Jason's Walk

I'll never be able to tell you why but it has been so important for me in my life to become best friends with my parents. Some people have a "parent-child" relationship with their mom and dad and for some reason, maybe because they were so young when I was conceived and we grew up together, I have always felt so much more like their best friend for life. They were disciplinary and they were all things authority, but there was always something above that. There was friendship, the kind where you could tell each other anything. As I've grown up, it has taken a lot on my part to keep that kind of openness and honesty without anyone disowning each other -- but for some reason it's been so important to me that we keep that. That they remain my best friends.

Family in general has always been important to me. Someone told me a few weeks ago that they'd read somewhere your earliest memory is indicative of how you view the world. The very first thing I can remember is being two years old, sitting at the head of what then seemed like an enormous dining room table filled with family, all of whom were cheering for me as a big chocolate cake was brought out and I was encouraged to make a wish and blow out the candles. I was the first nephew, the first grandson, the first and only child. So the earliest feelings I can remember are feeling absolutely adored. And I suppose, yes that has extended to how I view the world: Family is important. I have an unhealthy fondness for dining room tables. (When Mikey moved out over a year ago and took his, the gaping space where it was nearly destroyed me until my mom came and replaced it with my own. It wasn't until then that I felt I could even breathe again.) And of course, chocolate cake is love, it's good to feel adored and I have lived at certain times in my life only to hear the sound of applause.

It has been utterly imperative for me not only to have my parents love and support, but to have them agree with my chosen lifestyle, profession, sexuality... I guess you could say my path in general, and for me to agree with theirs. This has been nearly impossible due to the fact that all three of us -- my mother, my father and I -- lead extremely different lifestyles. In fact, I think the approval I have sought from everyone in my life, from boyfriends to you Constant Reader, has stemmed from that. In fact, I don't "think," I know that now.

Something changed over the holidays. Something wonderful for me. I wish there was some storyline or chain of events leading to it that could better explain it for you, but I think it's just something that happens over time maybe. Like everything we want in life, it comes to us only when it is ready to and it often takes it's damned precious time in getting there.

Something just clicked. I sat there on the couch at my father's in Indiana just sort of staring around the house, the television blaring, my step-brother playing on the floor, my step-mother cooking in the kitchen... and as I saw my dad in the corner getting his music together for church the next day, it suddenly dawned on me that everything the man had lived in his life, all of the experiences that made him who he is today, none of them are things that I had lived. The many miles he has walked have been on a path that isn't anyone's but his. I felt this sort of electric jolt that showed me for less than a second everything he had lived through and everything it made him feel and I knew then that if I had lived his life I would be where he is, sitting in that corner getting music together for church with a boy on the floor playing and a woman in the kitchen cooking. And I also knew that if he had lived mine, he might very well be where I am.

We all have our own path. My mantra these days seems to be: We share the ground, but not the road. I hear that in my head over and over. We all come from the same place and we all live in the same place and these are the ties that bind, but the path each of us walk is only for us. I had for too long in my life tried to walk another person's road or make someone walk mine in order to gain their approval. It all stopped in what felt like an instant.

I no longer needed my parents approval and it was like in a horror movie where you kill the head zombie and the rest turn back to human form. They were the big ones. When I no longer needed their approval, I felt this huge weight (almost literal) taken from my shoulders and I didn't need any other person's either.

Oddly enough, my own personal walk with God grew stronger from this I feel. There is an absolute certainty now that there is only one authority in my life and that only I have access to that authority for me. I've got the telephone number and it's within me. It's a direct line and it's right here. And from that knowledge, all the bars are raised now. It's a clear signal.

My parents will always be my best friends and I will always need and have their love and support as they will have mine. So many of their qualities are my own, be it genetically or just from how I was raised. But I find these days that with each person, there is a third parent and it is that of the self.


Song of the Week: "Scarlet's Walk" - Tori Amos

"What do you plan to do with all your freedom?"
the new sherrif said, quite proud of his badge.
"You must admit the land is now in good hands."
Yes, time will tell that. You just lift your lamp, leaving Terra...



What do you plan to do with all your freedom?