Never too old?
My life is changing fast. I was in a relationship with a man better off as a friend. I had to break up, which was hard, considering he was planning a future with me in it.
But when you're making plans for your future, and incorporate others in it, it is crucial that you are certain that person wants the same thing. And also, allow them to change their minds. And also, never try forcing them to change their minds.
I am the way I am. I will not let myself be changed by someone elses will. I change on my own.
I have to think hard about the way I am with some people sometimes. If I feel that I have to be something other than what comes naturally to me, maybe I shouldn't be with that person?
If I feel that I need to exaggerate either my feminine sides or my masculine, in order to be admired or respected, I'm doing it wrong. I'm like the tide, I change but there's no changing me.
There's a new person in my life, and he amazes me by not making me struggle for respect. He does not bring up the topic of "what can I call you instead of boyfriend", and I don't think that I will ever find myself in a situation where I scream "I am not your girlfriend, damn it!" at him.
It's amazing. I am so used to fighting for it.
I feel a little lost. If love isn't fighting to get respect, if love isn't being silent because the nervousness is mutening, if love isn't sarcasm, distrust and doubt, then what have I wasted these past years on?
In more ways than I wish to count, it feels like I was sleeping, but now I'm awake. I'm out of the dark.
I've been thinking a little about my mom, and how there's no resoning with her. Literally, she never gave any reasons for anything. Her usual reply to any question was always "because that's the way it is! You should understand that!". (Translation from Swedish a little off, but that's the general idea.)
I've given up on her in a few topics. Transsexualism, for instance. She called me up a couple of months ago, and she asked something, I answered... Can't remember that part verbatim, but I have a clear memory of her surprise that I still "wants to be a man". She'd thought I'd be over that by now. I'm closing in on 30, and I should just get over it. She had even heard on the radio about people who are "weird and wrong" in the same way as me, and they could change, and so should I. My mom is old, and I've given up on trying to change her, because she doesn't want to change.
My new love, had been straight all his life. Granted, he did some serious thinking about whether he could be with a man, but decided he could. And I'm so happy he's not too old to change.
"I'm out of the dark." :)
I admit, while you talk me up a lot here, I have to feel a bit sad about it too.
Sad because it sounds like you were never much respected for who you are the past years and relationships. Nobody should ever be telling you how you have to act, or try and force you to be who you're not. Your name is Edward. You are a man. Not a girlfriend, not a "companion", but a boyfriend.
It's really that simple. To me, at least.
I realized when I started to have feelings for you that there were two options:
1. I can't be with a man, so I won't pursue them.
2. I can be with a man, and will pursue them.
(Obviously I chose the latter.)
There were no in-between options as far as I was concerned. No calling you a girlfriend, no treating you as such either. There's no respect in that.
What others think doesn't matter to me. Anyone having a problem with "us" is out of my life, because they don't respect me. Or you for that matter.
But you should most definitely not be around people you have to pretend to be something you're not for. They're not worth the effort, no matter what their "reasoning" is for making you do so.
Your mom may just be a lost cause on those certain subjects. Probably best to just change the subject (How's the weather? hehe) whenever they happen to come up.
Yes, straight all my life. But only because I never met a man who stirred feelings in me before like you did. That she thinks you can just "get over it" when it comes to being a man alone kinda proves the cluelessness involved there.
Noone's ever too old to change, short of hitting senility.
