Blessed men

Today, I realized how blessed I am by the men in my life.

I have not had the greatest experience with men, overall, especially men I was married to. Even men who have been friends have broken my heart and left me bleeding and wounded. And professionally, well, let’s just say I’m not sorry that a few of those bridges have been burned.

I started thinking about this because, of course, I was thinking about the Filmmaker. Someone commented on here recently about “kicking him to the curb” if he doesn’t make me happy. And to be honest, it’s crossed my mind. Not because of him, but because of the clowns in my head, who have resurfaced lately, thanks to my diagnosis. It’s a weird fight-or-flight thing going on in my head. Do I want to really involve him in this whole process? Will he be there throughout, even though he did say he would? How much am I going to worry about him during this process and how much is that going to take away from my own healing?

Now, this is all me, not him. He’s been nothing but lovely and supportive and just fabulous through the beginning of this.

It’s me.

And the fucking clowns.

But in thinking about all of this and many other things, I started to look at the other men in my life. And I realized that, probably for the first time ever, there are more men in my life who are great role models for the men I’d like in my life than ever before.

I am surrounded by men who are MEN. Not boys in men’s clothing. Not children playing at being grown-up. I mean, these guys can all get down and get ridiculous and silly and playful and all of that wonderful stuff. But they’re also grown-ups and adults when they need to be.

The main thing about these men is that they aren’t afraid to say what they feel, what they think. And they’re not afraid to call me on my shit when I’m being dumb. Yet they never make me feel devalued. They never make me feel like I’m “wrong”. And, in turn, it makes me not assign blame and just listen.

Several of these men are men I have worked with professionally. We’ve had our battles, we’ve had our arguments. We’ve gone ‘round and ‘round on things. And every time I’ve gone through something with these men, I always expect them to end up cutting me down and cutting me out.

But they haven’t. We’ve argued, we’ve fought, we’ve talked, we’ve hugged. And we’re still here. And we still love each other. And respect each other.

That was a huge lesson – that I can fight with someone and disagree and they can fight with me and disagree with me, yet we can all end up with a satisfactory solution, all end up friends, and leave all of that behind.

What?! How is that possible? I’ve been taught my whole life that I’m wrong and that I shouldn’t argue and that I should just shut up and sit in the corner.

But I am eternally grateful to KSL and Actor Guy, in particular, for teaching me this valuable lesson. These guys are friends, are colleagues and are amazing.

And, of course, the Filmmaker. Every time a situation starts to feel terrifyingly familiar – where I’m absolutely convinced he’s going to turn into CB and the Poet (and others) and just vanish from my life – he does an amazing thing - he doesn’t. He does very simple things – calls, texts, reaches out in some way – and I sometimes don’t know what to do with that. I’m ready for it to be over, prepare myself to never hear from him again, decide that I’m better off without him, dammit, if that’s how he’s going to behave (of course, all lead by clowns in cheerleading outfits, chanting, “Yay! He’s gone! We drove him away!”).

And then he calls. And actually apologizes.

What?!

What the fuck do I do with that? No piece of my heart has ever apologized… because they sneaked away in the night, never to return.

And he’s not.

I’m confused.

The clowns are freaked out. They are whispering in the corner right now, trying to come up with a game plan, trying to figure out how to undermine this.

But since it’s never happened before, they’re running out of ammunition.

Because he simply isn’t leaving.

I’m not saying he’s going to be here forever and that we’ll get married and have babies and live in a beach house with puppies and rainbows and shit.

Cuz we’re not.

And, yes, eventually, I’m sure he’ll leave. But I’m growing more and more confident that he won’t simply vanish into the night without a word. I think that when he’s ready to leave – or when I’m ready to leave – we will be grown-ups and try not break each other any more than necessary.

And I know this probably sounds ridiculous but, for me, this is the hardest part about being close to a man, whether as a lover or as a friend. And I’m not sure where it comes from. I always felt loved by my father and never felt that he abandoned me or anything so obvious as that. My brother and I have no relationship whatsoever but it’s been that way my whole life. So that’s a piece of the puzzle I need to look at, where this fear of abandonment comes from.

Mind you, the guys who sneaked away in the night didn’t help the cause.

But every time the Filmmaker doesn’t leave, every time a male friend doesn’t vanish, every time these men show me they care in a million tiny, little, simple, easy ways, they knock a clown down and help me grow less and less afraid of letting them in and more and more confident that I can trust them with pieces of my heart without fearing that those pieces are going to be scattered to the wind.

So, for tonight, I want to thank the blesséd men in my life for being here and staying here. KSL, EE, BW, and, of course, MG. And I’m sure there are a few others that I have forgotten to include. You guys rock my small self-centered world. Thank you for being men, boys. I love you much.