SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AND GAY PRIDE

The Supreme Court made their decision on same-sex marriage!  It is legal in all 50 states to get married!  Whoo hoo!  The party was in the streets.  I felt so free.  Not because I was going to get married.  No sir.  I just got out of a 22 year relationship.  I am in no condition to get back into any relationship but a friendship.  But I worked for many years to make same-sex marriage legal for those that want to get married.  I marched, I worked the polls, I wrote letters, I went to protests, Tracy and I even got married before it was legal.  Our marriage was annulled by the state.  It was legal for a very short while.  Twenty-two years ago we were at a protest in front of the IRS in Washington, D.C. at a mass wedding.   I have been fighting this for a long time.

I was married to a man before for a short time and went through a lengthy divorce.  I have no interest in getting married again.  I made that clear to Tracy from the beginning.  I only married in protest to be part of the civil disobedience.  I always felt that Tracy married for real.

Then came Gay Pride weekend.  Usually Tracy would have wanted to stay home and watch it on TV.  She hated crowds and going to events.  She would say "we can go next year".   This year I went to the celebration in the streets for Same-Sex Marriage, the day before Gay Pride and to the Gay Pride parade.

At the Same-Sex Marriage celebration I met a new friend, Jay.  We started talking and hit it off.  I hope we can connect again soon.

At the the Day Before Pride Celebration I hung out by myself.  I just walked around.

At the Gay Pride Parade I met up with my friend Herbert and his friends, Dee and Jeannie.  I hit it off with Jeannie (in a friendship way.)  We had a good time talking during the parade.  It was good to catch up with Herbert not while at a movie.

It felt freeing to go to these events without someone holding me back and keeping me from going.  I know you probably say why didn't you just go and leave her home?  Tracy would be very needy and if I did go she would get angry and call me many times while I was gone.  Or I would get home and she would not be speaking to me.  Sometimes I would go to events without her but other times it just was not worth the reaction I would get.  My therapist calls it avoidance.  I call it picking my battles.

more to come...

DOGS AND MOVIES

This week was about getting the dogs in order.  The past six months effected the dogs in different ways.  Lulu, the little dog, became very aggressive toward Tracy.  At first I didn't know why and took her to a behaviorist to try and figure it out.  It became clear that she was protecting me from Tracy.  This little 9 pound dog would run up to Tracy and growl and try to bite her.

The bigger dog, Bubba, was very torn between us.  Bubba has always been closer to me and wanted to protect me but at the same time she wanted to spend time with Tracy.  She was confused.  She also didn't like all the yelling.

Toward the end of the six months Lulu became quite scared with Tracy's aggressive behavior and would jump up on furniture to get away from her.  Bubba would move her bedding as close to me as she could.

Bubba was acting so weird over the last few weeks.  Was she sick?  Was she heart broken?  Was her back bothering her (she had a bad back)?  I didn't know so I decided to take her to the vet and get her checked out.  They ran some blood and stuff and she came out fine.  We all agreed that it was probably a combination of bad back and heart broken.

Then I took Lulu to get her nails done and to get a bath.  That dog can smell so bad.  She doesn't get dirty but she smells so bad.  I call her stinky.  That should be her name.  They said she was so good.  I am not sure I believe them, I think they were being nice.  Lulu is a growly dog when she gets her nails done.  Her nails were so long it was an embarrassment!

I went to see another movie for free: Ted 2.  Now normally I probably would not go see Ted or Ted 2 in a movie theater but it was for free so why not.  It was fun for free!

At the end of the week I invited my 14 year old neighbor over to watch a movie.  He wanted to watch Big Hero 6.  It was a cute movie.  Boys are so funny at that age.  Sometimes you can't get them to shut up and other times you can't get them to say two words in a sentence.

This was a week of getting the dogs settled and back to normal and continuing to get myself back to normal by doing normal things.

more to come...

NEW PHILOSOPHY

I have been doing things since the restraining order that I want to do.  The first night I was along in the house, I ordered Thai food to be delivered.  Partly because I had no food in the house and partly because I wanted to eat something that Tracy would never eat so we never ate it.  Tracy had a very limited scope of food and restaurants that she would eat and eat at.  It got boring eating at the same restaurants over and over when we live somewhere where there are hundreds of restaurants.  I found a Thai place that would deliver and ordered a bunch of food.  It tasted fantastic.

This week I got an email for free tickets to see the movie Jurassic World.  I was not that interested in seeing the movie but it was free and I am newly single so I went.  It turned out to be a descent movie.  My new philosophy is eat new foods, do new things, experience the world I missed out on.  Say no to almost nothing.  Go for it!  I am going to experience as much as I can fit in.  I missed out on so much but not anymore.  Try to keep up!

more to come...