Stream of Conciousness

So now I smile.
I have a crippling social fear.
But for now, I smile.

I look back, over the past few years, as I began to find who I was,
nee who I am.

I was worried, nee I am worried.
But no longer over the same things.
I thought being gay would make me lose my entire previous identity, like I had seen it do to others.

Gay is not who I am, it is a part of who I am. But I am composed of many other things (and these, I don't care if anyone knows), from blood, and guts, and marrow to comedy, and miss-matching clothes.

So I smile.
I even went on a date.  It was horrible,
But I went.

He seemed nice, but I just couldn't do it yet.
And he was a nurse.
And even I don't know what that means.

Everything I do, that is at all sexual or romantic, I must constantly play in my head, on loop, repeated, all day, every day, to analyze if what I did could somehow damage the life I currently am living.

That was just a revelation. I'd never said that to myself before, but that's really what it is.

It's a process.
I know that.
I'm relatively smart.
I've got a good sense of humor,
But I worry that I will never love.

I know that I could have sex.
I've done it.
But anytime, I think I'm about to get close to another man,
I find a way to kill it.
Or at least internally, I turn myself off from him.

So, around people, I smile.
Even though I'm always thinking.
Who officially knows?
Who probably knows?
Who doesn't know?
Who can't I tell?

Then when I have down time, I mentally list every man I know that is gay, or frankly that I want to be gay, and I picture us together forever. Married, laughing, putting up a Christmas tree, riding our bikes. In every fantasy, I'm so happy. I'm in love, or what I think love must feel like. And he loves me, and it's perfect.

Then I meet someone, and I become afraid. I can show affection only through touch and not through words. I don't know how to be loving. And I fear I never will, because I'm growing older, and I have not practice.

But with each passing day, I hope that love will either strike me, or I will gain more confidence in just being me.

And to help myself along, just like Lisa Simpson, I smile.