Every few months I find myself debating whether I should move. But I do not debate if I should move to another city or another state. When I debate moving I debate whether I should move to another country. Another country where I can be myself and not be in a constant fight for equal rights. A country that quite frankly is more modern than the United States.
Today is one of those days that I find myself debating whether I should move to Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, or the Netherlands. These are countries that have taken the significant step and allow gay marriage, gay adoption, and are generally more progressive. I find myself feeling like the Pilgrims and believing that my current government has gotten so bad and out of control that it cannot be stopped and my only option is to find another country to live in.
I always hope that things are going to get better in the United States. I know that eventually gay marriage and gay adoption will be the standard law. However, I also realize that the US has lost its title of true World Leader and probably will never be a true leader again.
I know that things are going to get better in the United States. I know that the grass is not always greener on the other side. But is it going to get better quickly enough?
For today I decide to stay, but I also will continue to do my research and consider if there is no such thing as the American Dream anymore and if I would be better off elsewhere.
I am truly saddened that this is something I have to consider at all, but that is the state of America today.
It is not too late to make your resolutions. In fact, I believe you should make resolutions year round, do not just wait for the new year to get you off your butt and make a resolution.
The problem is most people fail in their resolutions. Most people fail in their resolutions because they are too broad and not specific enough. In my last post I listed my current resolutions; however, before listing them I took my very specific resolutions and broadened them.
Do not resolve to lose weight. Yes set a goal to lose a certain number of pounds, but break that goal into a series of smaller very specific resolutions. For example: I will pack my lunch two times a week instead of going out to eat fast food. Then once you consistently meet that resolution create a new one, I will pack my lunch three times a week.
In my eat healthier and exercise more I promised myself to eat a serving of vegetables at lunch 4 times a week. I am actually doing that right now. On the other hand I promised myself to exercise more. This one is not going so well. I am now changing this one to I am going to spend 30 minutes on my bike 2 times a week.
Additionally, do not resolve to do something you cannot definitively control. For example do not resolve that you are going to get married this year, if you do not already have a wedding date sometime this year. Instead resolve to ask your partner to marry you, or try a new dating site, or get out of the house one night a week and meet people.
Tell people your resolutions. Especially people that you see on an ongoing basis and are going to ask you how they are going. Put reminders on your calendar to remind you to go exercise 2 times a week. Write them down in places that they will constantly prod you so you will feel guilty if you do not follow through.
Finally, do not give up if you are not meeting your resolutions. If you resolved to keep your house clean and find that you are still letting your house become a mess, then take a step back and figure out why you are letting your house become a mess. Then create a specific promise on how you are going to resolve the problem. So if you do not have enough time to keep your house clean because you spend 6PM-10PM in front of the TV, create a promise to yourself not to watch TV from 6-6:30 PM.
Well those are the rules that I follow. I am not always successful, but when I started following these rules I have become much more successful. What about you, how do you make sure you follow through on your resolutions?
This is the time of year that everybody makes their New Year’s resolutions, as if somehow the year changing is magically the time to change your life. I do not really do New Year’s resolutions, I make promises to myself year round about things I want to change. Most of the time I am not successful but then I just try again in 2 months.
However, since this is the time of year everyone talks about them, and maybe if I write them down and tell you about them I will be more successful here are my promises to myself that I am currently working on.
Yes, I know I have not posted in forever. Yes I know Christmas was 2 weeks ago. But I really should have written this post a week ago, and well obviously I did not.
I went home for Christmas and was home for 10 days. This was the first time I have been home after coming out to my family. In general things were fine, but I have this nagging feeling it is because I do not have a boyfriend so my parents can still pretend that I am straight. Things really only got weird on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
My parents are Catholic, I am not. I think my parents have known this for several years, but it was something I never said. So my family went to Christmas Eve mass and I went along to be respectful. However, for the first time I really did not participate in mass. I did not sing, I did not do any of the sayings, and I did not go up for Communion. At least for me it was very weird, I also get the impression that it was weird for my parents too. Nothing extreme or upsetting just weird.
We also drove in 2 cars. My dad and my brother Justin went in one car and the rest of us in the other. Apparently during their drive my dad was in a brooding mood asked my brother if I had talked to him. I had not yet gotten around to coming out to Justin so he had no idea what my dad was talking about. At 1 AM Christmas morning Justin and I are talking, tells me what my dad asked, and I come out to him. No big deal.
Christmas afternoon was more interesting and demonstrated to me how my dad has a real problem with talking about sex. We went to see “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, probably not one of the best choices for family movie. If you have not seen it there are a lot of sex scenes in the movie. Anyway my dad storms out about 2 hours into the movie because of the sex scenes. The rest of us thought the movie was great, but he was extremely upset. The rest of the night was very subdued as a result.
His reaction to this movie told me that for now he at least is pretending to have no problem with the fact that I am gay. However, when I have a serious boyfriend and bring him home, things may change. I am not worried about that day though. I have already made my peace with myself and in the end that is all that matters.
Yes, I know I have not posted in forever. My new job has kept me much busier than I was at my old job, but I am also 100 times happier. I also have been out of town a significant amount, and went 5 days without my personal computer. I know none of those are good excuses but it is what it is.
I also though have not had a lot to talk about. Yes, I know there was a ton of stuff going on in the gay world last week like Hillary Clinton’s speech. Unfortunately when all that was happening I was out of town at training and did not have enough free time to really pay enough attention to it and take the time to write a post. Now, everyone has already posted and I do not have anything left to say that has not already been said.
So, anyway, posting is probably not going to be as frequent in the next couple months as it used to be. Mostly because I am extremely busy at work, and by the time the day is over I do not want to look at a computer screen the rest of the night. But, next week could be interesting as I will be seeing my parents again after coming out to them 3 weeks ago. It will be interesting to see if things are still as awkward as when I left.
I have been noticing an interesting thing on Facebook over the last couple of months. There have been a lot of statuses about marriage equality and gay bullying in my feed. This is not particularly surprising considering I am gay. What is surprising though is that most of these statuses are coming from straight friends.
For example, since Monday several things around gay marriage have been in my news feed posted by friends who are not gay. The Australian marriage equality commercial that has been making its way around, Chick-fil-a and their anti-gay views, and the Iowan who was raised by two moms testifying about marriage equality were all mentioned several times by my straight friends. If I think back 6 months, I cannot recall any of my straight friends posting about gay issues on a somewhat regular basis.
To me, this is evidence that gay people in this country are continuing the hard slog to equality. The estimated 5% of LGBT people in this country are not enough to change the hearts and minds of the entire country. It takes these straight allies becoming more outspoken to continue to make momentum. Seeing these statuses on Facebook gives me new hope that someday we will be equal, and for this I want to thank every straight ally out there who is outspoken about gay equality.
These straight allies have also inspired me to become more outspoken. Before I would very rarely post anything to Facebook about gay equality to Facebook. Now I plan to talk about it a lot more on Facebook. I have long talked about it in person, on this blog, and in comments on other blogs. But due to not being out to my parents, and a desire not to alienate some of my old friends I have avoided discussing gay issues extensively on Facebook.
We need to thank our straight allies and support them. Like their statuses, leave supportive comments, and defend them when that inevitable troll tries to call them douche bags. We can not be afraid to talk about gay issues on the social media forums.