XII: Finding Myself in a Closet

I decided during this time that I needed to figure some stuff out.  I had put it off for as long as I felt like I could.  I had continually found myself crushing on guys, yet dating girls.  The result was always the same.  I would be longing for love, would hook up with a girl.  She would begin to have feelings for me and I couldn’t commit because I didn’t want to have to give up my guy crushes.  So it always ended badly.

The girl from Florida was the last girl I would ever date.  I really liked her and realized that I hurt her very much.  I couldn’t do that to anyone anymore.  So I decided that I wouldn’t date another girl until I figured that out.  I started to slowly talk about my sexuality and even refer to myself as bisexual.  Even this was enough to put many people close to me in shock.  I certainly found out quickly who loved me unconditionally as I started exploring all this.

The range of emotion that I was experiencing at that point in my life was all over the spectrum.  I felt anger, regret, excitement, loneliness, shame and maybe a little hope buried under all that.

At first I began to flirt with a guy online, this was back in the good old days when everything was done in bulletin boards and such.  I got involved in an MOO that was like an interactive text based virtual reality.  This was before the world wide web and we would have to dial up to the university and then hop over to the MOO server.  It took forever to do anything and it was all just lines of green text on a monochrome screen.  

So through our chats I became more and more comfortable with my attraction to other men.  I had begun to express a more feminine look and for a period of time was very endogenous, which was kinda my aim.

Along with my online chatting I met a real live guy during this time.  When I met him however, I never expected us to end up dating.  It wasn’t until I was telling him about a book that I was writing about my lost opportunities for love called “Cupid’s Tears” that the topic was broached.  I told him that much of it had to do with my denial of my sexuality.  He then exclaimed that he was bi as well.  I think he was actually more bi-curious in retrospect.  I was young and new to all this so that was enough for me.

We began a very adolescent like exploration of our sexuality that I thought was very comforting at the time.  I then started to get it, the whole love thing.  I remember thinking to myself that this is what people must be talking about, writing songs about, smiling about.  It was a beautiful feeling as short lived as it was.

I soon moved into a small apartment in town determined to earn my living as a psychic.  I didn’t do very well, I was far too interested in having fun and exploring my new life.  As the friendship continued I was pretty sure I was gay, the bi part of it was the last thing I was clinging on.  My friend however was swinging the opposite way and wanted to keep our relationship a secret.  So at the moment when I wanted to come crashing out of my closet, I stayed in for his sake.

Once it was obvious that we were done, I came out, loud and proud.  My dad called this my Liza Minnelli phase.  Oh, That does remind me about another interesting thing that happened around this time.  I reconnected with my dad and I’m quite glad I did.

I had called my Grandma and she had told me that Dad was back in town and had got married again.  She told me I should call him.  I felt horrible for not staying in touch with my Grandma, but I didn’t mainly because I didn’t want contact with him.  I was so hurt and didn’t feel like I could handle his drinking in my life.  Timing is however key and at that moment, I felt very alone.  My mom didn’t react to the news of my relationship with a guy well, and I wasn’t speaking to my brother.  So I called.

I ended up talking to his new wife for a very long time.  I liked her and told her I was gay and I wasn’t sure how dad would act about all that.  As it turned out Dad kinda knew because of my rather close friendship with my hippy friend in Indianapolis.   I mean I guess it was kinda obvious.  So Dad called me when he got home and invited both me and my boyfriend over for dinner.  That scored major points with me and I forgave Dad for a lot of things on that day. We basically stayed in touch after that point until his death.  Not always consistently but we did stay in touch.  

I can’t tell you how strange it was to meet Dad’s new wife, who I would later affectionately call my “evil step mother”, only because she was actually very kind to me. To top it off having Dad and her meet my boyfriend.  Hell to have a boyfriend at all, and to introduce him that way to a parent was very strange.

Neither of my parents have ever met anyone I have dated since that time.  For whatever reason it was only important that one time.  Honestly there were only a few that I really cared for on that deep of a level.  I will always love him deeply, I hope he has found all he is looking for.

We split and remained friends for some time after.  Until I basically started living a pretty outwardly gay life.  We severed our ties around that time.  During our dating I was still chatting with a guy online.  I mean these days that sounds so bad.  In those days however it was so far from real life, it wasn’t really seen as a threat by anyone.  They knew about each other and it didn’t really matter to either one until my relationship ended and my online romance became my primary one.

So by this time I had moved out of my apartment and moved into a house with a very unstable older lesbian.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was on many levels, but wasn’t perfect by any stretch.  I had built a gay community and was even dating a bit here and there.  One of the guys I was dating would become a valuable friend that I still adore to this day.  He showed me how okay it was to be gay and was also a crazy aloof artist.  It didn’t help that he was pretty.  I would have fallen for him hard, but something told me not to.  I’m glad because I could have and it would have destroyed me.

Anyway, I went back to my crazy magickal practices as a way to manage my grief.  I walked ever so gently into my darkness, the warm darkness that would eventually define me for many people.  I was no longer just angry I was also tragic and began to identify with the many vampire characters in literature.  I became a small shadow creeping around the world, looking for power, meaning, happiness and love.

XI: The land of Gators and Monsters

After it was quite obvious that I was not fit for married life, I decided a geographical fix was in order. So I contacted one of my old radio bosses from Virginia and secured a position at his new radio station in Bradenton, Florida. It didn’t pay the greatest, but it was a radio gig and more importantly it was in Florida.

So two of my friends decided we would make a road trip of it, driving from Indiana to Florida in a van. The trip was loads of fun with only a couple of weird moments. One of them involved a little place in Little Beaver, Pennsylvania.

We had gotten a little turned around, I think we must have needed gas or some such. Anyway, we were in this little town in the middle of nowhere and I really wanted some coffee. So we found this little diner, so as my companions were looking at the map, I was making my way across a gravel parking lot toward this very uninviting diner. I say uninviting because on the marquee it simply said “Strangers”. It didn’t say “Welcome strangers” or “Go away strangers”. It simply said “Strangers”, damn creepy if you ask me.

So there I am walking toward the diner when I heard tires screeching and a beer bottle comes flying through the air. I then heard someone yell “Faggot” as the bottle crashes on the gravel in front of me. At this point I turn on my boots and begin to head back to my comrades, feeling that I didn’t really need coffee that bad.

So we decided to get some directions after that little greeting. We found a convenience store and upon pulling up, quickly realized that is where all the kids hung out. So looking around we found a delivery driver and asked him how to get to the interstate. He looked us up and down, and after telling us he added “you should go before it gets dark”. We all felt unnerved by the statement, even more because it came from a delivery driver. So we hopped in our chariot, and away we went.

My time in Florida started off pretty great, I stayed with my boss and his wife for a week or two, and then they helped me secure a small apartment close to the station. I started to meet people very quickly and it wasn’t long at all before I had a new life I was living. I still had to deal with the fallout from my brief marriage, but for the most part the whole thing started off good.

Then the station and so my job and much of what I was basing my life on at the time were in question. I had began to work on a radio show called “You will Believe” that was going to be a kind of new age, metaphysical talk show, and had even starting selling advertisements for the show. The Station went off the air for what was supposed to be a short time. The time just dragged on and I got deeper and deeper into crazy having nothing but magick and sex to fill my time.

The time I spent in Florida was quite fun for the most part. We would take weekend trips to the Florida Keys. I ran around naked a whole lot, people with pools didn’t seem to mind a naked occultist running around. So I discovered a couple of my favorite things while there. Travel and being naked.

Eventually I gave up on the station and decided to hatch a new plan. I was going to have a traveling occult store. I was going to take all that I had learned from selling shirts with Rod, and all the stuff I had learned from working at the occult store in Virginia and combine them into a traveling metaphysical shop. I thought it could be useful to all those folks in tiny towns that wouldn’t have access to such things. I think at this point I decided that I liked to travel, I had caught the gypsy bug.

So I contacted my brother and to my surprise he agreed to help me finance the venture. So after some negotiating we struck up a deal and I began to contact both suppliers and the organizers of shows to get the ball rolling while I waited for the first chunk of capital to come from my brother. Again I waited far too long and lost the home I was living in. I kept the faith however and moved in with a very tall native American with some friends.

At this point I was dating a little punk girl and practicing the Black Sun System of magick in the extreme. The combination of sex, magick, and being displaced put me in quite a crazy mind set. Although I felt very justified in my rage, in retrospect I was quite insane.

After things came to a head in the house, I was told I was evil and that I had to leave. In those days being told I was evil didn’t phase me, in fact I looked at it as a compliment in some way. Having not received the start-up funds and getting the runaround about it. I decided to take my crazy ass back to Indiana and confront my brother about it all. Not one of my prouder moments.

So burning as many bridges as I could on the way out of town, three of us piled into a car and headed north with whatever would fit into the car. The rest I left for my native American friend for letting us stay. He was always nice to me, it was the owner of the house that thought I was a psycho. He was most likely correct.

Now let me set this next scene up for you. It must have been quite a sight. I had a spiked Mohawk, but the back was long and braided. So I must of looked like some kind of alien. I showed up at my brother’s house all crazy. My poor sister in law had to deal with me, because he wasn’t home. When he got there we had words and he tried to give me a check for gas basically. I was so furious at that point that I ripped it up and tossed it in the air.

Even though my actions were being fueled by a rage spawning from a sense of victimization. My actions although radical were very honest in those days. I did not mask anything, what you saw was what you got. Although I was completely out of control, I believe it was a necessary stage of my personal evolution. It was in many ways my spiritual adolescents.

It would be some years before I would trust my brother again, this was the second time he left me hanging. It was a pattern that would be played out several more times in my life before I got the lesson in it all. Having a brother that is so very different than myself has been the source of many great lessons. It has been a constant source of both frustration and perspective. I would be a much different person if I had not had him in my sphere. I am grateful for him and all he brings to the table.

After that whole episode the crazy kids in my caravan and myself made our way to Mishawaka where we ended up crashing on the couch of a friend of mine. That all started to get very complicated for me personally. I had somehow decided at that point that I didn’t want to date girls anymore, and so wasn’t very interested in the poor girl I had dragged along with me on this adventure. Not to mention the girl we were staying with had several conflicts with my my traveling buddies.

What ended up happening is the girl I was dating went back to Florida and my other friend stayed in town, but found another place to stay. I stayed on that couch for sometime. It became my place of refuge as I figured out my sexual identity.  

X The American Dream

Upon moving back to Indiana, I stayed with an old and dear friend of mine that I had reconnected with on my last visit. She had drank with me, gone to two proms with me and to my excitement she also had began to pursue the mystical side of things. She offered her couch to me and I eagerly accepted.

I began immediately to rekindle my relationship with my astral buddy Terri. We began to see each other quite regularly and before too long were dating. Our dating reached a serious point and we began to make plans to get married. My american dream was coming true! A small house, two beautiful kids and a wife with mutual interests and a deeply spiritual nature. She even seemed to accept the idea that I was not quite sure about my sexuality. It seemed perfect for me.

Meanwhile back in my friends tiny apartment I continued to work my own personal brand of magick and mysticism. It was during this time that I had my second direct experience with emptiness. I was taking a long bath and meditating. In those days I would use baths as a kind of deprivation tank, floating my head on the water while breathing or chanting. This particular time I was working with an aspect of Ain Soph, which means no limit and is actually the two opposing forces butting up against each other.

The meditation consisted of meeting any thought with its opposing thought until the mind was clear of all thought. In other words, if I thought of black, I would then think of white, good-bad, in-out and so on. I was doing this for some time and then it began to happen on its own. So fast that my conscious mind could not keep up with it. It was like running through a forest so fast that you almost couldn’t avoid the trees. Then coming to a vast and empty clearing. Only the clearing that I reached was in my mind, and it was clear of all thought. I recall gasping and then losing consciousness. The void that I had encountered was incomprehensible and my brain just shut down. I’m not sure how long I was unconscious, but when I came around I could see the universe pulsating. It was like seeing God breath. I was watching matter itself expand and contract with a distinct rhythm. For some time after that I would rock back and forth to the rhythm I had discovered. Still to this day, I get a sense of that rhythm especially while chanting or performing Reiki.

My relationship with Terri continued and I soon moved in with her to help her recover from a surgery. We had silver rings made that represented Ain and made planned out our wedding. We would have a small private ceremony at Camp Chesterfield with either Hoyte or Lilian performing the nuptials.

On our wedding day we went to camp walked around camp got a hotel room and met up with one of my old roommates from Virginia who performed a magickal marriage for us in one of the shrines. The next day we informed my family that I was getting hitched and they could come if they wanted. Needless to say they were more than a little confused, but to their credit, a handful showed up and my brother even had an impromptu reception at his house. It was however far more attention than either me or Terri really wanted.

We settled back into our quiet little life in Michigan. The cracks began to show almost immediately, I was battling with smoking, missing my solitary study and was generally not a very good husband. Terri needed so much more than I was really willing to give and the more she pulled the more I tugged away. I loved being a stepdad however and spent as much time playing with the kids as I could.

It all came to a head when I received a letter from a guy I had been interested in from Virginia. She knew all about him, but took the letter as a sign of my continued interest in him. This caused a huge fight that I don’t think our relationship ever fully recovered from.

Soon after this I left, going back to my friends small apartment to decide my next move. I got in contact with my old boss from Virginia who had relocated to Florida and secured a job. Anything to get me out of town and away from my American dream turned nightmare.

It was anything but a clean break, I had a couple of meetings with Terri to work things out. I was like a wild animal who had just escaped capture at that point. I was overly cautious, suspicious and unwilling to feel cornered or trapped. That is not really a very good attitude for working out a marriage. So I fled to Florida to continue my spiral down.

Now, it is important to note some of the very important events that took place during my short time as a husband. I was introduced to Zen meditation, found I really was good with kids, found my appreciation for art and realized I had absolutely no mind for astrology.

I think I also realized that I love artists and if I ever do find that special someone, they will most likely be an artist. I learned from Terri that artists are crazy in a very beautiful way. A way that I like, they see the world in a very different way than I most people. So my marriage to Terri was more of a marriage to art and spiritual practice, in that way, it has been quite successful.