Family for a reason

I've always wondered why the gay community always refers to it's own as "family".

A few weeks back I asked a close friend of mine this question and he explained it much better than I will now but overall it really made sense and I wanted to share that with you, among some other things I've come to experience since this whole coming out thing 2.5 years ago.

For the most part, the gay community as a whole is subject to controversy, homophobia, and a lot of social pressures that just aren't there for the straight community. Many of us have become distant or even shunned from our families, and those that haven't for the most part even still don't have that same connection that straight people do. There are many things that no matter how close you are with your family you probably just can't talk about around them that straight people can. For these reasons, among others, gays have banded together and replace this human connection with the people around us. Friend or foe there is always that common ground amongst gays and when I hurt the most, when times are rough...I can't go to my family and I have to go to my gay friends. It's for this reason that the term family truly fits the situation. In essence, the gay community is one big family because we have been forced to band together and in a lot of instances, it's the closest thing to family we've got.

It was interesting explaining this to a friend of mine tonight. We had a pretty deep conversation about being gay in general and how it differs from being straight (other than the sex part of course). Before I came out it always seemed like comparatively what I thought were friends back then would now be in the acquaintance column. Reason being in the straight world, friendship is much different. The amount of effort put forth on both sides of the relationship as well as the bond shared between friends is vastly different. Coming out has had a dramatic effect on my definition of a friend.

Of course there will always be those acquaintances in gay world as well, but in general the true friends I have always seem closer than those I had when I was in the closet. It's possible that I subconsciously put that distance between my straight friends on purpose to protect myself, but in all honesty there is just a much stronger connection now. Of course, there are much fewer of these "friends" in the gay community but not surprising given there are simply fewer gay people around.

After coming out, slowly but surely I began to drift from those old circles and join new ones and the new circles always seemed so much tighter than the old ones. I've been lucky enough to maintain some of those old connections but you slowly begin to realize how you may have thought being gay wouldn't change things...but it truly does.

An old friend of mine from when I was 10 years old was married last weekend. As I browsed facebook and read about it, I realized I was the only one in our circle that was not invited. You might argue that it's possible I just drifted away, but I definitely didn't drift any more than the rest of the group did. College and military, among other things, caused the group to drift apart but it's hard seeing a bunch of wedding photos and all of your old friends having fun and I knew nothing about it. Then it sort of hit me that being gay will cause this to happen more and more often. In fact about a year ago a friend from college did the same thing. He was married and I was the only one in the group not invited. I guess subconsciously no one wants a gay man to come to their straight wedding...what would the parents think?!?! It really is depressing though to know that even though these people are my friends and accept me (at least on the surface), they still are hesitant (maybe subconsciously or consciously, I'll never know) to invite me to such important events in their life because of my lifestyle choices....no...not choices...lifestyle.

I suppose this is just something I will have to get used to, but it's just sad really. I've been asked on several occasions whether I would chose to be straight if given the opportunity...Make all the difficulty and challenge go away and be able to live a simple, "normal" life. and my answer is always the same.... no. I would definitely not chose the easy way out. Not because I find this life challenging and that I have to prove something to myself. but more because this is who I am and I wouldn't change it for the world. When I ask others this question I get the same response many times, and it's always yes if I could be straight I would. To be honest, in my opinion, it's a dumb question anyway because you can't chose to be straight just as you can't chose to be gay. You can lie to yourself and the world and fake it but truth of the matter is you're not going to change. It can't happen so why ask?

Sure, I wish things were easier, and I wish I would get invited to the big important life events for my friends. Sometimes though it's just not in the cards. I'm proud of what I am, and I'm proud of the fact that I am embracing it. I wouldn't chose to be straight because gay is who I am, and this is how I was made. To chose to be something else would be just that...something else. I would cease to be myself at that point, and no matter what it's just a lie. No matter what you believe God's stance is on the gay issue is irrelevant...one thing is for sure, last time I checked lying was bad too. I must say that being Agnostic I really don't care what God's stance (if there is one) is on homosexuality because there is nothing I could or would do about it anyway (and if you want my opinion I don't think he/she/it cares one bit to be honest with you). Why would something so insignificant to what makes me a good person or not matter? Being gay makes me no less of a human, no less of a man, and no less of a good person; Why should I be judged as if it does?

If there was one thing I could tell you from all this it would be that if you're truly committed to yourself (as you should be), and want to embrace the life you have chosen, then sadly you're going to have to accept a bumpy ride. Being gay can be a real bitch, but if life was all pink ribbons and butterflies then it would be pretty fucking boring. I'm thankful for the family and friends I have, and I try to hold on to them as dearly as possible. I'm only in this world for a short time anyway so learning to not sweat the little things and stop to breath every now and again is perhaps the most important thing you'll ever know. Remember no matter how bad things get life will go on. You'll meet new people, discover new things, and I promise you despite the challenging times there will always be happy ones to fill in behind them if you're open to them and don't get too hung up on the past.

Goodnight and Love Always,
Rob

What a day...

So I had somewhat of an interesting day today...hmmm...where should I start.

Last week I decided it was time to order business cards. All my contact information has changed as well as my address and I wanted to reflect that on my new business cards. I called my admin and had him order a box of cards for me and when they got here today I made a bitter realization....those fatal words, "environmental engineer" underneath of my job title. "Oops!," I proclaimed. You see, state law prohibits ANYONE from calling themselves an engineer without having a professional engineering license. I am currently working on mine but I won't have it for another 3 years or so. I guess the most frustrating part is we are really trying hard not to spend money as an organization within the company and here I go ordering the wrong thing on my business cards. It was just stressful that I had to reorder them and now I have 250 cards that are basically trash.

So what happened next you ask?!?! lol...

At around 4 pm today I was just about ready to leave my office when I decided I would do one last thing. So I moved some things around and it took me about 15 minutes to try and figure out how to dismantle part of my cubicle because I didn't want it there anymore...and while I'm in the midst of doing that.."wee ooh wee ooh wee ooh wee ooh!!" the siren comes over the CB radio...."Attention Attention, we have a gas detection at the bulk silane system, all responders please go to response channel one!"

That's never good news at 4:15 on a friday...especially not when it's Silane...

Let me break it down.

Silane is a gas that is made up of Silicon and Hydrogen. SiH4 is the chemical formula. This gas, at very low concentrations is EXTREMELY explosive in air. It is simply put, a "pyrophoric." Essentially once this gas comes into contact with oxygen it spontaneously combusts to form water vapor (H2O) and Silicon Dioxide (sand). Not the solid form of sand but the vapor form of sand...

Anyway, bad stuff... We have a bulk delivery system because it keeps the massive amounts we have in storage AWAY from the building...needless to say why...

Well I tuned into the response frequency hoping that I wouldn't have to take IC (incident command). Thankfully someone did that for me. So I continued to listen in incase they needed help while I finished what I was working on. Then the dredful words...."EHS are you on channel?"

"SHIT!" I said. I responded, "EHS go ahead"...So what happened was a detection probe picked up on about 2-3 ppm (parts per million) of silane. However, that probe tends to mess up so they decided to double check with a handheld silane meter. The meter was also reading the same. When I got out there as we were measuring around trying to pick back up on the silane (it had spiked but was no longer picking up), suddenly another spike, this time up to 7, then 13 ppm...(that's actually scary high). the loudest alarms you've ever imagined start blaring and we all start....running...like hell. Luckily nothing happened and once again the detections subsided. However, this was serious. We called out repair technicians and proceeded to shut-down the factory. (about half the factory uses Silane). This is bad news because now it's going to start costing major bucks because we are no longer making product. As they begin to purge the system flames begin shooting out the top of the exhaust vent because the silane is spontaneously combusting. The next few HOURS were spent trying to find where this leak was and it eventually boiled down to a small gasket (about $5) was leaky. So low and behold it was 6 pm. Factory management was breathing down our necks to get the system back online so the could turn on production, my boss was calling me frantically trying to find out what was going on, the technicians in their explosion proof garments were out in the 100 degree heat dehydrating, and I was running around trying to manage the situation.

Luckily all finally came to a resolution to the point where I could go home, although they are probably still working on it, but they were able to turn on the back-up system to at least get the factory running while they fixed the leaking gasket. The day was saved and life goes on.

So that was pretty much my excitement for the day, i'll keep you posted if anything else interesting happens.... until then

peace!

A Selfish Realization

Have you ever sat back and wondered how different things would be if perhaps you had taken the other turn? I don't speak literally of course, but let's say if you had been faced with a tough decision and chosen the other path, how things would have come to be? It's really interesting sometimes when I sit back and ponder on some of the past decisions I've made and how they have affected my life so far.

I know I know...you're probably wondering why I'm suddenly talking about something like this when I always seem to preach about owning your decisions, not living in the past, never having regrets, etc. I hold all of those philosophies close and try to live them every day, but sometimes it's fun to sit back and think about things like that. I can safely say I still don't regret anything in my past, I'm pretty content with the decisions I've made and where it's led me. It's sad to see close friends drop by the wayside because I see them choosing the other road though. I try to step in but honestly sometimes it just isn't worth the effort.

Today for instance, led me to imagine what a close friend of mine's life would be like now had he chosen a different path. Sadly these decisions are never easy to nail down. It's hard to look back at one's life and find that exact moment where a simple yes instead of a no could have had drastic implications. I can't imagine being in a position where the smallest decision can have dire consequences, but I'm sure I have unknowingly made that decisions (luckily so far it seems to have been the right one). My friend however, seems to have chosen the wrong. It hurts me to watch him drink his life away. Taking adoral every morning, not eating all day, then drinking himself into a stumbling stupor before bed. I look back for as long as I've known him and I try to figure out where it all went wrong but I just can't seem to do it. Likely due to the fact that he was well on this path to self destruction before I met him.

It's observations like this (forgive me for being cocky here) that make me feel so grateful that I was smart enough (or lucky enough if you want to look at it that way) to choose the correct way. One might argue that calling my decisions the "correct" decisions is a bit selfish and conceited, but in all honesty, I look at where I'm at in life by comparison and it's pretty obvious (...see, I told you it would sound cocky). In some small way I want to help my friend clean-up his act but sadly some part of me feels he needs to hit rock bottom and learn a lesson or otherwise my efforts would all be moot.

I guess it's hard to gauge sometimes when intervention is necessary and when it's just a waste of everyone's time. In all honesty some of my reluctance probably stems from my perfectionist mind set in the sense that I refuse to fail at anything and I just don't feel like I could win this one. I'm not saying I only set goals I know I can achieve, that's just not true; however, I do try to make those goals somewhat realistic and at this point I don't think it would be.

I fear that I may have just come to the bitter realization that some people are beyond help and it's just better to let them figure it out on their own. It's sad but I'm afraid it's true. I guess the saying, 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." just doesn't seem to apply in this case. I suppose you also need a juicer and some sugar...two ingredients that some people just don't possess.

Since the theme of this rant seems to be somewhat selfish, I suppose I should stick with that and say that It's time I stepped back and let nature take it's course. He'll just have to learn on his own, and I only hope that it doesn't take a tragedy for him to do so. Sadly, from where I'm sitting...there's just nothing more I can do.

I guess where I'm going for this is you can try all you want to help the people around you but until you can help yourself you're not going to get anywhere. There comes a point when you need to sit down and focus on what's in the mirror staring right back at you. Selfish or not your number one priority should be you, which means not being irresponsible and fucking yourself up beyond help.

So with that in mind and the fact that I don't get nearly enough sleep, I'm going to set a precedent and actually go to bed on-time so I can be fresh and ready for a full day tomorrow. I've got a lot of me to focus on.