"Dawn Morgan tagged a photo of you on Facebook"... I checked the link and there was a photo from 7 years ago. The picture took me back to a completely different time in my life. Looking at the pic I started to tear up and was not sure why...
This led me into a bit of a mental tailspin... It sent back a flood of memories that I had set back in my mind of what felt like a different life. I wondered why I had held them back and it all hit me. Life then was much more communal that I have felt for a long time.
Back then it was a time filled with friends dropping by, impromptu Barbecues, 4th of Julies, birthday parties, as well a sense that we were all drifting and not alone. I look back and see that we were all very lost but by being lost together we built a life that was so engaging, as well as interactive.
Dawn and I would wax poetically about the art of movies, both of us analyzing each scene, what music was worth introducing each other to, talking of goals and dreams and where we envisioned our lives. Ro, Dawn and I would do almost everything together holidays, movies, dinners, cooking. We even went to Disneyworld together to see our friend Eric Himan perform at Gay Days.
Throughout the time living on 15th in Seattle, WA we would have Christmas events, Barbecues, potlucks, etc with a wide array of friends. A majority of the people we would connect with was through the early days of LiveJournal. Something about the cathartic nature of venting or taking quizzes connected with every aspect of our personal lives opened us up to knowing each other intimately (or so we thought). The days of MySpace and Facebook were still years away.
In 2005 a lot changed for me. It started when Dawn announced that she would be taking some time to move back home to Florida. He dreams of being a filmmaker had dried up in Seattle and it was time to make some changes. Within a month Ro and I had concluded that we did, and had, for a long time made better friends that we had as lovers.
This led “the group” to slowly making changes, in the past 6 years my closest friend and musical partner Ducky embraced the gym/leather community and even though trying to reconnect I was never able to recapture the special moments we had when making music, Chrispy and Tom moved into their own place and lost touch, Chris and Justin broke up and got back together so many times before ending it and all that was seen of them was the random club sightings; Jen and Erin were married and divorced, Jen is still looking for a soul mate while Erin is now a mom. The others I have bumped into along the way of life and social networking. Though most are not in my life anymore.
Ro and I stayed friends and lived together for a while until he changed and ended years of sobriety and descended into the world of drugs/alcohol for a time. I hear he is now settled and now in NM with his partner.
Dawn moved for a while to Washington, D.C. then returned to Fl. She was married and now divorced and single. She continues to search her self and her soul but the distance has been rough for us.
Later that same year I was diagnosed with HIV and it seems for a short time I found my niche with the HIV community in Seattle. That lasted for a short time until I started therapy and started working on my internal struggles.
I have not yet been able to find a sense of community that was anything like I had at that stage of my life, but I feel more complete internally. I would be lying if I said that I do not miss having a house full of people to spend with at holidays, It was warm. Now I am more content with my family and my partner’s family. I do not feel I have found my exact community or where I really fit in yet.
Truth be told that as we get older things change. It is not easy but as people change and come and go we get the chance to experience new life and new adventures.
I am off to mine…
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