the re-education of me-me

me with my younger brother(now estranged) notice the ford fairline peeking in....


this is me at 19- employed as bartender and in relationship with peter (who was 27)

"I am constantly talking in my head all the time except when I am sleeping. I am always thinking, thinking, thinking."
from Susie on our About Bipolar Disorder forum

my birthday is really part of a bigger celebration for me. it is the anniversary of my coming out as a gay man, too. in 1974, at the age of 16, i decided to kick down the closet door and declare my lifetime allegiance to being queer. i certainly don't think i would do it the way i did now, but i don't have that luxury.

i am bipolar and was in the throes of learning to not cope with mania and depression, sexuality and desire, as well as rules and conformity. i would say that i really didn't do that well. the adage about the traumatized person continuously putting themselves into harms way just to be re traumatized would describe very well much of my first 25 years. but when i was 16, there was no way to saddle the bull in the china shop approach i had to life.

i told my mother (also bipolar) i was gay and she became disgusted and depressed. she took me to a psychiatrist who tried to compare her emotional reactions to the stages of grief. i interpreted that as "i might as well have died". she began to drink, party, and sleep around more than before. i felt responsible for her unhappiness. it was too much to bear. i left home.

i moved to downtown chicago and started hanging around a puerto rican drag queen named danee. she was living with a doorman named jimmey looney. jimmey had a sugar daddy (also a doorman) named peter gigley. yes virginia, looney and gigley. i moved in with them. i started hustling a little to make money. we partied all the time. danee was lifting money out of gigleys wallet and tried to blame me.

i somehow survived all the parties (and multiple traumas) that ensued over the next 5 years. i definitely developed my relationship with self-medication in this period. i moved quickly from hustling to go-go boy. i used to dance in bikini briefs at a bar called "the take it easy inn" when i was 17. i still have fan mail from a college age boy who used to come in and watch me dance. welcome to the blue iguana.

i danced at another bar too, for a while. i met my first serious boyfriend at that job. he was a bartender and i cannot even remember how we hooked up. even more perplexing is how we ended up moving in together. he had two female roommates (both nurses) and it was very much like "three's company" adds one. i became a bartender too, the his job changed to a restaurant on rush street. i caught him having sex with another fellow waiter one morning in front of our house in a car. i was devastated, but would only show anger and erected an emotional wall that became impermeable. our relationship withered and dried up like an african violet in full sun.

wow- i didn't intend to delve into much of this gaga. but there it is. this is perhaps a bleak picture that does not include much of the bright aspects. i did laugh and smile in those times. i developed a sense of kindness that was instilled by grace and the influence of others. i grew up in an eclectic community of gay men. i bounced around between circles of friends and learned how to survive and worked toward a more sophisticated sensibility. friends came and went, sexual partners came and went(wow-pun intended) and i became urban through osmosis. my wit and my tongue sharpened, my mania came and went, and i survived. i wished for love or a lover, but didn't think i was capable. i had failed at it before, after all. and if i was in love, i had to be in love forever. and i had no idea that relationships could end in healthy ways.

in retrospect, i now understand how my out-of-balance emotions set the pace for my life. i made my decisions for my future based upon my feelings, probably because my feelings were so pronounced during manic periods. i had been introduced to sex at way too early an age, so did not have a good sense of personal boundaries. with that lack of parameters, i found myself in compromising situations physically and emotionally time and time again. but i am sure that a protective energy has been accompanying me on my journey and kept me going. how and why this is, i have no idea.

enough diary today. please take the time to check the sidebar. i have posted the finetune playlist "around 1974". that is the year of my 16th birthday and that is the year that this manic bird took flight. it seems to have rained for more than forty days and forty nights, but everyone probably says that. i can honestly report that dry land has been found. and after all these years, it all seems surreal. someday, someway maybe i'll understand it all a little better. until then, i try to do the best i can. and every birthday, i learn i have a little bit more to give back.