Love Is Why We're Here

Sometimes, a comment I receive is so poignant, heartfelt, and powerful, it must not get lost amongst everything on my blog.  Sometimes, it must be featured in a post itself, so everyone has the chance to see it.  Sometimes, it speaks about not just the writer's pain but about pain common to many.  One such comment arrived early this morning, attached to a post I published on Friday titled "Rick's Ten Observations About Love," from a young man in Indonesia, who goes by the name Aries Boy.

He started the comment by saying that what I'd written had made him cry, "...maybe because somehow what u're saying was right."  Aries Boy said he'd fallen in love with another fellow who was two years younger than him but more mature.  In his own words, he wrote:

I loved him very much, but...I broke his heart.  I pushed him away.  I told myself that I didn't need love, from him or from anyone.  So, I just ended our relationship over the phone, without even letting him...ask why.  I was such an asshole.  I know it.  I was too selfish and I was too proud of myself.  Days later, I realized that I did need him.  I did need his care, his smile, his hug, and so on.

But again, I'm living in such a hypocrite country.  I'm in the middle of the society who teach us, generation by generation, that being gay is a big sin.  It's forbidden.  It's doomed.  I don't wanna make some excuses here, but believe me somehow those skeptical things could lead a gay guy, just like me, to hate himself.  And in the end, it could lead someone to hate everyone else.

Almost every morning, I started my day by crying.  The triggers were usually random.  But, yeah, I cried for my "gayness."  And in the middle of the night, I cried again.  For the same exact reason.  I'm just hoping that it'll be easier for me to accept the fact I was born this way.  So from that point, I can move on with my life.  And I don't have to blame anyone or anything else for it.

What I see here is a young man doing nothing more than what young men do--falling in love.  A natural enough impulse.  Except for a young man who is gay.  And I don't need to tell you, in our world, that presents Aries Boy, and millions of other men just like him, with a series of challenges, virtually all of them rooted in self-hatred stemming from the message that homosexuality is, as Aries Boy puts it, a sin, forbidden, and doomed.

Little about love for gay men is free, or natural, or easy.  So much of the world conspires to make it as difficult for us as possible, using religion and an inaccurate interpretation of God's word, hoping we'll come to our senses, expecting we'll see the evil of our ways, trying to turn us into something we're not and never will be.

And, from my perspective, the worst part is, on some level, we accept what's said about us, about who and what we are.  We internalize it, and the feelings of self-loathing it generates within us come back time and again to sabotage and cripple and destroy us.  The result is, our lives become so messed up, we do everything we can to hurt ourselves, including abusing substances, indulging in promiscuity, engaging in risky sexual behavior, and, yes, pushing people away who want to love us, because we don't believe we're worthy of it.  (Recently, I read that many gay men continue to engage in risky sexual practices because they believe they deserve to contract HIV/AIDS and die.  If that isn't the ultimate in self-loathing, I don't know what is.)

And, so, to Aries Boy, and to countless gay men like him, young and old alike, I pray you heed my message, the one I've written about here since the beginning of this year and reinforced over and over;  the one that gives me a reason to get up every morning because I know how much work remains to be done; the one the reaction to which tells me what I'm doing here is helpful and necessary.

Learn to shut off the negative messages of the world related to your sexual orientation.  Learn to reject that which does not originate from a place of love (as opposed to judgement).  And, above all else, please, PLEASE, make learning to accept and to respect and to love yourself your goal, your reason for being each and every day.

You will do nothing more important in your life, I promise you, than learn to love yourself. Because everything you are and do will be affected by that.  Without love for yourself, everything will be empty and meaningless.  Without love for yourself, everything will be half-assed.  Without love for yourself, you will never be the whole, loving human being you were born to be.  And, as Aries Boy writes so beautifully, without loving yourself, you will tell yourself you don't need love, from anyone and, regrettably, will push it away when it presents itself to you.

Today, resolve to make this madness stop.  You MUST learn to love yourself.  You MUST allow other people to love you.  We are here for no other reason.

*

For those of you with no idea what specific steps you can take to learn how to love yourself, please look at these posts I wrote earlier this year, describing some of the work I did to accept and love myself.

I offer these suggestions with the utmost sincerity and hope, because I care deeply about what happens to you and how fulfilling your life is.  You deserve so much better than you have now, but you must understand how what you do has a direct impact on what you get.  Remember, every action has an opposite and equal reaction.  What you put out into the world will come back to you, good or bad.  That is why you must turn your self-loathing into self-love.  

Please open your heart to yourself and to those who want to love you.  Love is out there waiting for you, but the first step is yours.  Don't fail yourself.  Don't let yourself down.  

This is my "How to Love Yourself When You're Gay" series.*  I hope you find something in it that will be helpful.  

1).  Step One: Recognize the Problem and the Need to Change

2).  Step Two: Live Consciously
3).  Step Three: Turn Intention into Action
4).  Step Four: Take Baby Steps Forward
5).  Step Five: Believe in Yourself

(*Note:  The steps work for people who aren't gay, too.)