Friday
December 09, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 49
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Monday, Jan 05, 2009
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Tour De Life by Beau Burriola |
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| I'M SORRY | ||
| The night you told me your story a happy song played on the radio and candle-lit shadows danced on the wall, blown by the wind through an open window. When you showed me pictures of where you began on your journey long ago, I got chills from the parallels in our lives starting ten years ago.
We both came out of the closet partying. We enjoyed fresh freedom, fully embraced by our community. We had fun and did things nobody would be proud of. We discovered other Gay people. We did what they did and we didn't always consider whether we really should. We surrounded ourselves with people we didn't bother to know. It's what you do when you come out. Then our lives took completely opposite directions. I became more boring - probably out of fear - while your live-in boyfriend became a meth addict, changing your whole life. Living in the middle of it all, you got caught in his mess. Now your life has become an unending struggle to pull yourself away from meth, but you've been unable to get help from anyone because nobody wants to stand too close to that kind of stuff. You are tired of people who cut and run. What friends? You say everyone has deserted you. My head swirled as you spoke. He's nothing like me. He's a meth addict. The illusion of differences, the Buddha teaches, is the source of all suffering. We aren't so different, you and I. But for any number of circumstances, the boy in that picture heading down that road you did could have been me. I believe that the only reason I didn't go down that road to a meth addiction is because I was lucky. A lot of Gay guys end up hooked on meth, but the choices in my life that have made it easier to choose something else. You weren't so lucky. When you finished your story, I gave you a long hug. In all my life I never could have imagined going through some of what you have and I felt like it could have been me. It was the most important hug I gave this year, but when I finished the hug I did what I had to do. I said goodbye and walked away. Not because you are different, but because I've been there before, trying to reach out into the madness and pull someone back in. It took a lot of scars and hard-won wisdom to show me I couldn't do it. While I may not be able to help someone else get away from meth, I can sure as hell do my best to stay as far away from it as possible. I don't know why meth is so big. Like a lot of Gay people, I've resigned myself to accepting it's never going to be eliminated from my community and so I've learned to avoid people who are involved, just as I would avoid anything I have a healthy reason to avoid. It doesn't always feel right to leave someone out like that, but I know where my boundaries are today. It's how I stay well. When you're better I'll still be around, but for now I'm sorry. (Beau Burriola is a local writer who knows when to fold em. beaubrent@gmail.com) |
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International Readers |
 
It's new!A blog created by the SGN staff so you can be heard |
"Putting on the Ritz |
The Beauty of Freedom artist's reception |
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copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2005