Monthly Archives: March 2015

Celebrating the Little Things, the Really Little Things …

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive
Joel Robinson Photography

Joel Robinson Photography

This post has been itching to get out of me, but I would never be in the right mind to write it. The moment when this idea hatched has passed, now only, a light glowing through the fog.

Self-love can be a skill forgotten. The ever growing things that should be, filling the basket on my back, heavier, slower. Too often though, after I push and huff, make my basket lighter, I lament how heavy the basket still is.

I try to celebrate these victories. These sometimes very small victories. Yay! I folded the laundry! I emptied the dishwasher! And on my darker days, I will celebrate that I got out of bed. I don’t do a little jig, I don’t have the energy, but I look at my achievement through a microscope to see the strength I have. The more good things that I see through this lens, I can convince myself that I have a lot, enough to nurture.

The fog around obscures my vision, but virtue glows with a dim gold light. I seek out these small gold seeds in everything that I do. Collecting one in every meal that I don’t feel like eating. Every little damned thing I do. The basket on my back is still the same size, the things that should be still fill it. Golden seeds grow within me, my basket seems lighter than before.

What Is It To Be A Non-Practising *Insert Identity Here*?

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

Happy Mardi Gras!

I’m giving fair warning: this post may get a bit heavy and is NOT a post about being so-called “ex-gay”. Also, personally, I prefer the label/identity “same-sex attracted” rather than “gay”, but in this post I am using the term “gay” for ease.

If a rainbow zebra loses its stripes, is it still a zebra, or is it just a horse?

For me, this is not a rhetorical question, though it seems like it should be. And it is making me feel anxious and my mood low. The Mardi Gras Festival and Parade is on in Sydney right now. I usually (and think that I should) feel PRIDE in my own difference, PRIDE in being a part of the LGBTQI+ community. But I feel like I’ve lost my rainbow stripes, my gay cred, my membership expired from lack of use.

Maybe a false assumption, but a huge part of gay identity is a sexual identity: being or wanting to be in a gay relationship, having or wanting to have gay sex. My body doesn’t demand another’s sexual touch, doesn’t crave and search for opportunities for sex. Fear obscures my desire of being in an emotional gay relationship. And this situation is not new. It has been many moons since I have acted on a sexual impulse.

Walking through the Fair Day event, through sun, glitter, rainbows and skin, I did not feel a part of the community. I felt alone and apart. Projections I’m sure, but I saw the normal social practice of people wanting and creating intimate emotional relationships. I sensed in others the want to get laid. I remember a time that I did want gay stuff, so I’m not asexual, but that spark of desire has gone missing. The crucial aspect to my gayness, my gay identity, is gone.

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Is It Really Any Better?

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

“I am not my thoughts.”

When I first came across this statement, I was confused; I even thought that it was ridiculous. I’m not religious, nor do I believe that I have a soul, so for a long time I had the cartesian dualist perspective that “I think, therefore I am.” The only thing that I was certain of was my thoughts.

Since realising how much of an impact the body can have on one’s mind (the brain is a physical organ after all, a detail I used to forget), this dualist perspective broke and melded into one. Why else have I been popping these pills everyday for the past 2 years? I do feel better (mood) when I do exercise, eat and sleep properly. But lately, I have been wondering, am I really any better than I was 2 1/2 years ago?

Sure, I’ve stopped smoking dope, which was had a major negative impact on my mood, but subjectively, I don’t really feel that much better. It is still really hard to maintain good lifestyle habits, and today at close friends’ wedding, I felt like there was a curtain of sadness between me and the joy around me. People noted that I was irritable and not being a part of the festivities. This is not the first time that I have felt like this, as I described in this post.

Maybe the anti-depressant medication isn’t working anymore. I don’t know, I will have a discussion about this next time that I see my psych. I have been rating my mood each day, and the same ratings are maintained, not getting better yet still the same as before I started these meds. Though I think that it is hard to compare over time, cause each day is so subjective, and my memory of when I was at my lowest is hazy.

I’m just so tired of it all. The constant tension in my jaw and shoulders. The feeling that my heart is made of lead and is weighing me down. Ah fucking damn it …