I feel like I am finally waking up from the very bad fog I have been living in for way too long and that I am awake, realizing that the silly things I believed (or rather wanted to believe) were just dreams I wished were true. The unrequited feelings I have for someone in my life (but only in my life in the sense that circumstances beyond either of our control places us in the same place almost daily) will never go away but I have accepted that and can live with it quietly until it really does go away someday. 

The harder thing to accept is the friendship I have lost with someone I met when we were bonding over shared pain and formed a connection that transcended one common thing and became many. I will never know what I did wrong to lose it, but I suspect it is because I have never been very good at friendships and even worse at sustaining them, no matter how much I so want to be and have good intentions.

On Saturday it will be exactly one year since I brought my cat home and into my life and he has been a huge force in my reconciling certain things I know to be true and making peace with them. He has shown me unconditional love and what it is like to love a being who can be affectionate back and not care what I look like or whether I am socially awkward. His company is the therapy and mutual friendship I have long been looking for and even if non-animal people do not get it, even if my family thinks I am a crazy cat lady, I am okay with that and really do believe that animals can be soul mates.

Heartbreak is feeling one thing and knowing a different one, loving someone even knowing she may very well hate you for doing so, respecting someone despite seeing in her eyes she thinks you're a fool. Heartbreak is moving on when each step forward hurts and you still have to see her almost every day, the only thing keeping you going...knowing moving on is the right and only thing to do.

I am a huge believer in good intentions and a person's meaning well, but if their meaning well is the only reason they are staying in a friendship with you, well then that can hurt as much as an intentional meanness can. A friendship that means a whole, whole lot to you can end up being heartbreaking and very confusing when it becomes clearer and clearer with each passing day that it is obligation and not sincere wanting on the person's part to be your friend.

Not all friendships are meant to be. The best you can do is be yourself, keep your expectations low.-Judge John Hodgman

I saw this very recently and it really, really stuck with me:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/magazine/judge-john-hodgman-on-forced-friendships.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fjudge-john-hodgman&action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=collection


I will always like the people I like and I also (I would like to think) will always like people, in general. But to hope for a friendship that is just never ever going to happen or is only going to come from some kind of cluelessness that results in an awkward and unintentionally forced friendship...well, that is just asking for a lot of heartache and putting someone you really care about in a very uncomfortable position.

 

This cover is so absurd you just might laugh, unless, of course you are a lesbian and you are old enough to remember when this attitude was very common or you know people who still believe things like this. I have done everything I know how to do to "not" be gay and it just does not work. I have tried praying it away, I have tried steeling my heart against any and all emotional or romantic feelings, I have always been and most likely always will be celibate. 

None of that makes a difference nor does it (as far as I am concerned) make me any less gay that I am not a 'practicing' one...as the far right Christians like to say when referencing the kind of gay people they believe go to Hell.

I cannot keep people who believe gays and lesbians are 'evil' or 'sinful' from thinking that just as they cannot keep me from being who I am, no matter how much they may believe in 'ex-gay' therapy. In an ideal world I would be thrilled if anti-gay Christians could at least grasp that being gay is about far, far. far more than sex and that it really is so that love is love. I just do not think they will ever understand that.

It absolutely breaks my heart when those who are constantly subjected to horrific attitudes and hateful comments from homophobic people in their lives end up hurting themselves in some way or, worse, ends their lives. It seems to me that people who engage in any kind of homophobia (especially the hateful kind) should not get to judge or be surprised when their words and actions are such a huge contributor to tragedy.

Recently, a study was released that stated suicide rates among gay youth went down when gay marriage became legal. Many on the far right debated this or expressed incredulity or even said the study was falsified; thing is I firmly believe this and completely understand that this could definitely be the case. When I was younger and thought about harming myself it would have made a huge difference if I had been living in a time when being gay was not considered 'sick' or 'sinful.' 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/22/health/teen-suicide-same-sex-marriage-study-trnd/