Tag: balance

Six

I ended my job at the transit company six months ago today.

End of the Line

In the past six months, my entire life has been in a state of beautiful tumult as I’ve been finding my feet again. So much so, that doing a single, simple blog post about it all seems like not enough.

I have pages and pages and PAGES of journaling that happened between then and now. I have watched as my body and mind have come to terms with the lack of structure in my days, both being “free” and “bound” at the same time. I have so much to reflect on, really, but there are a few key highlights that keep bubbling up to the surface on this weird little milestone day.

Firstly, I don’t miss that job.

Not one iota.

It was the last straw in terms of my own physical health, and the chaos and trauma that being a worker with the General Public caused me is still being tabulated in my mind and body. I have been spending a LOT of time just unpacking the anxiety around managing the behaviors of so many people in so many disparate places in their lives, and what it meant to have that kind of melting pot occurring on my 200’ long train.

I should have filed for disability. I should have made a Worker’s Compensation claim for what I endured.

I should have quit long ago.

Second, I have learned that, if you want to escape from the workday grind, as it were, there is very little on the outside of that framework that’ll support you. It is, simply put, living by the skin of your teeth. I learned, the hard way, that the bills keep coming, even if the paychecks don’t.

I’ve spent a lot of time, laying in bed, realizing that my life, and all of its simple trappings (gas in the Jeep, a roof over my head, money for laundry and the light bill, let alone food in the fridge) is all down to me, my choices, and the ways I connect to others. I’m relying on my own sense of worth, and finding myself leaning deep into the kindness of others more than I feel totally comfortable with. The act of leaving the “nest” of a steady paycheck situation means you’re going to fall, sometimes without grace, and you will go through a purification of a sort.

Things that once had major precedence in my life have fallen to the wayside.

I have learned a fundamental lesson about what qualifies as food and comfort and love.

I have learned to find joy in very dark places, simply to give myself the impetus to keep trying.

I have learned that I have a better inner strength than I first thought.

I have learned to trust my guts more, and to put my faith in the Universe a lot more, especially when things feel heavier than ever.

Through all of this is David, and my relationship to him. After my divorce, and recognizing that the way I love had to change, he returned, and in the time we’ve been here, on our own, we’ve both lowered our guards and walls even more around each other. The intimacy continues to grow, and we are less and less apt to cordon ourselves off from each other.

I know when his mental health is shaky, and how to both support him and keep my own balance, knowing full well I cannot fix this for him. I’ve learned to share when I’m feeling the slightest bit anxious about something, in terms that are pure and simple, so as to avoid them boiling over in any sort of way that causes a rupture or distance between us. I own my mistakes more fully.

I also trust him unlike I’ve trusted anyone before. With everything. I can come to him with the stupidest quirk or tweak in my mind, and he keeps me on my path, gently reassuring me that my mind is still healing and recovering from years of destructive and damaging thoughts and trauma. I know that I can just be me – and that being me is enough for him.

The moments when he reaches over to rub my fur while we share an evening playing video games quietly in the same room are some of the best moments of intimacy I’ve ever experienced.

Today, for the first time, I feel like I’m going to be okay.

I feel like I’ve got enough time and revenue streams coming into my life to support us in a way that’s not unfeasible. David has had to take a break from employment to manage his own health, but we collaborate to make money online, and he’s been good about not asking for more than I can provide (and I’ve been good about keeping myself honest about the promises I make – and not going beyond my means).

I have a cadre of utterly amazing clients both online and at the health club who I enjoy working with and who connect with me in lovely ways.

The rent will get paid.

The bills will get paid.

There will be food every day for David and I to enjoy.

The dog will have his treats and walks.

The smile on my face will remain.

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Recovering Codependent

It’s not like I’ve been Dad all my life.

I mean, maybe, in some regards, I have been. I was the oldest of two boys, and the band-aid and bridge between two parents who let a relationship linger far, far too long. Still, I’m not a parent. Care-giver, people pleaser, put-them-first kind of guy, yes. That’s me. I still have no actual children of my own.

But I do have David.

He’s sixteen years younger than I am, and in many ways, is in my heart the way most people who are important to me are. I put him first sometimes, I do what I can to make his life better, giving what I can whenever I can if it benefits him or lifts him up in any way.

Still, this relationship is unlike my others in my past. There’s a certain level of boundary line between him and I that keeps things vibrant, balanced, and moving in a healthy direction. I have learned to reserve more of me, more of my energy and time, and simply let David figure shit out on his own, or come to me on his own accord when things are fuzzy or he needs to get something off his chest.

I don’t find myself jumping through hoops to please him. I don’t put all of my self aside the moment he walks in the door from his day at work. In fact, when I do start doing that, I can feel my whole personhood changing in a way that is now uncomfortable and antithetical to how I live my life these days. I know what resentment feels like. I know what being taken advantage of feels like. I know how to stop those feelings dead in their tracks, pivot, and let go, more than I ever have.

For the first time in my adult life, I don’t feel like I need love like this in my life to validate who I am and how I exist.

David, every day, gets to make a choice to be with me, or not. Every single day, he’s given latitude, without pressure from me or my life, to live his life as he sees fits. By giving him this space to breathe, to be his own person, and to make and enact changes for himself that work for him, he is able to grow and change on his own accord. This, as it turns out, is a really new way for me to show how I love someone.

I’ve learned this the hard way. I’ve spent many, many years trying to contort myself into the lives of the men I’ve fallen in love with so that I could become irreplaceable to them. This is how, for me, I earned their love and devotion. The more I was needed, the more I was loved. If I ever felt a guy slipping away from me, it was my fault for failing to see or change enough to meet their needs. It was always my fault, and I would spend so much time and energy (and deep-dive into alcohol in the process) beating myself up over my “failures.”

I can’t say that it’s always easy to remember these lines and spaces between us. Usually, though, if I take a solid deep breath and notice the familiar feelings of “being taken advantage of” or “being taken for granted” – hallmarks of the start of resentment, that moment I decide to change for someone else – I can, and do, catch myself. The more I practice pausing and reflecting in the moment, the easier it becomes.

Boundaries are healthy. Knowing the limits of your personhood and setting lines that cannot be crossed is important. Defining yourself for your SELF, and not through the views and refraction of others and their perceptions of you, is one of the most life-affirming actions you can take.

Take it from this Dad. Your Sons will appreciate it when you give them space to grow on their own.

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , , , , , ,

Summer’s Ending

This entire summer has been a journey through territory I’ve never traversed before. Quitting my steady, stable, union job back on June 1 was the first step into a whole new world for me. Suddenly, I found myself facing down the world and future without a guaranteed income, or plan for what to do after six months was up.

I also found myself at a massive crossroad with my relationships to others, especially with my former husband. I knew change needed to happen, and that I needed to face down something that had been nagging at me for a long time.

In the act of clearing the decks, in taking stock and making fundamental changes to my life in order to be a healthier, happier me, I stumbled, kind of haphazardly, into a deeper relationship. David, who returned to the house, and my life, all around the time that I was quitting my job and my marriage, has been by my side through this summer of realization and recovery, and continues to be an element of my life that I can’t quite put my finger on. Something there, here, between us, feels authentic in a way I haven’t fully realized or wrapped my arms around. I’m getting there.

On top of all of this, there’s my coaching. I’ve had a summer of taking on a few clients at a health club I started working at back at the end of May. It’s been some time getting my feet under me there, figuring out how to best find my place in the community there, and what skills and abilities to bring to the table while I’ve got my uniform on and I’m working with clients. It’s still all a little wobbly, but with each passing week, I’m meeting new and renewing clients there, and feeling much more confident in what I’m doing. I will be teaching a class there, later this fall, which will be for people who are nervous about weight lifting, and how to lift safely and with confidence.

Today, I’m coming up with a new pitch to gain clients on one of the coaching platforms I’m part of. I’m retooling my own approach (digitally) to ensure that the kinds of clients I’m getting are the kinds of clients I want – ready and willing to make changes, trust in the process, and let me hold them accountable. I’m also coming to terms with the fact that the money I had set aside to ride on while I got my wind in my sails is just about gone.

Soon, in the next thirty days or so, I’m going to be at another crossroads.

Will I be able to afford to continue on as a coach, full time, doing the thing that has brought me utter joy and a feeling of purpose unlike any other profession I’ve been a part of? Or will I need to sure myself up with a regular (albeit part time) job where I’m on someone else’s calendar and clock?

The fact is, I don’t know.

I don’t know if I’ll make it, but I do know that I’m trying.

I *do* know that I’m just going to have to give up and let the Universe guide me forward. Already, just this week, I’ve identified some of the barriers that stand between me and doing this sustainably and for the rest of my days, and it’s my own self-confidence in what and who I am.

The rest of Summer, and on into early Fall, and right up to my Birthday, this is my focus. Finding my self-confidence again, and getting myself to a place where I don’t need to rely on David, or anyone, to keep my head afloat and in the groove I’m in.

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , , , , , , ,

The First Month

I quit my transit job as of June 1, 2023. It’s been just over twenty days since then, and I’ve been able to reflect a bit on a few things.

Most notably, my overall mental health has vastly improved. I’m calmer, sleeping better than ever, and feel a sense of peace unlike any I’ve ever felt in my life. Sure, I’m still worried about money and making ends meet, but not nearly as consumed by those pressures on to top of having to negotiate the daily grind that the transit job presented to me every damn day.

I get to wake up when I’m rested, sleep when I’m tired, set my own schedule, talk when I want to, be quiet when I don’t, and all the rest. I’m my own boss, my own leader, my own determining factor in my future. I have control over my life in a way I’ve never known before. I’m able to set boundaries and walls where I need them, and move them and adjust them on the fly. I’m not negotiating a whole pile of bullshit just to find happiness. I’m finding it, daily, in many ways.

I get to wear cut-off jean shorts and old comfy tees as often as I want.

I still have some things to sift through, especially with my finances. I need to take stock of where I am with my income, and what I have in the bank, and organize my money a bit more. I’ve been spending a bit willy-nilly as of late, and that needs to stop. Money, so far, is a finite resource, and given I only have met a few clients at the new job, and only for an intro meeting, I don’t have much coming in from that – yet. I was just handed a list of people who I can follow up with, and have, with regards to getting them to meet with me at the club. Still, until those turn into standing training clients, I’m still grasping around in the dark. I’m still leaning into my online clientele, and that’s okay, for now.

The other major change that’s occured is, of course, the return and resurgence of David’s place in my life. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in Denver, living his best new life or whatever, but, instead, he’s come back.

I’m still wrapping my head around this fact.

The affection resumes.

We spent last weekend driving to Salt Lake City to pick up the rest of his belongings from his sister’s place. I got to meet one of his oldest friends, Sean, and also meet his sister, brother-in-law, his nieces and nephew, and have a nice chat with his dad again.

David’s family is supremely important to him, and while he doesn’t like to admit it, he feels like he’s got to carry them in some fashion. I’m not sure what that will look like going forward, as he’s still got to get his own feet under him, but I know that he’s, more than once, talked to me about what happens when his dad, who’s 73 years old as of a few days ago, has a decline in his health. It’s coming, and David is preparing himself for it daily. I already know he’ll be leaning in on me when things turn for his dad.

Beyond all of that, we both recognize that this time around for us, we are seeking comfort and peace with each other. No more drama, secrets, or fear of asking questions that are hard, or might cause concern. I feel like he’s hiding far less from me this time around, and I’m actively facing each day with him as a new experience to enjoy, rather than putting any weight on our future. He doesn’t have much to show with regards to sticking power and being present in a long-term relationship, so I’m still a bit guarded. I think that’s okay, though, and it’s helping me keep my inner codependent self at ease. I don’t *need* David. I don’t need his validation or approval or any of that. I *want* his presence in my life, in as many ways as possible, because I do, in fact, love him. However, it’s not a desperate kind of love. It’s easier, calmer, more gentle.

It’s better this time around, in many ways.

Well-Laid Man

Plus, let’s be real. The sex has been amazing. Connected love-making with David has been the cornerstone of our connection, and it continues to be. Exploring my sexuality, our shared and disparate kinks, and all the rest, has been a JOY to experience, and I can’t wait to see what we get up to.

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , , , , , , , ,

Reckoning, a Bit

He’s got a date tonight.

I told him from the start of this reconnect that I’m totally comfy with him dating, seeing others, and all of that. I meant it then, I still mean it today.

However, this information today has got me back on my heels, deciphering why I reacted to this news the way I did. Initially, it stung, and I know why. I haven’t been checking myself, keeping myself on the path I knew I’d need to traverse, since the Boy has returned into my life. Instead, I’ve let myself start to believe that this was really going to be a second attempt at what we started with, that I’d be able to let go of my reservations and fall deeply in love with him again, without fear or worry of losing him. I started to create this fantasy in my head, and living my days as though it was real.

It’s not real. Not really. He’s still after a thing that doesn’t look like the relationship I have with him, and that’s a fact. He’s said so himself.

I need to respect that, and welcome the reckoning with the way I’ve been feeling and thinking about the connection I have reformed with him. The other thing I need to do, which he reminded me of last night, was to stop racing ahead, future-planning and pressurizing, and getting out ahead of the reality that we both share. Yes, he might have a date tonight, but that doesn’t mean he’s off and gone and disappeared forever. Nor does it mean that I need to stop making more space for the kind of love I am seeking, either with him, or with a potential future partner.

The fact is, I am an emotionally polyamorous person, with deep, non-sexual connection to a few different men. I am, also, sexually monogamous, in that my body really only functions well when I can have a solid, continuous connection to another person’s body and sex, surrounded in love and warmth and safety. The Boy once provided that for me, which is what my body still actively craves, and it’s that energy and flow that I’ve started to really enjoy again, and which has led me to creating a fantasy world that contains us in that fashion.

Needless to say, it’s tricky. All of this is tricky. All of it requires me to let go of the future I think I’m headed to, and simply remain present-tense, in this space of current status, current feelings, and current pursuits. I told him that I needed to pull back from him a bit, and I don’t think he liked that.

He prefers me to be my full-on loving, open-hearted, generous self. Of course he does – it’s my best feature, and my most supportive. If I withdraw, then he has to face the challenges of his own days on his own, which, if I’m frank, might be a good test for him to undertake, and drive the choices that he’s making.

I know, at the end of this all, that I’m worthy of being loved in the way that I am seeking. I also know that it’s not impossible, or even difficult, to be in a monogamous and powerful sexual/physical relationship with me, with all the added support, love, and commitment that comes with that for me, who’s also demisexual and needs that emotional level of contact above all, and still not be threatened by the emotional connections and feelings of attachment I have to others in my life.

If it makes him feel better, I can just call them “close friends” which is more for his benefit, and not mine. I simply don’t have titles for the men I love anymore, nor do I have titles for myself in all of it either. I’m simply Thom. Everyone I’m connected to is also, just Themselves.

I think he’s still figuring out the shape of his heart, and what his heart really needs. I also still think that, in time, he will come to recognize me as a bonus to his life, and will settle on a connection with me that is mutually beneficial, but that will all remain to be seen. It’s in his hands. I’m going to be me, regardless, and love how I love, regardless. He doesn’t get a say in how my heart works.

That’s all on me.

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , , , , , , , , ,

More than a Boy

He’s more than just my Boy. I call him Son, sometimes, but he’s growing into something Else. I’m not sure what to label things, so I think I’ll just not and let them be what they Are, whatever that might be, or become.

David’s been here about two months now, and from what I can tell, things between him and myself are just getting started. We’ve got a settled pattern of behavior, which works for us both, for now. He doesn’t have a job yet, so that will most likely shift as time passes, hopefully. Still, the way we move together, and the time we spend with each other, has become more and more like time spent with another piece of me. We fuck, we laugh, we scheme, we talk. We work out together. We share common desires for ourselves and for our futures.

We are deeply in Love.

He’s still quite reserved about his feelings, though, and the last couple of days has been a bit of a deeper dive into that part of him.

He knows I’m polyamorous. He knew this entering into anything with me, knows of my partners and my connection to them, and knows that he cannot take up more space in my heart than he already does.

But I think he forgets sometimes. And I think he’s still testing the waters to see how he feels about all of this.

Apparently, loving a person who also holds love for others is a weirdly wired challenge for him, as it has been for the other young men I’ve attempted to bring into my life on this level. It’s a bit tiresome on my end of things, and I am finding myself holding back, dialing myself and my own expression of affection, connection, and emotion into a safer place, under control.

Naw, that’s phrased wrong.

What I’m doing is silently holding my feelings for myself and watching as he develops and changes to his new situation in his life. I think I’ve learned that it’s not on me to adjust myself so far out of whack with who I am to meet his needs. I don’t need to compromise how I identify or how I love, just to be enough for him. This time around, I’m keeping my cool, and keeping control of myself and my emotional state, while letting him go through what he needs to go through. I am constantly remembering that this could all fall apart at any moment.

Thing is, that’s the truth for all of my relationships. Each one of them is a daily choice to be made.

He admitted to me that he’s struggling with his sense of insecurity, which leans into the generic “jealousy” realm. Jealousy, is an over-arching word for a ton of other smaller feelings, and when I hear that word, I’m set off in search of the underlying feeling that’s more precise. In his case, he’s at a crossroads between wanting a singular man all to himself, like he has had before, or wanting the lateral flexibility to love more than one man, such as I do, and expand his understanding of committed relationships and love, overall.

Right from the start, it was he who told me that he wanted to love in a similar fashion to me. He wanted to hold space and affection for more than one person. I told him I could show him how it works for me, and I have been doing that for the last eight months. What I think might be happening is that he’s discovered there’s a boundary, and he needs to negotiate his comfort level with this. I’ve told him that I have made more space for him, at the expense of my other relationships, in order to make him more comfortable while he figures this out.

But I won’t go further than what I’ve done.

I don’t have to compromise so much that I lose parts of my heart in the process. I have worked very hard to establish and maintain the relationships that I have in my life, and they are vital to my life, and deserve attention and care. He knows this, respects this, and has recognized his own shortcomings that he, alone, will have to negotiate.

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , , , , , , ,

Mental Health Days

I grew up in a world where mental health concerns were the stuff of humor and ridicule. Mental health hospitals were deemed terms like “looney bin” and “psycho ward” and the like. Conversations about people with mental health issues included terms like “bat-shit crazy” and “psychotic” in ways that indicated derision and a derogatory tone. Mental health issues were a shameful thing, best dealt with quietly, in the darkness, and out of sight. Nobody admitted they were on pills to cope. Ever.

For years, I cast off any suggestion that I had depression, or needed therapy, or any help at all. I denounced all mental health meds as just “crutches for the weak” (again, ableist as fuck) and denied myself the care I clearly needed because of the stigma around not being normal.

That stopped, fully, last year, when I started down a path towards my own mental health improvement. My anxiety and depression had gotten so bad that it was affecting how I interacted with the people I love. I was sleeping maybe 4-5 hours a night, my insides were always in a knot, and my drinking had grown exponentially. I needed to come to terms with my old ways of thinking, and admit that I needed help.

Thankfully, I had (and still have) a wonderful support network around me to lean on when shit hits the fan. Dad’s not as strong as he’d like to be, but then again, the definition of “strength” is malleable. I’m learning a lot about the bullshit I carried around for years. I’m working through it. Part of that journey meant coming to terms with my needs at work. I finally applied for an intermittent medical leave, a protected right under the federal Family Medical Leave Act, which will help me both keep my job, and work even harder on my mental health needs and growth.

Today, I finally took advantage of this protection for the first time.

I woke up feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, and as I looked at my scheduled day – 12 hours at the handle of my train – and felt myself already mentally crushing under the weight of that. I made a choice. Today is a self-care day. I have been running hard for a few days straight now, and I’ve hit a wall. Mentally and physically. I lost track of myself yesterday, forgot my meds, and started to grind my own self down.

This decision runs smack against everything I’ve ever been taught about work and reliability and all of that. I still struggle with these old ways of thinking, still refer to myself as “broken” when that’s not fully accurate. Perhaps, today, as I recover and pull myself together again, I will ruminate on the way I talk about my own mental health and wellbeing.

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , , , , , ,

Dad’s State of Mind

Things started getting really tricky for me back towards the end of the first year of the Pandemic We All Hate (COVID-19). I’d managed to open up my heart, and love in a way that’s true to who I am, but because of lockdowns and such, forming a stronger bond with those who were far away became next to impossible. I found myself constrained and contained, much like the rest of the world, and stuck in an inside-space, with all of the inside-thoughts that come with that.

Things at work had also taken a turn. No longer were my transit vehicles full of commuters and people just getting around the metro area for one reason or another. Suddenly, it was empty vehicles, or vehicles that became rolling shelters for those without homes, and just as suddenly, I was in a place of damage mitigation and social support for those in need. None of which, I might add, I was trained to handle. I was raw-dogging my way through things, just like everyone else was.

Two COVID infections myself, one short-term relationship with a fellow who decided he preferred a monogamous match rather than being part of a polyamorous situation, and myself left with a broken heart in a broken world, 2021 was shaping up to be one of the most challenging years of my life to date.

Amazingly, though, in that year, I met David the DJ, and Dylan, both of whom quickly became solid supporters of me and my mental health. Both of them had begun the journey of getting a handle on their own mind matters, and it was while learning from them that I began to take steps for myself. Panic attacks at work, along with a severe lack of sleep, and running into anxiety walls while working out all had me back on my heels, worried about what was going on in my head. It was, in fact, a lack of boners, that sent me to the doctors. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d been missing sex a LOT and suddenly, the machinery that I’ve been depending on for all of my post-pubescent years just wasn’t operational. It was a real problem, for sure.

Since starting therapy, and going down my own mental health wellness path, I’ve been making some pretty decent progress. I’ve recognized where loads of my old trauma responses come from. I’ve begun the process of sifting and sorting and healing from old wounds I wasn’t even aware I was carrying. I’ve started to really make new mental connections to the concepts of love and desire and want and validity. Truly, over the last eight months, I’ve made some real growth.

But, as was the case today, there are still moments of opportunity for me. Today was a challenge of a day.

I’ve fallen in with two beautiful men as of late. One, Cody, lives in Tucson and I met him over my trip to see Above & Beyond at the Gorge Amphitheater a little over a month ago. He and I formed a strange and beautiful bond that’s persisting and thriving, in ways I was not expecting. Then, there’s another David, a young man I met online who was living in Philadelphia, who has recently moved to Salt Lake City, and who, for some reason I have as of yet to fully ascertain, has opened up his heart and world to me. Both of these wonderful connections have so much potential for Joy and Goodness and all the things that relationships can include. It’s a damn Good Thing, and I’m super-duper lucky.

Except that I don’t feel worthy of it. Not fully. Like, I don’t know if I deserve their affections and attentions. Today, as I asked myself “are you worthy” while at the gym, my mind went into chaos-mode, and a panic attack unlike I’d ever felt before, really reared up. I called out of work, knowing full well I’d be unsafe to operate a vehicle in this state of mind, and then made a bee-line, with the dog, to the forest for a respite.

I quieted myself next to the Clackamas River, while Steinbeck kept watch. I let him swim and take a deep drink of the cold mountain water, and as we drove, he leaned in on me more than once, as though to check on me, and tell me I’m worthy of his love. We passed a lone cyclist, who was riding towards the forest, who just reached high and gave us an excited wave, which I returned in kind. He also saw me as worthy, it would seem. I got home, turned back on my connectivity to the world by taking my phone out of Do Not Disturb mode, and caught a message from young David, and DJ David, and Cody, all of whom were checking in on me. All of whom, it would appear, see me as worthy.

I had a vulnerable moment in a video chat with young David, and told him of my struggles. His response has been one of love and gratitude for my allowing him to see this side of me. A text message chain with Cody brought similar results.

Today, I learned that I am worthy of the love I’ve been shown. It was coming at me from all directions, though not from my own inside-self.

I need to continue the work on building up my own sense of self-worth, and not need to rely on external topping off of such things as much. That, for me, is the state of play in my mind these days. I know there’s much more work to do.

by Thom Categories: TasteTags: , , , , , , , ,

Social Shift

We are not meant to be as connected to people as we are online.

I came to this realization the other day when, again, I dumped my account on a major social media platform. I had plenty of followers, was following plenty of people, but it was all far, far too much. I’d been seeking a way off of Instagram, much like I’d been seeking a way off Facebook a year prior, and found my way out. Instagram’s artificial intelligence, the bots tasked with filtering and flagging content as appropriate or not for the site, had determined that an image, from an account I loved and followed with joy, was hate speech. The account in question was a site dedicated to the memory of people who died from AIDS. Flagging anything on there as ”hate speech,” to my mind, was abhorrent. I had found my reason.

Now, though, a few days out, I realize the reasons I left that site are more than for one flagged post.

I have spent far too much of my adult life enjoying the ping of validation that social media sites give me. Sure, it’s fine when a person I know in real-time and real-life comments on a photo or post, or lets me know that they are thinking of me in some fashion. That’s the magic of social media, and it’s brightest moment in all of our digital lives. Where that line gets crossed, though, is when we forgo living in our actual real world, making real connections, and existing as beings on this planet, and give over too much of ourselves to the internet and all of it’s tendrils and functions.

Maybe this makes me old.

I’d like to think it’s me finding balance.

For now, it’s me, and my one Twitter account, where I’ve been more honest with who I am and how I present myself than I’ve ever been.

Which, I should add, is kind of an amazing progression from the way I came out of the closet. More on that in a future post. xx

by Thom Categories: TouchTags: , 1 Comment