I Owe Apologies

I owe apologies because

It’s not done. I may have finished the book and sent out the manuscript to undergo final edits by professionals, but the story is not done. Actually, ya’ll I really think the story has just begun.

As you have seen from my last couple sparse posts there have some been some unforeseen events. When I started this blog I had NO IDEA that I was going to end up coming out as gay. All I wanted when I started this blog was to finally admit all my problems and my past. I wanted to empty out my closet. I honestly had no idea how deep that closet went, but I dove in and began pulling stuff out for everyone to see and that brings up my first apology.

My heart aches daily for what my dear ex-wife had to endure over the last few months.

I can’t even imagine the gut wrenching pain that she has gone through and when I think about this it actually makes me want to vomit, or lay around in a catatonic slumber while Netflix bleeps colors and noises in front of my face and my brain cells decay. On top of the already obvious pain of someone you love coming out as gay, I’m also writing about it for the whole world. Can you imagine this? I can’t. I don’t even know how that woman stands, careless allowing me to continue to see my youngest son! From the minute I met Jess I knew she was the strongest woman I had ever met. She had a heart of gold and a soul built of cast iron, forged by the core of the sun before it had a sea to warm.

My next apology is to you, my readers.

To leave you with this climatic end and say it was the end of the journey after I came out was utter lie. But, just like when I said I was bi in my early blog posts, I really believed it at the time. I thought I had reached the summit. I thought I had beat the tides and now had the world in my pocket. I had no idea the truth of what I’m about to say until I continued to walk in my new truth.

Triathlon and sobriety seriously brought me to a new understanding of life and a longed for respect for self that I had previously only experienced fleeting glimpses with and these were usually in other people. As I began to experience these things and to live with them in my soul I felt complete. I felt whole and finally free. Then, the catastrophe of corona virus hit sending everyones world into a cataclysmic whirl much worse than any hurricane. But, just like any great storm, there is a calm where everything seems clear and that calm just happened to me.

Someone asked me, “How are you?” and I could tell they were sincere. It wasn’t like a “how are you?” that you get when you walk into a grocery store or even your doctors office. This “how are you” really stuck me deep and I kind of broke down. I didn’t show it, but I did and I am. The new gay/corona virus/triathlon/fitness/BLM/sobriety/new town/new business/book publication storm around me settled and I got to feel myself again and it reminded me of how I felt when I sat there typing the very first article of this blog, the Nit and Grit, in a coffee shop in Montana. I became vulnerable, exposed, raw.

There is so much more happening now that makes sense to drink and use over than there was back at that coffee shop.

I’m a new gay boy freaking out daily because I don’t really know the skin I’m in. I’m an athlete now with people who look up to me as some fitness specialist who in retrospect just came off the sweaty, pizza stained, pot smelling couch like a couple short years ago. I post inspiring shit that comes into my head and gives me energy, like I’m some guru. I sashay like I know how to walk like a fashion model, for whatever reason I’m still unsure about. I’m taking pictures and posing like I am a model. There are followers with crushes on me, newly sober people looking for advice, aspiring fitness people seeking motivation, and two young sons who look at me like I’m a greek god who’s families I’ve actually divided and broken and then there’s little young me with a tear in my eye and pain seeping through my soul and absolute fear with where things are going.

LUCKILY, haha I got a couple of tools that sobriety and triathlon have showed me.

When I first started this journey, much like today, I had no idea where it was going to lead. The only thing I knew to do was to put one foot in front of the other, stay true to my commitments to raise money for Cry-J by doing a triathlon and to write about it and try to help spread the hope while doing it. When I freaked out about training all I had to do was the next thing that was on the list. When I came across something else in my closet, all I had to do was share it and let it out so others could benefit from my vulnerability. Is anything any different? Sure I have more followers and I have a larger audience. But beyond surface level stuff nothing at face value is actually different, except that I have sharper tools. I know exactly what I need to do and that’s continue to share, with you, the truth of what’s going on, not just the glamorous instagram pics with inspirational words, but the truth. I also have built up an ability to network and reach people and connect with people and this is a need for me, because life as an addict is utter isolation.

I need this, ultimately, because I need connection.

I need connection with you, my readers again. So I’m asking for your forgiveness. There are a lot of very precise issues laid out in the above freak out session that need to be attended to. These words aren’t empty, they are necessary to deal with; for without which I will begin to slip backwards and that will lead me to drink. I’m not willing to do that.

In every sobriety story this ultimately happens. Someone begins to develop and finds their strength and then begins to walk. But, somewhere, somehow many of these people slip back into the drug or the alcohol. Why is that? I think it’s because they stop exploring. They cease to continually connect to the new world that’s presented in front of them. They try to hang on to the early days of sober reckoning and the ship gets lodged in mud while waiting for a wave. I don’t want this to happen. This isn’t going to be the fate of my ship. I need to continue to explore these new shapes in front of me: the new gay, the divided home-life and fatherhood, the inspirational model character, the sober fitness influencer, the author, the non-profit business owner. All of these things have a lot of content that is essential to my sobriety.

So, if you can forgive me then please feel free to reach out, share, like, comment, however you reach out and let’s explore this new world together!