#lifelearninglessons

Well, it is not stormy yet but you can feel it coming in. There are momentary breaks of sun through the thick clouds, the wind ramps up quickly spiraling in the neighbors yard outside the window to my right. It is days like this I wonder if I would have survived had we not opened the living room up for more light. I will come back to this another time. I have been thinking a lot lately about life lessons I have learned. I think one moment in my life that molded me into a young man is when I learned that there are NEVER fairytale endings in life.  The spotlight is on us.  Going into my senior year of high school, the varsity football team spent the off-season being projected as one of the best teams in Section V at the time and the other - well, the story starts with them and also ends with them. Training camp session after training camp session I worked as hard as the next guy and I was only a back-up receiver. We began to grow closer through the season, we were winning games at large, and I was seeing more field time than I imagined I would. I was living my dreams and some of my best friends were around me. We finished the regular season undefeated. I won’t ever forget the electricity in practice the week before sectionals started.  I played in two sectionals games, my defining moment to myself wasn’t the touchdown I scored the year before but in the second game when I got bowled over by someone the other team. We were away from the play, I set my feet and set up the block. The play whistled dead and at the exact moment I get run over by the guy I knew was going to be coming in for the block. I peeled myself up off the ground and went right back for another play. This time the run came my way and I blocked the same kid for my team to pick up some yardage. But hell - this story is NOT about me. It is sectional finals the stadium is filled on both sides for both teams. This is the match-up every one predicted in the beginning of the season. Halftime: We go into the trailer ahead by three scores. There was a weird feeling in the air that we could tell we were out of gas and they were just getting going. The tied the game with a couple minutes left in the game. It was a back and forth battle while no one picked up a first down for a possession. Your best friend tells you “we’ve got this, don’t you worry” with his arm heavily rested across your shoulders. The time is ticking down. 

And I’m not talking about common core testing. 

I’m sorry to myself that it has been so long since I wrote but things have just not been well.

Within the last two weeks my health deteriorated quickly, I was unsure what was happening but I told myself it could not be anything bad. I desperately hoped it was my hormone levels being low, I called off of work and got my blood work done for my endocrinologist. While I was at it, I got tested. I was sure that my safety precautions meant that this was just a formality of hitting my three months of being in an open relationship, always better safe than sorry.

A few more days pass as I await answers from anybody and everybody. I thought I figured out what was wrong on my own and self-medicated. The first day after the medicine I was fine, even enough to run the Gay5k in a time of 30:32, but shortly after I began to spiral out of control again. Of course, there is never a more inopportune time to not feel well than Pride weekend. Saturday I dragged myself out of the house, I went to Momentum and saw my friends but sheepishly hung low when I really just wanted to let loose and dance my feelings away. I ended the night only being able to stick it out for one set of the drag show at The Waiting Room. I hate feeling under the weather because I become a hermit. As if my boyfriend needs any more reason to think I am unhappy. I woke up Sunday morning to bleeding from “Parts Unknown” and immediately my dysphoria took over. I skipped my first pride in 8 years as I buried my face in a pillow.

I couldn’t cry. All I wanted to do was let it out and then find myself somewhere in adulthood to get help.

As night fell and the pride festivities ended, my boyfriend came home to me still upset and frightened. I tried to force myself to sleep until I decided this was too much of an emergency.

“We have to ensure there is blood in your urine before we can treat you.” I couldn’t begin to describe to the doctor that my urine was ALL blood. I walked to the bathroom after disclosing my transgender status and any other concerns I had and I peed in that cup. The nurse looked concerned when she walked back into the exam room and took the cup away. I was falling apart. After a wait they prescribed me two pills, one for the UTI that I was diagnosed with and one to clear the blood in my urine.

No later then I walked out the door I got the worst phone call. I white-knuckle drove my whole way home knowing that things could be radically different from this moment on. I got home and belly-flopped face first onto the couch next to my boyfriend. “You don’t look happy,” he said to me. “I’m not“ as I burst into tears. I told him about the phone call and that I was headed to go get the medication I needed to be healthy again.

I felt lost, alone, helpless & hopeless, betrayed, a traitor myself, angry, embarrassed. The list of emotions could go on forever as I slowly made my way through another short week of work (after calling off on Monday to cope with the news).

So here I sit on Friday: no closer to an answer on who, where, or when but have answered the what and I still feel confused. Why: I probably deserve this for the things that I have done in my lifetime, but he doesn’t. He never asked for this, I did. He didn’t use the freedom of the open relationship, I did.