Things Fall Apart

I’ve had a pretty good idea what this blog post was going to be about (at least the general frame) for a couple of weeks. Finding the time to sit down and write it has been another matter.

You might have noticed (though I certainly wouldn’t be shocked if you haven’t) that for the last month–and even going into this month–I’ve been rather absent on the review front. There has been good reason.

Without going into the gritty and depressing details on a lot of it, the last couple months have seen my life go a bit to shit. In ways that I never really thought possible. A person whom I trusted nearly more than any other on the planet did something so out of character that I still sometimes have to remind myself when I wake up that this reality I now find myself in is not in fact a bad dream.

The fallout from that event rocked the foundations of everything, tilting my world on its axis. It also had some rather real world implications that meant my time has been spent trying to deal with a series of dumpster fires, that never seem to quite burn out.

And just when the smoke looks ready to clear–and I’m almost ready to accept that sunrises over the southern horizon have their own kind of beauty–I get a text message

The Center Cannot Hold

Last year my aunt was diagnosed with leukemia. She was able to get a bone marrow transplant, and for nearly a year she seemed to be improving. However a couple weeks ago she collapsed, and with each day that followed there was little good news to cling to. On Thursday it was decided that she would be taken off life support.

It has been an odd experience to spend the last couple days caught in this place between knowing and mourning. Especially since my relationship with my aunt was something I mourned the passing of years ago. We haven’t had much contact since I came out. It was never something dramatic, but it was an end borne about by silence. And with my aunt unlikely to wake before the end, that is how it will stay.

I don’t know how to feel about that. About anything in my life right now, to be honest.

This is hardly the kind of blog post Dani was probably expecting when she asked us to contribute something for this year’s anniversary celebration. But I find myself unable to focus on the more mundane aspects of life right now. All I know is this: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold“. And that is and shall be a constant throughout life.

Things will fall apart. No plan is so good it cannot fail. No journey is without it’s pitstops. I now live in a house with strangers. I live mostly back in the closet. I learned that I am capable of actual adulting no matter how stressed it made me. I did not fail when all my history was against me.

The center will not always hold. Someone I trusted betrayed that trust–and hurt deeply two people who are very important to me. I’m having to live with no safety net for the first time in my life, and I’ve never been one for heights. Strangers, and friends I’ve never seen in real life made sure I was never too far gone. I’ve learned that trust, while not infallible, is worth holding on to all the same.

If there is anything I can learn from this, anything I could pass on, let it be that when we as a community, or just as humans, see the cracks appear in foundations long thought solid, it is not the end of the world. But neither is the pain, the hurt, not important. It matters, because you, I, we matter. And it is ok to see a betrayal of trust and be angry and hurt. But it is also ok to let that anger go when it does nothing but bring you fresh pain. It is ok to let those people go who have hurt you. It is ok to mourn the what-could-have-been as well as the what-was.

It is ok to pick up the pieces and try again…even if the edges might cause you to bleed, if you are not careful.

After this emotional post from Chris it is hard to put something down like a giveaway but as i said all would have a giveaway

I will like with the others add a giveaway for this

Have a chance to win a $10 Ninestar store credit

a Rafflecopter giveaway