I often justify taking any firm steps to change my life on the pretext of waiting for some distant future event that I somehow need to have passed through.

These events range from the completion of a pre-booked holiday, the end of Christmas, the better weather, a family event , and I have come to an understanding that each are in fact a false gateway.

Each event is supplanted by another, a pre-booked holiday is replaced by the booking of another one, pushing down the path constantly my intention to embace myself in the full.

I have come to recognise that embracing my fullness does not have to mean necessarily a change in lifestyle. If my acceptance of my sexuality can be somehow allowed to flourish in my consciousness without being accompanied by constant fear and pain.

I have always sought and wished for my sexuality to be socialised , that is openly discussed, not behind my back in a whisper, or in a pointed finger of unkindness, but as a welcome friend, acknowleged, respected, valued for the huge contribution in makes to my inherent goodness and kindness which makes me the human being that I am.

Those lack of opportunities to socialise and vocalise and visualise my sexuality, and opportunities to call openly upon this important aspect and dimension of what motivates me in the world, is I think, the source of pain and suffering which is a constant companion of my waking life.

I have to somehow, find ways to be courageous, so that the pain of suppression is not because I am unprepared to be open about who I am, but to be be prepared to share more fully who I am, to be prepared to be as compassionate to myself , as I am to others, which is enabled I am sure because I am gay.

William Defoe

In continuing to believe, that it is good for me to suppress the truth that I am gay, I feel that my body physically carries a railway sleeper attached to my shoulders everyday of my life.

I know that to be open with the world, that is with my family and friends, would be to reduce my burden, even if I never experienced what it is like, to express myself physically and emotionally with another man.

This seems strange, but I am approaching the start of my old age, the remaining harvests of my life are few and yet I procrastinate, I wobble, I mourn, I grieve, I suffer because I have agreed to remain hidden to save my marriage.

Dolor, dolor, dolor.

So where is the “y gloria?”

I have been robbed of my faith because I feel abandoned, I practise my faith and sometimes when the flame flickers, I hope and I pray that I am seen and that I will be liberated from my prison.

I have moments when I can still grasp at a belief in an after-llife and a heaven, but this earth has been for me a living hell and I don’t understand why, because I am a good boy, really I am.

dolor

y

gloria

Pain and Glory. Earth and Heaven, Lies and Truth.

Please God, liberate my soul from this angusih:

• have you not seen my pain?,
• must I wait to see you in heaven, before your glory is revealed?

My pain, is a self-infliction, it is a slave to fear, it has at its core a willingness to sacrifice self, for the needs of someone else who wants me parcelled as purchased all those years ago.

Why does such incredible strength , feel like such incredible weakness?

Perhaps it is because, whatever I have done in my life has been achieved despite the unbearable burden, its weight is invisible because it has been assumed into my body and my mind and it has become my pain and my glory, my sacrifice of truth, for the hope of peace.

William Defoe

On my recent holiday, the water in the shower came out at such a speed and force that if I directed the jets to my chest, I experienced a sensation of being physically held upright by the water.

It was quite a surprising and a wonderful sensation of support, quite intimate as I stood still and upright in my naked and vulnerable state.

The pressure of the water, holding me up, seemed to give my mind some space to be with itself as my body experienced an exhilaration of the sheer volume and intensity of the torrent.

I have long understood that physical support, such as eye contact or a hug or a voice of clarity, have provided my mind with an opportunity to develop and deepen its capacity to think more rationally and calmly about the mental challenges I face living as a gay man in a heterosexual life.

So often, I have experienced feelings of isolation, frustration and emotional pain and distress, and at these times my mind has not had the capacity or strength to rescue me from the inner turmoil of my soul.

The inner critic has at these time acted like some kind of foe, rather than the gentle and loving and kind spirit which has held me by its own strength and resolve for all these years.

Turning off the water, whilst leaning in, I jerked forward and saved myself with my hand against the cubicle wall.

Saved from falling by the instruction from my brain, to my arm to hold me up as the outside support is cut off.

Knowing of course that I would not deliberately allow myself to fall, none of us would, but learning too that support is there in the wide world all the time as a continuous call to our existence, if only we can identify and utilize its all-giving power.

 William Defoe

It has always been my intention to remain in my marriage despite knowing that I am gay, and telling my wife in 2012, after many years of holding it all to myself for many years.

Recently, I began to sense that my anguish in recent years has been connected to a fear of not being able to sustain my choice to be married, and a determination to really focus on what I risk losing should I walk away from it.

After a period of turmoil and confusion in 2018, when I tried to make social connections with the gay community, I lost my wife’s trust in me which has not been fully restored.

Occasionally, her feelings of anguish, at the consequences on her of my behaviour at that time, push through to the surface so that they are visible and raw. These times make me feel like I will never be able to re-wind the clock to a time when I enjoyed her respect for being gay and loving her, and her trust for being loyal to her.

In these summer weeks, I have experienced a period in which I felt that my efforts to repair the past have being fruitful. I felt a greater element of security and a reduced sense of anxiety around my fears that I risk losing something that I could never regain.

And then, the bubble burst at a rogue remark about me by a friend on a zoom call, during lock-down, opened up the fissure and all the recent good feeling seems to have ebbed away.

My wife has referred twice in recent days to how my actions have hurt her, and when I see that hurt, it seems to make all my attempts to repair and heal seem worthless.

Her commenting on my behaviour, unravels my own attempts to leave the past behind and it causes me intense emotional pain which feels like hopelessness and fatigue dragging me down and away from all my good intentions.

The reality of our situation is exposed for what it actually is, and that is all hovering just below the surface, like a thin crumbling crust on a festering pie.

William Defoe

 

 

A few weeks ago, near the start of the coronavirus lock down, here in the UK, I suffered some kind of mental trauma which resulted in me calling out for support, to those,whom I have in a small circle to help me.

In the depth of my feelings of isolation and despair and longing, I experienced a level of despair and real fear that I cannot ever recall experiencing in all the years I have held the truth of my gay sexuality alone.

In recent weeks, I have been generally calm and I have become very conscious of how I have managed to hold onto the enormity of being me, quite alone for this period of time.

I am not some kind of special case, but like others who are vulnerable and live a hidden life, the heavy load can feel overwhelming at times, and when it emerges into a space of anguish and fear, it touches on making life almost too hard to bear living.

Our complex minds are capable of so much, but I know that my own mind, depends on the rhythm of my physical body, to keep itself aligned and safe. When the two are out of sync, the body revolts and in my case, I suffer a rash or itchiness and fatigue which calls out for the soothing balm of pure water and oils to refresh and cleanse.

So it is no surprise that the mind too calls out for the soothing balm of sleep, of peace and beauty as seen in the natural world around us and in the elements, particularly its reaction to the warm sun on my skin.

I know that I am, like you, gifted and precious and that my life would ultimately be meaningless if I did not learn to love all aspects of holding onto the enormity of being me. 

William Defoe

Yesterday I had a drive out to the coast with my wife.

The sun was shining and the sky was blue and the fields were green, and the very trees begged to be noticed.

The quaint names of the villages as we drove through them provoked a deep awakening of summer glory, none more so than the name of Buttercrambe.

I exalt in the feeling deep in my soul, to recall the feelings of my childhood, when summer held for me a time of freedom,  a time of contentment, a time of happiness.

Those days seem very distant from my soul, and the simple pleasures of being a young boy seemed to be expressed in Buttercrambe, recalled in Buttercrambe and longed for in Buttercrambe.

I struggle to find a balance in my soul for an awakening of what it is like to be me, and the drive through Buttercrambe seemed to push me on, not just to the glory of the coast, but to a space to think, a space to rest, a space to watch and listen to the deep longings of my soul for peace.

At the coast, I gloried in the sunshine on my skin, rubbing in the oils to protect and nurture it from the burning rays which caressed my aging body and the grey hairs on my head.

I want so much to find within me the healing which would come from being able to be happy, like a young boy, like Buttercrambe, like the feeling I get from the sun on my skin.

I live a complicated life, at worst indecisive, at best courageous, loyal and true to those whom I love before all else, and at a great personal cost.

Perhaps, I hear them say, more often than I like to hear, that my reward will be in heaven – well maybe, but oh what I would give to be happy , just like you know… just like still wondering… just like I felt as I left Buttercrambe behind.

William Defoe

In recent years, I have visited a local salon on a four-weekly basis to keep my hair cut short.

In these times of lock-down I have not had an opportunity to have it cut, and it has grown to such an extent that the top of my head looks healthy with a wavy head of hair which is dark grey on the top of my head and light grey around the edges and at the back.

My wife made me laugh when she said it looked great, and that she actually preferred the longer style on me, however, she also told me that I looked like a badger!.

I have made it my mission to leave my hair uncut until the salon opens. I have overcome the temptation to acquire a set of clippers and cut it myself, so that my hair will be a physical representation of the restriction under which we are living in the days of the coronavirus.

To select a longer style, in stark contrast to my preference, is a challenging discipline to endure. To choose a longer style, in direct conflict to my preference for much shorter hair is an opportunity to harness my capacity to be different in the world.

To display a thick and colourful grey head of hair opens up an opportunity for me to be expansive, to tolerate the intolerable, to embrace the opposing ideals and ideas which are constantly raging within my soul.

Choices are difficult, because they inevitably forgo the alternative, and my choice to be married whilst innately being gay is a constant challenge which has seemed to get heavier with increasing age.

Exercises which help me to grow my mind and my spirit, help me to see the good I am trying to do, despite my own difficulties which causes me great suffering, I am able to see the wider intention to keep the promise which I made to my wife all those years ago.

Displaying one way, and longing for another has been the undulating rhythm of my life and now my uncut hair has for me become a physical representation of all that I have tried to be.

William Defoe

 

To mark the 75th anniversary of V.E. Day (Victory In Europe) which was celebrated in the UK on Friday 8th May 2020, I attached a new and vivid Union Jack flag to the front of my stone built barbecue in my garden.

It is held down by stones and in the unseasonably warm weather which we had over this Bank Holiday weekend, it stayed fixed in place as a mark of patriotism and gratitude to the men and women who died in World War 2 and to those who served and lived throughout those dark years which I was not born into.

Today, the weather is cooler and I noticed a light and blustery breeze lifting the flag and wafting it up into the air, occasionally landing back straight where I had placed it, but oft times pushing it back to land on the grill of the barbecue.

It seems to me that the flag needed a weight to hold it down, but perhaps it is best left to flutter and feel the force of the elements and be free to display its sharp and vivid colours of red, white and blue.

The fluttering flag in the breeze and the freedom which it signifies, from tyranny yes, but I am thinking more about the freedom to be blown about in the tumultuous air, made me ponder on my emotional life, which in any case I often do.

I seem to strive for a state of mind and a resolve which is fixed, and I feel disappointed when periods of calm seem to come to an end as abruptly as they started. Once again I am in a vortex of inner strife and fear which renders me with feelings of hurt, feelings of fear and a sense of failure for being so changeable in my mood.

Perhaps the flag, which I contemplated weighting down to suppress its glorious freedom, is a similar response to my emotional journey.

I think to myself, as I write to you in this post, that “Is it so bad after all to be carried into the air by the elements, to be flipped and turned and dropped back to the original starting point, only to be carried high on another wave of the breeze a few moments later?

To weigh myself down, to avoid the range of feelings and the sense of hopelessness in my feelings of anxiousness and occasional despair are parts of me which are as valid and true as those feelings I have when I am calm and content.

A drug might suppress them, or a permanent change in the direction of my life might have an impact to suppress the longings of my heart, but to numb the pain would be to deny myself the capacity to connect with the very essence of being me, and being me is the best I can ever hope to be.

William Defoe

 

 

It is strange to me how sometimes there are moments of normality in the midst of turmoil.

Days will be spent in periods of silence following an explosion between us of anger and frustration.

We will avoid physical or sexual contact between us and yet, share information calmly about the lives of family members as they emerge on social media.

These moments are interspersed with occasional hand-holding or an act of generosity or kindness.

It is as if neither of us really wants to ultimately make a decision to end our marriage.

It is clear to me that the social distancing and isolation has thrown into sharp relief the ongoing power struggle between us which is destructive and painful and profoundly damaging to our health and well-being.

Both of us have been unwell, and feel unwell and know that this battle to control or to resist being controlled is wearing out our hearts.

If only the normal moments in the midst if this turmoil could be sustained.

If only we could declare our love for each other once again.

If only we could learn to forgive each other.

If only the trust could be restored once  more.

These longings occasionally win through into periods of normality, but for these to be sustained, we both of us will need to reach back into our stored treasures of intimacy and life, if we are ever going to feel safe and secure and loved by each other again.

William Defoe