Well that didn’t take very long…

And then no. No no no no. I won’t wait. I need to process this now and make or break it. So many thoughts, so many things I am reading. This incredibly interesting (as usual) link page and my recent conversation with C , the dream I had about my friend who is no longer my friend, bits of discussion here and there with friends and husband and the thousands and thousands of hours of broken conversations within my head.

My aim (for this moment in time, it may vanish as many others) is to get to a point where I fight the useless fight I have always thought towards the recognition and validation of people who don’t fit into society’s ideas of what is acceptable, laudable, desirable. I have a vantage point to do that: I have been and resided within many different cultures (broadly, New Zealand, Venezuela, Peru, The Philippines, The United States, Italy, England, London, Spain – and then within them all sorts of different regions and counties, and within that all sorts of different towns and cities as well as middle of noweheres, and within that in many different states: speaking and interacting with Ambassadors, Heads of Multinational Companies, Arab fucking princes and what have you to being homeless, making friends with the homeless, narrowly avoiding many times becoming a drugaddict, loving and being loved and having best friends who are dug addicts, alcoholics and homeless and even weapon wielding crazed people and suspected murderers. I have been with the uneducated uncouth simplest and the top-most brains in many fields. I have been friends with people who think the world of themselves and people who think nothing of themselves, who feel they are worthless worms and who feel they are on top of everything ad YOU are the worthless worm. Because I can relate to everything and everybody at one point or the other but I am missing my point.

My point is we ALL deserve to BE. This got close to the idea of where I’m heading: A long time ago when my kids were babies people asked me how I would react if they turned out to be gay. I remember saying quite distinctly “It depends on where they’ll have been brought up and what sort of people they turn out to be. If they will be in an advanced society where they can be happy and loved and loving then great, if they were to be here (I was within a small Italian town, the same where I spent many years of my youth and I was considered to be a whore) I would be very, very sad for them.”

Before I started thinking in terms of a specific disorder for myself, I exhaustingly changed my mind a few times a day about how it was great to be me, ad then it was shit, and then it was shit but I’d rather be me than many other people, and then how I felt it was really very ok to be me but considering the context I was living in I really really wished I wasn’t. I have spoken to people who still think that though they think being gay is absolutely ok, they still think it’s some sort of mental disorder. Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing that can be done about it, but nevertheless, a disorder. I had never ever thought of it in those terms, until I heard that, coming from a person whom I knew didn’t meant the slightest bad thing about it. I think about my dear friends K. and I. and the thought of them being gay because of a mental disorder is weird to me. Then I htink: “chemical difference?” “Dna stuff?” “Different gene composition?”. In a way, yes. Like me, whatever my diagnosis turns out to be, I know now that there is stuff that works a little differently inside of me. But would I ever think of giving medication, if it were available, to my friends K. and I. to make them less gay?? No way Jose’!!! I adore them the way they are, they are two of most intelligent and wonderful people I know and I wouldn’t change an inch of what they are!!!

I have always thought that the measure of someone’s love for me would be for them to accept me every bit as I am. Someone who could comfort me when I am being a mean bitch and not take advantage when my sexuality is playing up too much and be patient with me when I am crying and so on and so forth.

I was walking into the study earlier and my husband was working under the desk and I felt the familiar surge of horniness rise in me and I wanted to go over there and kiss him and tell him he was sexy as hell in that position. I would have limited my actions as here were kids in the house, but not to the extent that I did: I stopped stock still, and thought: “Is this a manic episode? Should I control it lest it leads to a depressive dip later?”.

Then I got annoyed and tried to dismiss every thought that was scrambling to settle into my head.

I am 43, and the worst of it is over. I survived those 43 years, and my kids survived it. Not all my important friendships survived them, and that still hurts, but on the whole: what I am now compared to what I was is a complete and utter victory. I am getting older weaker, less able to focus, concentrate, retain information, and even express myself properly. It doesn’t matter. I am probably unable to work, and fair enough, that would be problematic for most, but thankfully, although partly to do with my own life decisions, I am in a situation where soon we could potentially survive even if I didn’t work. I am lucky, but also no, I am not: i worked to get myself here, to survive.

Yes, if I were to live the conventional life, if I wished for a conventional social life in a conventional job, I would almost certainly need to rely more on medication to help me through. I systematically avoid a ell of a lot of triggers, malignant people. I am surrounded by beautiful countryside and pay less rent for a beautiful house than I would anywhere else. People have judged me forever on how unsuccessful i hve been in making it in their environment. True! They are heroes! But, like my gay friends would have been miserable beyond belief had they found themselves forced to live in my tiny little Italian small town, I am happier because I chose to move and move and move until i got myself in a place where I could survive, despite being very different from many people.

My point? We can all be happy provided some, or a lot, of our life is changed around us to be who we are. If it were the case, a lot of people who rely on medication to get by, and thus sacrifice a great many aspects of them just to be safe and stay alive, probably wouldn’t need to. A support system can be created with friends, the right structure, the right attitudes from workplaces, from the government, from society’s perception. Better information and education leads to less fear for what is a little different than what you’re used to, and thus acceptance, and thus less conflicting emotions and less triggers for sufferers.

Every year I celebrate my birthday with the Tuscan spirit: “You survived another year”. Every year I survive without having to chain myself down for the acceptance of others, is a year to celebrate for me. It is a constant gamble. I am responsible for children and animals, and feel that responsibility very strongly.

I want a diagnosis, I do. And then I want to destroy it and prove that whatever it is, it is just another word for a kind of human, and I have every right to be and live as happily as I can and shape my environment as far as I need to in order to live happily. I will not let anyone crush any bits of me because they are considered to be more potentially harmful than, say, greed, materialism, coldness of heart, which to me are far more hateful qualities.

I will also (and may regret it tomorrow, or even tonight) start re-sharing on my Facebook wall as well. Most of the people who are my friends on Facebook don’t read me, or if they do, read me quietly and quietly judge me, or read quietly and make helpful conclusions to their own lives, or are happy to read me… who knows.
I am so beyond caring now: those that matter, love me. Those who don’t love me, or even like me, can fuck right off. If anyone is left who can receive inspiration through my fights for our freedom to be whom we are, and be respected for it, then that will make my day, every day.