jd yates

Today is the day that I made my last diary entry, 8 months ago. I think its safe to say this has been a long time coming. So much has happened in that time, I don’t know what I should cover first….

I guess the biggest thing is that I don’t have to write in such vague terms anymore, mainly because most of my business (especially that which I was trying so hard to hide) is “out” in the open, to use an all too applicable word. I’m out…. to everyone…. most of my family included. It was a difficult time, probably part of the reason I haven’t written in so long. As far as I was concerned, there was enough of my business floating around where it shouldn’t be. I’d love to get in to how it happened, but I’m afraid I don’t remember enough of the details to tell the whole story accurately. At any rate, it happened…my family dealt relatively well, however, not as well as I would have liked. There were a couple of weeks where my mom went through the expected phases (denial of existence, denial of possibility, “lets fix it”, “you’ll change your mind”, “I cant deal with this, give me time”, “I don’t want to be involved in that part of your life”, and finally persistent disappointment). By persistent, I mean to say that it’s still ongoing, even now almost 8 months later. By disappointment, she means to say, “I didn’t get to see you walk across the stage, wont get to see you get married (i.e. “married to who I thought you would marry), and I don’t get to have grandchildren. Most of this simply isn’t true, ill get married one day, ill have kids one day, etc…. it just wont be to a girl and I wont have kids the natural way, but she should be able to deal with that right? Aren’t parents supposed to make certain sacrifices in these situations because of their undying love for their children? These seem like small prices to pay for continuing to be a part of my life, and knowing me for who I really am. I chose to relate my experience with my moms reaction because it sticks out most in my mind, simply because she is without exaggeration, the most important person in my life, and her reaction had the greatest affect on me.

More recently, I quit my job this month. After over two years of going above and beyond what I was required to do, the company doesn’t have anywhere for me to go from here. Basically that means that I get no more money, no more hours, and the same crappy job description. That is what some would refer to as a dead end job, and I refuse to be complacent with zero upward mobility. Therefore, I’m off to find a new one is the BOOMING economy. I have great timing don’t I!

Now, as I’m faced with the task of finding a new job, I am determined to learn from my experiences during my current job and to find something that I really enjoy, so that I can stick with it. Several obstacles have effected this decision making process. The main one is the criterion that must be met, I knew I had high standards, but geez! I don’t want to be in food service, or retail, or sales, or customer service…. But I want to be able to dress how I want, grow my hair out, have flexible hours, make good money, and have FUN! I would really like to work in computers again, because I really enjoyed being challenged that way, but I find myself limited by a lack of qualifications and certifications, not to mention experience. I’ve got until the end of the month to find something else, but my hours have been cut in the weeks leading up to that, so I would like to find something sooner than later. I have no idea what I’m going to do.

I wrecked my car. About three months ago, on a two-lane two-way road, the woman coming towards me and I were both signaling to our respective lefts at the same intersection. As I began to make the turn, she decided she wasn’t going to turn anymore and proceeded straight…. straight into me! Of course it was my fault, because I hadn’t yielded the right of way. Bullshit! Whatever, its done and over with. 5 weeks later, I settled with my insurance on my totaled vehicle. It was so pretty too, I really did love that truck, even though I talked bad about it sometimes. I went out and bought a ’99 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. I LOVE IT! It’s got every little option possible and is the most comfortable vehicle I’ve ever owned. Except for one small thing, its August and 109 degrees outside, and last week the air conditioner decided to stop working. BAD TIMING MUCH! Not only did this happen in the worst possible part of the year, but I have absolutely no extra money to pay to get it fixed, being as how ill be out of a job at the end of the month. Again, I have no idea what I’m going to do.

I’ve been reminiscing recently…reading some of the older diary entries. Granted, there aren’t that many of them, but its very interesting to read and remember the things I was thinking and feeling during what seems now a long time ago. Hopefully these diaries will outlive the rising and falling of their own popularity and serve as archives of memory. I would love to look back on these one day ten, twenty, fifty years from now. I’d probably laugh my ass off! Not that these are really something I would show to the grandkids.

I seemed to talk a lot about my friendships, which is up to now a neglected topic in this entry. I’m sure you remember Brett, my best friend of 12 years. We don’t talk anymore because of “my disgusting lifestyle”. Here’s the thing about Brett… he has a tendency to go through phases. That particular comment happens to be caused by a bible-thumper phase, but of course for every thesis there must be an anti-thesis, so afterwards he goes through a slut phase. He will flip-flop, back and forth, over and over again, with the occasional assertion of the more decent personality buried somewhere deep beneath his hard-ass façade. While this circumstance makes him very easy to predict, it also makes him quite the handful to be dealing with. Suffice to say, I’ve grown stronger and wiser since the day he said that to me, and I now understand something I never grasped before… I don’t need him… plain and simple, over and done-with.

Daniel and I weren’t on great terms at the time of my last entry, but all that has changed now. He is without a doubt my closest str8 friend (the only other contender for that spot will be told of shortly). We are together almost all the time and consider each other very important to the others well being, which is as it should be, it’s nice to know that I have a network of str8 guys to get my back. He also finds comfort in my good friendship, which is not something easily replicated in straight society. He’s a good guy, though he doesn’t always make the best decisions, and tends to get carried away keeping up appearances.

My best friend in the whole wide world is still David. I’ve probably not spoken much about him in my previous entries because several years ago, he moved to Florida, and since, though we still stay in touch, we have drifted apart little by little. He will start his freshman year at UT in the fall, which is of course very exciting because he will be almost local again. I plan to spend a great deal of time there this year.

On to my relationships, or lack thereof… at the time of my last entry, Greg (my boyfriend at the time) and I were on the eve of making the move into our own apartment. Since that time, we have moved again, but remain roommates because we have a good understanding. Why find a new roommate when I have a perfectly good one right here? The deeper part of this situation is that, over the course of that time, we’ve dated, we’ve broken up… and we’ve taken our sweet time about moving on. Not necessarily the best succession of decisions, but I still fear the emotional trials of seeing him date someone else, so I’m perfectly happy to hold off on dating again for a while longer. That was my first relationship since coming out, and while we were only together fo
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six months, the level of commitment that Greg wanted was too much for me to handle, so I subconsciously drew away until the relationship was non-existent. I came to realization eventually that I was 19 years old and newly un-closeted, there remains too much to learn to be settling down with the first person I fall in love with. A lot of my personality should be defined by my experience with others, serious relationships in particular. One relationship is definitely not enough to consider myself done. I have yet to experience things like rejection (in any great quantity), or infatuation, or lust, much less enough love to really know it when I see it! I would also like to spend a considerable amount of time figuring out what I really want out of my relationships, and what kind of person I really want to be with. On top of all this, there are so many things that I wish to do with my life on my own. I want to see the world, or as much of it as I can, I want to see a few more birthdays with my friends and family, be able to have a good time without worrying about my counterpart, etc… I have a deathly fear of being tied down if you can’t tell. On a side not, I’m not entirely decided on where, in the world, I want to live. A drastic move in the next year is sounding better by the day.

Ill end on that note, and speak more on un-covered topics in my next entry, which I promise, you wont have to wait another 8 months for. Here’s to catching up…. Cheers!