Step Two

(I have at least three posts on my mind, so I'll try to get them out quickly... because they're beginning to suffocate me...  For brief background on this post, see Step One)

"You're taking the right steps... you're on the right track."

I leaned against the railing of the AcaTerrace with my crossed arms, taking in Alvin's words.  I had just told him that I struggle with homosexuality, and we then walked from the baseball fields back towards Wiess.

"I mean, acknowledging it and then telling people... that's good.  The Holy Spirit is working in you."

Man, am I ever grateful for his words that night.  I can only trust that God is working in me.

...

"It was like it didn't affect the rest of your life, so why tell people?"

It was the next night, and Angela and I were making fruit jello (fruit in jello?  jello-encased fruit?) at third-floor Wiess kitchen.  I had told her that this struggle had of course been on my mind for years, but I just never thought it was important to tell other people.
And she was so right--I had been compartmentalizing this because I thought that it would just disappear over time.  What was the point of telling people I was gay, only to tell them a couple months or years later, "Op, just kidding!  I'm straight now"?  Besides, if I hoped to get married someday, how could I possibly get in a relationship with a girl when everyone thinks I'm gay?
So I didn't explicitly tell anyone... but then my situation didn't change.


Except now that I've told a couple handful of people (*edit* don't feel bad if I didn't tell you... it's just that we probably never had the chance to have a good heart-to-heart after March, or you just didn't ask me point-blank about homosexuality), I've realized that telling people makes me acutely aware of my struggle... which of course can be a very good thing.  I can realize my sins, ask for forgiveness, and work with God to improve on them.

Yet recently, like I said before, I've been inexplicably depressed at random times.  I guess my difficulty now is not hating myself.  For me, I've always known and felt that God loves me, but I suppose you'll have those times when you just don't love yourself.  I just hate how my struggle makes everything so complicated.  All my relationships with people are thrown into disarray due to my homosexuality.

Eh, perhaps I'm being too hard on myself.  If I were straight, I'd still have similar problems. (hmm, saying "If I were straight" and talking about myself as being gay... I still can't fully accept.  Maybe I should say bi?  But I like that even less.)  But at least they'd be more socially acceptable.

Haha, and since when should I care if I'm "socially acceptable" or not?  The thing about me is that I get a perverse satisfaction by being in a crappy situation sometimes.  I'd much rather be in a bad situation than have someone else be in that situation.
It's like, that way, I can complain about how sucky my life is and people can sympathize and be like, "Wow, yeah, that is sucky."  Of course, I know my life is really good in comparison to the rest of the world (maybe this self-handicapping and desire for pity applies most academically, by loading up on a difficult courseload).  And even when things suck for me, I don't usually complain much in part because I think someone else surely has it worse, in part because it simply isn't that horrible, and in part because I don't want to waste anyone's time by complaining and making people pity me.

Self-pity, though?  I have plenty of that.  Or maybe more like self-frustration.  I have a LOT of that.  ;)  Self-pity often  follows, though, like how it is now.

In terms of telling more people, however, I'd like to be as brave as Clara was at CCF's End-of-Year Party (and ooh, so thankful for God's protection of the sophomores in the car accident that night... may I never forget how blessed that was).  But like Johnny told me a couple weeks ago, you have to be careful that telling people doesn't become the end... it shouldn't end up being a "Look I confessed, I'm such a bold Christian" (which I'm pretty sure I'd be guilty of doing).

I'll pray to see what God wants me to do for next year sharing, and for my life.  I feel like I'm going to get married since I have such romanticist views of everything, and I love just the idea of marriage, romance, having a wife, having a family, etc. But maybe that's not what God wants for me... and that scares me.
It's like Clara said, everyone wants to be loved.  So many people want a significant other to share life with--but then again, there are so many other ways one can be loved and fulfilled than just having a spouse... hm.

So anyway, do I need to be more broken and vulnerable about homosexuality in front of people?  Ugh, why does life have to be so complicated?  xD