I found a book of photography called Chaos by Josef Koudelka at my house in Malibu that Kristian gave me for my birthday some years ago. In it he wrote:
“I thought this book was very apt. Life is never black and white yet always flowing with chaos. I feel this book goes some small way to prove that even in chaos there is beauty.”
It was lovely to find his note. A message from Kristian, from the past. The past, where we must leave him.
I had to make some huge and grown up decisions today. Decisions and about romance and finance. The two are unconnected yet have been hideously intertwined as I grappled with one or the other for the past few months.
As my fear of financial ruin overwhelmed me I turned to him to deliver me from the truth. Today, I just had to face my unfortunate situation head on.
My financial insecurity is undoubtedly connected to uncomfortable feelings of self-worth, prestige and power. The romance I want but cannot have. Some things are just not meant to be. It is challenging to come to terms with these sorts of truths but as I have written here in this blog on many occasions when I do make decisions they are swift and sure. Something, actually, Drew Pinsky taught me whilst I was on the sex rehab show.
I have deliberately avoided talking about either the romance or the finance on this blog but more importantly I have kept it secret to those who love me best. Fuck, it is exhausting keeping secrets. I really hate it. I have no intention of going into any specific detail about the romance or the finance right now. All you need to know is that I sat with John after the cake was cut and the presents were opened and told him everything I had been hiding for the past few months. Phew.
As we all know: the truth will set you free.
I let go of a secret I was determined to keep. Everything I have ever let go of has been relinquished unwillingly. With claw marks all over what ever was finally gone.
Deep down I am as sure as I ever was that everything will turn out just the way it was meant to be. I believe in my fate.
My relationships burn like super novae in the cosmos then shrink and die. I have an opportunity right now to make a different set of choices: taking contrary action, living in acceptance and handing over what ever gives me pain to my higher power.
Just a few days away from my trip to Europe where I will celebrate a hefty milestone. I have chosen to travel with a close friend. Someone I love but not a lover. We (and The Little Dog) will explore London and Paris. For the sake of The Little Dog we will once again visit the wallabies in the Jardin des Plantes that my darling, loyal pet found utterly spell binding when we visited Paris last Autumn. I am sure he must have thought that they were the biggest squirrels he had ever seen.
Am I prepared to walk away with dignity? From people, places and things?
What I own is not who I am. Who I love cannot define me. Of course I would love to be in love with a man who loved me as much as I loved him.
I have come a very long way this past year. The road to serenity, self-love, sexual sobriety is littered with the corpses of those who could not.
I must have buried 30 people during the last 12 years, killed by addiction. Overdose, suicide, etc. Every one my hero for keeping me sober. Each and every one.
This evening I celebrated my friend’s daughter’s 5th birthday. I sat with his family and watched his happy little girl blow out the candles on her cake. After supper I wandered into Soho House on my own and found people I knew to take my mind off of the grueling aloneness. I am not lonely, I just can’t be bothered to make the effort to accept the invitation nor get in the car and drive to people who genuinely love me.
On my way home, as if by magic, friends called me. Emails arrived, text messages appeared on the screen of the iPhone and I was wrenched away from the promise of a night of self-pity. I can be such a pig at that particular trough.
I said to him the other night that what I found so hard to let go of was the promise of enduring love. The door had been opened then slammed shut. I am the wise uncle, asexual, decrepit yet ultimately willing to be of service to those who need me.
Without the crutches of objectification, intrigue and seduction I can some times flounder. I can sometimes fall. Late at night, when all hope is gone I wonder who will catch me? Who will catch me when I fall?
For a moment back then, I thought it might be you. I thought, foolishly, that it might be YOU. I thought it was you when I was 20, 30, 40 and now. Being in love with Richard in my twenties. I was heartbroken when he would flirt with girls. At my birthday party on Island Wall, Whitstable my Mother saw the pain I was in and tried to reach out to me but shame got in the way.
The legacy of shame.
Love has always been my goal. To be loved. I crave love the way most men crave sex.
I told him: I’m really scared that I will never love again. That I will never be loved. How could I have got this so wrong? To believe that love was possible, enduring and could be one day mine?
From out of the chaos comes beauty. It will give me succour when all else fails. I am going to Europe to fill my heart and soul with art and architecture. To walk the streets and parks of two great cities. To explore what it might have been like to be loved. I know that when I get back he will be gone. It is our swan song, our last hurrah. But before I write the end I must enjoy the journey. I must not fear the future nor have unrealistic expectations, I must set aside my shame and feel the sun on my face, in my heart.
12 replies on “A Message from Kristian”
Who told you you would not love again? Of course you will.
You try too hard and it gets you nowhere.
I wonder if you should be making that trip when you tell us your finances and romances are up in the air.I hope your travelling companion is paying his own way to Europe and not being ‘taken’.
You remind me so much of the old me, always giving, getting not much else but grief in return.
I stopped.
I stopped the madness of trying too hard to love someone.Of giving too much.
I discovered at about your age that when I stopped giving myself, love came to ME!
I was determined that he would love me more than I loved him. No buying little tokens d’amour, no obsessive dressing up and gilding the lily, what a relief.
I made a list and asked the Universe to send me someone kind and caring. He is the opposite of everyone I ever dated. Best for me. Good for me. I love him as he is.
Take a deep breath, step back from the picture and relax.
Nothing bad has happened to you, you have some income, you have potential, you have opportunity.Tell yourself the best is yet to come,because it is. You made many sacrifices in your life, you live and love too big.Downsize your expectations and stop crashing through life, it’s time for you to just be you. Authentic thinker, writer and director of all things good for Duncan.
You have many admirers, many who would love to be your best friend because you are you, not for any ulterior motive.
Make that list.
Great points. I agree with everything except Duncan down-sizing his expectations. It’s just a lesson in patience. Visualizing, drawing that treasure map and letting go and letting God. No expectations. No trying to force square pegs in round holes. Having waited so long it’s really, really hard. But virtue — patience — IS rewarded.
Wow.
So much honesty, openness, struggle, AUTHENTICITY in one post.
Bravo for not hiding from pain,
denying pain,
masking pain.
For rejecting shame.
I hope your birthday is beautiful and loving.
You are blessed to have the little dog & sobriety.
We are graced by your sharing your (inside & outside) life.
Hope you’ll stay in touch w/ us through your travels!
Duncan I think you missed it in saying most men crave sex not love. This thought, belief really does help fuel addiction and as well creates lies that seep in and begin to cover the true story of what it means to be a gay man. I think most all of us desire, crave love but have either been wounded enough or believe we are not relationship material. It is especially hard gay and straight when we get older for we live in a youth obsessed culture that screams young, care free and beautiful. And we look at our bodies, ourselves, with our wrinkles, changing skin and body types and wonder who will love me, am I loveable? But love, being loved, loving is at the essence of what it means to be human that we all thirst for.
Jeff, you are so right. You fill my heart with your words.
thanks
“I think most all of us desire, crave love but have either been wounded enough or believe we are not relationship material.”
As a 23 year old 100% straight guy I can tell you I am the same way. I think it has little to do with being straight or gay, just being human and feeling more than the average person these days cares to.
Really. Having feelings and genuine emotions in today’s society is considered taboo. Especially at my young age.
Jeff, Leland & Duncan (Of course),
You guys are the real men. Like the ones at “The Good Men Project”, who are dialoging and trying to continue to be authentic and emotionally open.
Thank you.
Blessings,
Amanda
‘preciate ya!
Duncan – thank you. Your post reminds me of the Michael McDonald lyric: “we’d trade it all right now for just one minute of real love” Agree with Leland – real, human emotions are considered so shameful, so raw, that society as a whole and individuals as elements of Western society personally suppress, and publicly punish, their display. We are the poorer and society is the sicker for this.
In this cold culture, owning and feeling genuine emotions is the new “closet”.
Duncan,
Kristian wrote to you, “… I feel this book goes some small way to prove that even in chaos there is beauty.” I don’t think that it was an accident that you found the book and his message to you when you did. I read a while back, that there is a Native American mythology, that when Great Mystery created the world, a bit of chaos was left in, so that instead of a clockwork multi-verse, slowly winding down, an allowance was made for free will and creativity and for the system to refresh itself.
We can only grow if there’s change of some sort. Sometimes if we’re dug in, entrenched behind our opinions or the routines of our lives without even realizing it, it takes being uprooted, mentally or physically, before we can get our roots unbound, so we can expand, settle in the new psychic or physical space, more deeply and securely and put out new growth. I read that sometimes if a plant has gotten root bound that you need to cut the ball of roots in several places to help the plant. I wonder if the plant knows that it’s for it’s own good. I think that maybe after the initial pain, there must be a release. I know that can be hard for people. Some of us are transplanted more easily than others. I think that some of us really are tumbleweeds. Pulling up there roots to be blown by the wind, seeding themselves as they travel. The Native Americans call people walking trees. Our feet are our roots. Our hair is our leaves. I don’t know where you will end up, back in Malibu to expand your roots or somewhere in England or the Continent being blown by the winds of creativity, but wherever you are, I know that you will thrive and blossom and fruit.
You said, “I have an opportunity right now to make a different set of choices: taking contrary action, living in acceptance and handing over what ever gives me pain to my higher power.” And “I said to him the other night that what I found so hard to let go of was the promise of enduring love. The door had been opened then slammed shut. I am the wise uncle, asexual, decrepit yet ultimately willing to be of service to those who need me.” Then “I told him: I’m really scared that I will never love again. That I will never be loved. How could I have got this so wrong? To believe that love was possible, enduring and could be one day mine?” You talk about living in acceptance and letting go and letting God but you tell yourself such hurtful lies. That your role now is the wise but asexual and decrepit uncle. That you got it all wrong and that it’s not true that love is possible for you or if it is, that it will not be enduring. You’re just ONE YEAR out of rehab. Dammit, cool your jets. This was the shakedown cruise where you get your bearings and get your sea legs as a sexually sober man. It’s as if you took a course in seamanship and decided first off to circumnavigate the globe and castigated yourself as a failure and a hopeless sailor when you couldn’t complete the voyage. Instead of going for short cruises up and down the coast or to the islands. Having fun.
You went from being so disassociated when you were having sex that you said that it was like you weren’t even in the room to expecting that lightening would strike immediately and without preamble that you would be with your soulmate. Dammit. Give yourself a chance. Give yourself a break. Date! You don’t have to jump from dating yourself to being in a permanent relationship. Gear down and enjoy the journey. You’re not in a desperate race to a finish line where the flag comes down and you’re declared the winner of the cup and the guy. Truly let yourself enjoy the journey with no expectations. When you feel yourself wanting to clutch at something like a crab — no offense — let that be the alarm bell that your fear and all the other crap in your head is trying to sabotage you. Release. Let go and let God. The hummingbird came to you. It will come back.
I am so glad that you will be with someone on your travels who has your back. “For the sake of The Little Dog we will once again visit the wallabies in the Jardin des Plantes that my darling, loyal pet found utterly spell binding when we visited Paris last Autumn. I am sure he must have thought that they were the biggest squirrels he had ever seen.” That’s such a sweet picture. I so hope that the three of you will fill your eyes and souls with beauty and laughter. I hope that the frozen music in the architecture sings to you like angels and that your minds pallet can taste the art like fine wine and exquisite food.
I don’t know why you still talk of shame. As you said once, “Fuck shame!”. Feel the sweetness of Grandfather Sun on your face and the joy of the mystical Light & Love warming and singing in your heart and your soul. YOU ARE LOVED! BELIEVE IT! Like the song says, you just haven’t met him yet: http://bit.ly/9JtJPS (God bless, Michael Buble.)
Blessings,
Amanda
Er, ahem… that was palate, above. Brain must have frozen gears on pallette but didn’t quite go there. Shows to go you what I get for referencing synesthesia. 😉
Duncan,
I can only tell you by experience that my first year sober was the hardest. The second sucked. The third stank until I got my head together I struggled. Things are so much better since I live in the now and love myself for me. I learnt that my desperation to be loved was a reflection of how empty I was. That no one will love me as much as I love myself, sadly I did not love me. The heart aches have stopped when I started accepting who I was, and there is nothing wrong with me. That I am not damaged goods. I just am.