In The Clear

Weights over the past year or so have lifted from me like the smog after these rainy Los Angeles afternoons. It clears the air so I can see out my mind's window as far as the eye can see and there's clarity where before there was none.

An immovable joy is something I've written about in past months, this ability to choose happiness through the acceptance that there will always be something wrong and that it can always get worse.

Last August I wrote, "If the amount of joy we are getting out of life is dependent upon the things that happen or don't happen to us... well then we're all just perpetual victims aren't we? The happy is always there. Don't play the victim by letting life get between you and it."

That was a big weight lifted.

I also used to associate certain things I did with how I felt about myself. My love for myself was not unconditional but instead dependent upon what I was doing with my career, what I was eating, how much money I was making or spending, etc. I was confusing what I do with who I am. Who we are is comprised not of the things that wither or fade but of the things that don't change, the things we will take with us to our death bed: Honesty, Spirituality, Talent, Humor... whatever lifelong traits one may have.

Another weight lifted.

But a few months ago I was fortunate enough to find still more lightness in being, this time pertaining to the idea of "love" and "relationships."

It's as though I awakened one morning and my desire -- that hunger! -- to find a partner... well, it had vanished in the night.

I'm not sure where it went.

It's a weird feeling, not being on the lookout for a boyfriend or even sex really for that matter. Not needing anyone to fill the emptiness.

It's scary too.

One of my first boyfriends complained that I don't need people enough. I'll never forget him sitting there saying to me, "I need to be needed, but you... you're the sun and the moon."

Truth be told, I did need people. Desperately.

In the past two years I've found how important it is to have real friends. Not just one co-dependent friendship where you create a bubble and don't let anyone else in, but a whole circle of companions with whom you share yourself. Those people, and they know who they are, I am more intimate with them than I've ever been with any boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe even more intimate than I've been with anyone in bed.

I'm completely in love with and utterly devoted to my best friends. They are what has truly taken the weight off my shoulders that has sat there since I was 13. They are what has brought the clarity.

They lift my smog.

I can't imagine what having a partner could possibly bring to my life right now but unnecessary stress and upset. I have everything I could possibly want emotionally -- and being gay and working in the porn industry, physically too.

Most of the spiritual study I've done over the past ten years has pointed towards relationships and marriage as being one of the most important things you can do with your life here on Earth, to live selflessly for that one special person.

But isn't it better to live selflessly for as many as possible?

There are days however I wonder if this is all just a big trick the Universe is playing on me. If this assumed lack of desire is all just part of the process of finding real love. Maybe before the true love of our lives comes along, some of us have to find the clarity to be the best friend we can be, to learn the definition of selflessness, to love ourselves unconditionally, to be whole so that when it comes to love it's not out of an aching "need" but out of a true ability to "offer" so that you're contributing to someone's life, not taking.

I'm not opposed to the idea of having a relationship by any means, but I'm glad that if I ever do again, it will be for the right reasons. It won't be because of a void within myself or a need for acceptance or because the sex with someone is just so damned good. It'll be because I don't feel like I have a choice in the matter. And what love is more real than that?