Just Be

4/26/2003 We moved in that June.

When my ex and I bought our house, it was brand new and came without a yard. Just dirt. There was a slight rise in the yard which meant we needed a retaining wall. So, stone by stone, we constructed the wall to hold back the dirt from the incline.

On my new path, many people have lovingly suggested I need to learn to just be. 

Just be in the moment. 

Okay, here's the moment I'm in right now. 

I'm a middle-aged single gay man with severe trust issues. 

I find it hard to trust now because after thirteen years together my partner proposed to me, and just twenty-two months later proposed we divorce. Via email. While we were in the same room.

I find it hard to trust when you come to an agreement with someone who then later goes back on his word because it's not in the legal document. After having set precedent to work outside the legal document.

I find it hard to trust now because the first man I met after my divorce wanted to be supportive of me, wanted to be my friend, sent me romantic pictures of sunsets, and flowers. And then said we could never be more than friends when I confessed my love for him.

I find it hard to trust now because the next man I met wanted just a physical relationship. On his terms, nothing that I wanted to do. One-sided.

We began the project almost a year later.

I find it hard to trust now because friends who were very supportive of me during my divorce later told me they never supported marriage equality in the first place.

I find it hard to trust because the media carries stories of parents and politicians lambasting teachers for their children's failures when the parents are not involved with their child's education and the politicians have had no experience in education at all.

I find it hard to trust when stories of teachers molesting children are all over the news, some of them concocted by students or parents angry at the teacher over a grade or discipline.

I find it hard to trust when my best friend who has been by my side daily since the divorce dies and to console me someone sends me a documentary on the mistreatment of animals in American culture and calls me a hypocrite when I challenge the sensitivity of the timing of this 'gift.'

I realize these situations all revolve around individuals and taken singly are painful; yet, collectively, they build up. Each of those individuals is a stone in my wall. The collective distrust and hurt of their revelations has built into a huge stone wall around my heart.

And now.... 

We worked hard to make the pattern look random.

I'm finding it hard to trust myself not to repeat the same mistakes I've made in to not have learned my lessons from the past.

I'm finding it hard to trust myself not to listen to my instinct and walk away from a bad situation.

I'm finding it hard to trust myself and just be when this pain and hurt comes up.

I know it's all happening a reason, and I know I'll get through it and the stones will come down, in my own time and on my terms, no one else's. But, for now, I just need to be someone acknowledging his distrust of the world around him.

You can't begin to correct a problem, until you know what the problem is. And recognizing that you have a problem is the first step on a new journey.

I need to walk my journey at my pace.

For if I walk too fast, I may stumble and fall. If I stumble too many times, eventually I may not want to get up.

I wish the lawn looked this good now!

For a long time.