I Love Being Not Right

So one of my big life lessons is all about how I know absolutely nothing.

A perfect example:  When I was 17, I wanted to kill myself because I was in the process of realizing I am gay.  Flash forward five years and I am dancing in the streets of San Francisco with my hands in the air, singing along with Crystal Waters (Live) at the end of the day of a giant gay pride march, thinking to myself:  THANK GOD I am gay because straight people never get to do this except maybe at weddings.

(side note to self:  maybe this is really why gay people want in on the whole wedding thing, more places to dance with our hands in the air.)

Anyways.  Now when I find myself super-depressed (like even this afternoon when I was crying at the end of The Iron Lady which is a movie not at all about England but more about having a great big true love in life who shares everything and realizing I totally fucked that up for myself and dammit I really hate Catherine and Heathcliff right now, and yes I'm probably going to bleed tomorrow morning), I remind myself how in the blink of an eye I went from suicidal depression with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY my life was going to be so miserable and I was going straight to hell to a life where I celebrate myself and totally sing the body electric on most nights (and now days).

In this past week, I am confronted AGAIN with another way I was so wrong.

And it makes my heart sing.

Eva has this brother, my kids' uncle, who never really said much of anything to me throughout the beginnings of our marriage, mostly because I came along right about the time he developed complete teenage disdain for anything having to do with his family.  One time, we were at some great big function where he was sitting sullenly next to me on the couch in a room full of relatives when suddenly he was inspired to start telling me about his art and his whole rant eventually led to him insisting to Eva and me about what it's going to be like when his art is hanging in MOMA.  Yes, this idiot late teenager who grunted when his mother helped him set up an art show at the local JCC seemed to be having a manic breakdown right in front of me with what I interpreted as full blown delusions of grandeur.  Afterwards, Eva and I talked at length about our concern for his mental health.

I am very pleased to report ten years later - I was so wrong.  He's not in MOMA yet.  But it's surely not a dream I believe crazy.

Because there's THIS <<<<<click and make sure you scroll down and watch the video if you want your mind blown.  And after that video, find the other ones HERE.

It continues to be my life lesson:  I know nothing.  We never know what's coming.  Don't piss on someone else's dream, even if it's only in your mind.  We never know what people are going to do.  We think we know.  We think we can look at patterns of behavior and predict outcomes.  And it is SO HARD to believe that people can change.  But they do it all the time.  Sometimes they change back.  And forth.  And keep moving forth.  Which is sort of what Jake's art is doing - everything is in a state of constant change, how the story starts, you never know how it's going to end, the picture in flux.  We know nothing.


One of the promises of my recovery:  I will be amazed before I am half way through....and I am.