A Season of Winter

"Totum meum pro vobis" is Latin for "All of me for all of you." In more realistic words, it might mean "All I could be for all that you are." Individuality is among the many complexities of this life. The definition of a person differs. A biologist might say we are oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, whereas a psychologist might say we are our environmentally induced behavior. An evangelical might say we are God's creation in perfect image. But an SBNR person might say true personhood is the friends you make along the way. I believe at the center of personhood is the potential to be more.  To light the altar of your every aspiration ablaze and call it "love" is vain. This is but the romanticized pain we inflict upon ourselves just to prove our feelings are  real.  But the truth is that an empire built on oblation, an offering to the gods of our sentimentalism, is an empire that burns all the same. Yes, love requires action, but action does not requ...

When I turned 18, the first thing I did was sign up for those apps everybody warns you about. Only in my case, nobody had warned me at all. I drove twenty-five minutes, met somebody for fifteen, and left feeling like I lost something. That is the closest I've come to culture shock—the norm within gay culture to meet up with a complete stranger, give him your body, and go home trying to remember if he was twenty-four or thirty-two. Forget trying to remember his name, it's not like you even asked for it. I couldn't fathom being so inconsiderate and cursory. So I, regrettably, remember it all: his name, his face, the slight crookedness of his front tooth, the Cancer sign tattooed on his forearm. I remember his political affiliation that contradicted his sexuality, just like his star sign contradicted my own. I remember the clasp of his hand that retaliated against my resistance, the breathing that drowned out my unwillingness. What is it that compels gay youth to give themselv...

I once said my loneliness was antecedent. Since I finished school when I was sixteen, just after being removed from my church, I felt so alone. I knew this season would last many moons. Part of me thought it would last forever. I resisted interaction as if it were a strong current, fighting against the very connection I craved. Maybe it was fear of loss that kept me hidden from joy. If I never established relationships, then what did I have to lose? Internally, I knew all I had left was myself. I was betrayed by my entire community, my friends, and the people I once called my family. There was no shoulder suitable for my tears, no hand fit to hold mine. And so I became my own comfort.  I was left, left to the mercy of myself. After I was outed, I tore apart all that was left of me and dissected my worth to identify what pestilence made me detestable. No one knew, or maybe they did and just didn't care. If I were seen, I was overlooked. If I was looked at, I was unseen.  Friend...