and then when that year ends most people beat up on themselves all over again and the cycle continues. I wonder why this is so much but I guess it’s just a part of being human and making mistakes. Life is not easy and as college students we are just figuring ourselves out, especially if you are going to college and you are in your 20′s. But young or older everyone goes through periods of time when they do not feel like they have given their best but life moves forward if you are ready to move with it or not. People can only do the best they can with what they are given and New Years Resolution’s put too much pressure on ourself because we all know that we will have a hard time keeping everything we set out to keep. But it is good to think about the things we have to change in our lives and to try and become the best people that we can possible become! For me I joined the New York Sports Club and have been attending their classes three times a week to stay healthy and because they are just simply fun and bring joy to my life. You talked about loosing weight and that is a main resolution that most people make each new year but have a hard time keeping and that is also why the gyms are very crowd in the months of January and February and then not as crowd as the year moves on because people could not keep their resolution mainly because everything else in life got in the way. Larry, you also talked about true love and for me now I have real love from my parents and family currently but not from a boyfriend because I never found that someone who has given me that true real love. I have male friends who care about me but that is different and you are not alone Larry. This piece showed me that I am not alone in much of the ways that I feel and think and also in how I live my life. We as humans are more similar to each other then we even realize and have many of the same thoughts believe it or not.
Happy and Healthy 2013 !! – Kelly Sisco