I had the most amazing weekend!

I got back into Baton Rouge Friday afternoon and visited with my friend Mandi until Saturday afternoon. We relieved all the things we used to do and pretty much spent the whole time talking non-stop. We're both very chatty people, especially her, so it was a ball. I got really nostalgic seeing all the old places and how they've changed and how they haven't.

Over dinner Friday night we went to our favourite restaurant, where we used to go about once a week before I moved, and we ordered our usual stuff, and we talked and laughed and at one point she said, "for a minute I forgot you didn't still live here." I'd forgotten that too actually. I can easily imagine that that Friday night and Saturday would have been a 'routine' evening for us if I still lived there.

Then on Saturday evening I met up with my friends Claire and Josh in the area we all grew up and went to high school. That was both harder, but it felt more necessary. With Mandi it hadn't been quite as long (2 years as opposed to nearly 6 with Josh), and we'd stayed in touch, and we're both in a good place in our lives. It was two old friends who missed each other but were fine. With Josh and Claire...well first of all it was just wonderful seeing them!

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned any of the drama going on with Claire, but we have stayed in touch over the years via phone since I moved away from Louisiana completely, and once she did come to Texas, so I still felt very close to her, but she's going through a rough patch. I think she's finally completely done with her girlfriend, and actually her future is looking brighter and more hopeful than it has in a very long time if you ask me, but while she's coping amazingly well she's still pretty much reeling from all that. Which is why she had to move in with Josh...

Josh, is the one I'm most worried about. He had a rough ride throughout high school and college, and he's cycled between drugs and alcohol and ultra-religiousness. The guy's just so clearly in so much pain and turmoil, and right now he's kind of like stuck in both phases if that even makes sense, and the contradictions are taking their toll on him. Yet, he's still the same boy I knew in high school. He's still full of life and bright eyed, he's still slender and adorable, and he's still loud and out-going. Which really made it all the harder to bear seeing him like that. I almost think if he had just been a shell it would have been...well no maybe not.

Being gay has always been such a burden for him, it's always been something he's hated but that's been so undeniably him. It just drives me crazy that all this time later he's still in this vicious cycle because of it. It's so foreign to me too. I mean I've known over people who've struggled because of it, and I can sympathize, but my general reaction and the course I steered my life as a result of realizing I was gay can best be described as, "okay, cool!" So even though I can see his position, maybe I just can't properly empathize. I guess I can't quite imagine why he didn't fight the things that said it was bad and channel his sexuality into a healthy outlet (instead of an unhealthy one ). I mean I can intellectually understand, and sympathize, but I guess I can't really know what it's like. Then I look at other people who overcame similar obstacles and I just really can't figure it out. I mean I can...but I can't, and it's driving me crazy. I really don't know if he'll ever be okay...

I sorta have this guilt as a result. I'm f**king fine; I should have dragged him through as well. But we weren't close friends, and I never knew about most of the stuff he went through until much later. He also came out way before I did. I've thought it over many times. I think the closet was very protective for me. When I was ready to come out, I was READY to come out. I had my head together, and I was in a strong position. He just wasn't really ready and didn't know how to deal...apart from that I guess he was always in a more hostile environment. Ignoring all that though, I am sorry I wasn't there for him properly. That I didn't do much to directly help.

I had similar feelings of, "I wish I'd done more to be there for you over the years" toward Mandi and Claire as well, the big difference of course is that while I feel I could have done more, I did do something, and since we were doing so many sentimental chats this weekend I brought this up to each of them, and they both said it was helpful just being able to talk about it wit me even if I wasn't physically there. Apart from all that they're both doing better in the first place. This weekend was really the first time I've had the chance to talk to Josh about all his stuff directly instead of just hearing it through other people. It's really even the first time we've related to each other as two openly gay guys.

Still, I can't change the past, and there's no point in speculating about how things might have turned out differently. In many ways Josh would have been my first really viable candidate as a boyfriend. But while I've always found him cute, I never really felt that way about him, and for most of our history together it just wouldn't have been possible because of the different places we were in life and our journeys. I guess it's also just ridiculous to think that I could have helped him at all. Who knows, maybe he'd have dragged me in with him instead? Maybe I'd be strung out or thumping a Bible...or both.

I realized too, that even ignoring any radical changes in our pasts, I could be living that life with Claire and Josh as well...I mean under different circumstances I could imagine what we did being a 'routine' Saturday night for us as well. But I left, I left and I moved to Baton Rouge, and then I left and moved to Houston, and I don't regret it, not any of it, not for a minute. As I said to them when they asked how I liked Houston, "It exceeded my expectations and I'd still be perfectly satisfied with it even if I were enjoying it considerably less."

I truth is I don't have a lot of the problems that the three of them are facing simply because I did leave. I have more options and I have a wider range of very different friends, and while I'm not criticising their lives or our old cities, I haven't a doubt in my mind that I'm happier here. It's selfish I know, and I do love them and want to be there for them, but I don't want to be there for them.