Biding my Time

It's a difficult thing being sick before New Years and your 46th Birthday right around the corner.  All I can do is lay here and think.   I will be 50 soon and where am I?

I had a very bumpy road in 2012 and 2013.  The illness and death of my mother in 2012 caused me a great mental and physical breakdown in 2013.  Then 2014 came along and things started going my way, at least I was in a much better state of mind and my health has never been better.  I got back to volunteering, I found a new passion in the Mental Health field, friends were coming around again, and I had high hopes that I would be reentering the workforce in a job that I have great passion for.

Well 2014 is gone now and I'm still sick in bed just waiting for my birthday to come around...   That's about it.  I don't know what my next move is.  I took the winter months off from volunteering at the LGBT Center, its what I did last year, its just something I do for myself.  I still have some work to do with Auntie Helen's.   But no job yet, and no new prospects in sight if this opportunity Ive ben hoping for since July doesn't come through.

So many things have crossed my mind.  I have had a handful or more of friends leave San Diego and  have greater opportunities and better lives.  I think about relocating, I think about it a lot.  But how does someone that is closer to 50 than he is to 40 just pick up and move and start an entirely new life. Unless you are in the witness protection program or  in the FBI it's got to be extremely difficult.

Back at the end of 2009 I inadvertently started a new life.  Not the life I entirely wanted, but a change was needed.  The best thing that came out of that change was ending my drug use.  It was also the beginning of my Mental Health issues revealing itself to me.

My drive and ambition has wained a bit.  How do you explain a 5 year gap in your resume?
"oh after I closed my business my mommy paid all my bills and I have been on disability"

Im scared there I said it. Im scared, Im stuck, I don't see that light at the end of the tunnel.

  Most people my age are closer to retirement, not starting over completely.  I need to have a job.   Ive always been lucky and had jobs I either REALLY REALLY liked or that were my passion.  Now it looks like I may join the millions of people that go to work each day hating their job.

I got some soup yesterday from the Chinese restaurant and this morning I opened the fortune cookie, inside the fortune read;  "Keep a cool head and bide your time: a chance is bound to come."


I remember my mother, who in her sixties went back to school and got her real estate license and made buttloads of money right up into her 70's.  Mom was sort of like Madonna, she reinvented herself many times in her life.  Where did she get that self confidence? Why didn't I inherit it?

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road

Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go

So make the best of this test and don't ask why

It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.

 So this is normal?  Or not entirely unusual I guess?   I've seen some Facebook friends struggle finding jobs all over the country, and they don't seem to be nearly as particular as I am, Im sure they don't have a s many opportunities as I do.

So Im going back to bed for now, when this cold decides to leave my body I'll figure all this out I hope.   I think its just a continuation of my midlife crisis.

Which is worse, politics or religion? SURVEY SAYS.....POLITICS!

You Can't Sit With Us

I didn't grow up with religion in my life, so I don't really have strong opinions about that topic, although I do have some beliefs but I keep them mostly to myself.   For people that have opinions that I don't agree with about religion I don't get in their face about them.  I have friends of all faiths...which something just struck me..  Do Atheists have faith?   Im sure they do..  Not faith in God because they don't believe in God.   But Im sure they have faith in something....  See, like I said I don't know a lot about religion.   When I have questions about religion I have one person I turn to to answer those questions and 99.9% of the time he knows the answer to my question.

Politics.... WOW if you really want to get someone worked up start talking about politics.
Some of you may remember an idea I came up with back in 2012 to protest a politician at our San Diego Gay Pride Parade.  Three people and a $50 donation from someone that was then a stranger  to me created a successful campaign that reached tens of thousands of people via social media, bloggers,   word of mouth, The New York Times, even our local newspaper who supported this politician quoted me in their paper regarding the protest.

Even though we had a very successful campaign and that person lost their bid for mayor there was a lot of collateral damage.  To say things got ugly would be an understatement.  There were accusations, threats, fake Twitter and Facebook accounts created by people that didn't like what we were doing used to attack us.   It was a very dark time for me personally.

After that I decided to back away from politics.  This mid term election this same candidate ran for a seat in congress.  It wasn't my district so I couldn't vote for or against him anyway.  Like I told people "Not my circus, not my monkeys"   I did however donate to his opponents campaign a few times in very small increments of $5 each time. But still I held back from saying much about this in public forums.  It was a tight race and there was a lot of tension and ugly campaign tactics from both sides (in my opinion) during this time.

What has greatly saddened me is to see how much our community....and we can call that community the LGBT community, the LGBT Ally community and or the Democratic community (I am registered as no party affiliation) so often turns on themselves.  That last special election we had to replace the mayor we had elected was when I first noticed this.  I didn't like either one of the candidates and didn't want to vote for either one.  I WAS BLASTED from my "own people" for saying I didn't want to vote because I didn't like either candidate.  I was told, "vote for the lesser of two evils"  Well thats what we did the first go around and that is exactly why we needed to have a special election to vote for a new mayor.  Turns out on Election day earlier this year I was in the hospital recovering from surgery the day before  and I wasn't able to vote anyway.  Since then I have become a early voter by mail.

In these last few days after the majority of ballots have been counted ,and the candidate "we" didn't want conceded,  people have been blowing off some steam and posting questions as to where this person should move to, a GoFundMe campaign has been created to purchase a one way ticket for he and his partner. (those funds raised will actually be given to another charity)   But there are some hard core activists that think this is a waste of time, we need to start focusing on 2016.   Hey great, Im glad that there is that much dedication to the process, but DO NOT come to me acting like everyone should have the same exact feelings as you do.   Talking down to people and taking on a condescending attitude will do nothing more than turn people off to the process even more than they already are.  In San Diego we have extremely poor voter turnout, so that fact that people are even talking about politics even if its tongue in cheek is great to me!

I will ALWAYS stand behind what I say, but if you twist my words and try to tell people that I said something completely different than what I did, and try to make me look foolish in the process (YES Ms LP  ONCE AGAIN, Im talking to you)  I will call you out on it!

So like I said these people with condescending attitudes and superiority complexes can miss me with their bullshit.   Because the more I feel scolded the more I back away, and after being in this city for over 20 years I DO have a voice, I have ideas and I have been pretty dang effective in my past efforts.  So keep preaching to the choir and you will soon find yourself singing alone.


PEACE OUT!!

The final word

What is it about people that always NEED to have the final word? Im not too experienced with people like this so I really dont know what makes them tick. I may even be one of these people, but Im not sure. I guess it depends on the circumstance.

Input anyone?

Fairweather Friend????

A couple of weeks ago a friend all of a sudden deleted me on Facebook.. I thought it was a mistake, but he deleted me because of something I said on another friends page. It was all very odd and there really was no valid reason for doing what he did.. He didnt like that people were talking about him behind his back. He got a little paranoid about NOTHING, what he thought was happening was the exact opposite of what truly was happening.. at least on my end. Funny thing was he wasnt even being mentioned in this situation that he got upset about... Its all a little confusing but TRUST ME, he was confused as to what was going on and reacted to something that wasnt even happening.

ANYWAY i wanted to iron this stuff out with him so I kept pushing him to meet face to face to talk. He finally agreed to it and I went to his house for dinner. Well he didnt like the way the conversation was going, and he asked me to leave!!! He was getting so angry that the veins were popping out in his neck and he was clenching his fists. I was happy to leave. I was honestly a little scared. HES A BIG MUSCLE GUY!! Well I was still pretty shocked at the situation and I put something about it on Facebook. A mutual friend sent me an email and said he has seen him do that 3 different times to people. He went on to say maybe it was an un-medicated Bi-Polar disorder or maybe even "roid rage". Well the next morning I received an apology text message from him, he said he had a bad weekend, and was feeling a little low.. I dont wanna get into the kind of weekend I had and how low I was feeling..BUT I didnt blow up at him.. I replied a few hours later but he never responded to that.

Fast forward a week or so. I ran into him while at the movies.. He was cordial, as was I but I had no "love for him" anymore. He blew up at me and asked me to leave his house!! anyway he and his friend went his way and we went ours and everything was fine. A couple of nights ago I received a text message from someone (not in my contact list and no signature on message) asking me how the move went. I replied saying sorry I dont know who this is. they replied REALLY?? Ummm YEP sorry I don't know who this is. They said No worries and that was that. Well of course now I know it was the same person that asked me to leave his house. After he blew up at me I knew he was not someone I would be hangin out with again so I deleted him from my phone. I felt bad about it for a minute but then I thought that's odd to me as well. You cant just drop an apology via text message and pretend it never happened NOT when you have a history at blowing up at people. I have enough stress in my life I dont want to be on my tip toes anytime Im around him.

Who knows what he thinks or what hes sayin about the situation. Obviously he was trying to be nice by texting me. But theres so much goin on in my life and I just dont have the energy to give him right now. I dont even know why I care... But obviously I do.. Im sittin here writing about it