Chpt 8 continued....

It had finally happened. After anticipating, being anxious and self conscious, Annie and I were finally having the type of relationship I had dreamed about. It was simple, a deep connection which words can't justify. In this arena I think very little needs to be said. When you fall for someone, the individual qualities and reasons don't stand out. Our personalities melted together, effecting one another in a continuous circle to the point where I lost track of where I ended and Annie began. We became inseparable, undefinable as two individuals.

Our love was strengthened by text messages late at night, pranks made at the dinning hall, secret looks and other small acts which we hoped would go unnoticed. Naturally they didn't go completely unnoticed and there was a constant anxiety that we would be discovered. I feared what would happen if my fellow counselors found out. How they might view me and what I would say. Keeping the whole thing in perspective became difficult, it wasn't just about being gay but that didn't help. Being a couple at camp was something which people tried to keep secret. There were many a short-lived love affairs had by counselors. Usually ending with one party feeling ambivalent and other embarrassed. As quickly as two counselors hooked up, they would fall apart. So what we had was more unique. We had each other, we weren't embarrassed of each other only of the secret we had to keep.

Annie and I were isolated, isolated together in a small world of camp. There was no escaping camp, it engulfed us completely. It was frighteningly small but that's always what made it so wonderful. What felts so small and precious soon became small and strangling. Our secrets began to leak as secrets inevitably do... causing more then just gossip, eventually causing real damage.

Chpt 8 As I drive

I press the gas pedal, feel the soft roar of the engine as metal and gears are working underneath me, creating this immense energy.

That's my Annie.

It's that feeling of driving on the highway surrounded by a few other cars but the road feels empty enough. I come to a bend in the road and accelerate slowly then gaining momentum. The centripetal force whips me to the side in a powerful, exhilarating ride around the curve. I love that feeling, being forced to cock my head to the side and the tension in the steering wheel which my small fingers push against to keep the car in my lane. In my daily life, that small thrill brings me so much pleasure, especially when the sun is shining amide a perfectly blue sky.


That's what Annie was like, powerful, thrilling, exciting and beautiful.


She stirred a part of me that had been untouched. So the first time I realized something was wrong I began to panic, like a car on ice, just a victim of the power. The car's power has turned from exciting to terrifying and uncontrollable.

That was Annie too.

I felt something was wrong.

I think now that nothing was wrong but perception is everything. And perception of relationship stability is incredibly important. I've come to realize that once you think something might be wrong, whether or not it was in actually has seized to matter, your thought that something is wrong creates a problem. That's what happened to Annie and I.

I thought something was wrong... therefore something was wrong.

Annie kissed her and I laughed. I laughed because I didn't initially think anything of it. The first time it happened Annie told me. I didn't care at that time because I was so in love and I trusted her not to hurt me. Trusted that my heart was safe in her keeping, that she was somehow more then human and didn't have the ability to hurt me. She was smarter then other people so I gave her my heart willingly. That is a foolish mistake but not a mistake I regret.

But as Annie began to pay her more attention I questioned the stability that was Annie and Clare. I questioned her love for me since she seemed so interested in this other. That was when things when wrong, when I began to think something was wrong.

Chapter 7

Anticlimactic
I finally worked up the nerve to tell Annie how I felt. I had lamented long enough, struggled daily with my indecision and acknowledge my powerlessness over my feelings.

Elizabeth has told me and I believe it to be true: We can control our actions and words but feelings just are. I would like to think that with enough practise I will one day be able to master my emotions. Feel love and content when I'm with someone who is good to me. Feel sadness and regret when I see the harm I've caused others. That I will emotionally be able to cut people out of my life who have hurt me. Deleting someone from my thoughts can be as simple as deleting their phone number from my phone. But mastering our emotions is not as plausible as I've always hoped. There is no on/off switch and no one can tell you how to feel or to what magnitude. That is what makes us human, our ability to feel uncontrollably. In that perspective learning to master our feelings would dehumanize our souls. The internal force which controls our emotions is larger and stronger then our own self will. I've tried to fight it or ignore it but now I feel I should embrace it with caution.



I have been told I wear my feelings on my sleeve, parading and extorting my emotions to the public. Though I may blog candidly, I do not believe this to be true most of the time. I'm as good as any fool at disguising my true emotions, best at displaying the ones I think are appropriate rather then genuine . There are a very few people who instinctively know me well enough that my normal tactics to mask my emotions are futile. But Annie was not one of those people. I had to tell her in simple English, without metaphors to guide me.

"Annie I like you."

"Yeah I like you too."

"No. (long pause, throat swells and heart races) I mean more then just as my friend."

"Oh, that's ok."

Her initial response was anticlimactic. We didn't kiss under the stars and my feet stayed firmly planted to the ground. We just sat on a picnic table in the dark and I avoided looking at her for fear I would start to cry. The campers sleeping peacefully in their cabins was only a distant thought. Rapped up in my own thoughts, the safe atmosphere of the secluded forest felt isolating. It was an emotional moment for me and she acted as if I had just told her the weather report. There was shock to be sure but she did care.

Late that night I texted Laura, telling her how terrible things had gone. I hadn't made myself clear enough perhaps or maybe Annie just didn't like me and was trying to be nice. I had made a terrible mistake. But Laura talked me down from the ledge, using my own advise to comfort me (as she has become too good at doing). I spent the next several days waiting anxiously for something to happen. For Annie to give me a sign that we were on the same page. I expected her to jump into this head first and completely embrace me. Kiss me when I least expected it or surprise me with a love note. But that didn't happen, things continued on in the exact same manner. She was kind and playful with me, flirty and adorable. I felt the turmoil all over again. Stronger, more powerful, engulfing me to the core.

Chpt 6

Chpt 6 Laura made me do it!

Annie wasn't leaving camp anytime soon nor was I. We were spending an increasingly large amount of time together and this made my inner turmoil increasingly large. It would have made my life very simple if she (or I) would just disappear, cause with our separation would bring a controllable denial to my feelings. In my normal life outside camp I suspect that's what I would have done, distance myself from Annie to save my inner confusion. But As long as we remained friends, my feelings felt out of control. I began to come up with a hundred and one reason's I wasn't gay, that my feelings towards Annie as strong as they may feel, were trivial and just 'a phase.' They were not cause for alarm cause every girl liked other girls, or so I had always thought. Weren't all girls attracted to their girlfriends? Didn't all girls want to make-out with other girls? This was the logic which I had always used to justify my feelings.

Besides I was to old to be gay! Didn't most people know when they were in five, six tops ten years old. I was twenty years old and had dated lots of guys, even had long term committed relationships with men. How could this little fact (being gay) have escaped me for so long? I considered myself a relatively self-aware person so how could something so big have slipped under my radar. My homosexuality had masked itself for years, mainly because I was distracted by boys, caught up liking boys and working to get boys to like me. But introspect I realize, I had for years been attracted to girls.

I distinctly remember the first time I saw two girls kissing and the strange wonderful feeling it gave me. The first time I wanted to kiss a girl made me feel just as crazy wonderful. There were college nights I kissed other girls, usually under the influence, but that's what everyone did or so I reasoned. Denial. Yeah I've been there.

As most people should have figured by now I did eventually tell Annie how I felt. Letting my guard down and expressing my feelings though was difficult. First I had to understand what I was feeling, learn to accept that and own my feelings and grow the courage to tell Annie.

I am and always hopefully will be an active person. I can't wait for others to take action, I'm desperately impatient. So living with this confusion without closure or certainty constantly ate away at my daily life. My brain swam with thoughts of Annie, of being gay, how wonderful it might be, how scary. There was only a small patch of untouched brain space. The thoughts all jumbled up together like the unappetizing mixture of food churning in my stomach. Annie tasted good going down but once she was inside of me, really got into my head it made me sick. I was completely vulnerable around Annie but she didn't even know it.

Revised Chpt 3

After a series of complains by an 'anonymous person' (see comments left on chpt 3, 4 and 5) I have decided to revise the picture on Chpt 3 in the hopes that it will allow for me to spend less time defending my views and allow me more time to focus on expressing them. Enjoy and I'm happy to say the next installation is on its way.

Chpt 5

Chpt 5 Am I in this canoe alone?

(No Annie you're not and as long as the memories of us are still alive, I know I'll never be alone either. Annie will never be in a canoe alone, a kayak yes most def. But never in a canoe alone. Unless of course I decide to jump off the canoe and go for a swim : ) Which I did do several times over the summer. )

My responsibilities at camp were simple. Teach canoeing classes, make sure no one drowns and insure a cabin full of 11 and 12 year old girls were having the best summer of their lives. It might sound difficult but it couldn't have come more naturally for me.

The Canoe Dock was as follows: Annie, Amie, Cleo and I were the four counselors in charge down at the dock. But Annie and I taught classes together while Amie and Cleo taught separate classes, so we worked as two sets of partners. There was a lot of prep work to get our dock together and it amazed me how self-sustaining Annie was. She didn't need the 'big strong boys' to help us move things. OH NO! She could lift anything no matter how heavy and wasn't afraid to get dirty or sweaty. I can't say the same for the other counselors but I was impressed and followed her lead. We moved canoes from out of storage, raked the beach, even cleanup dead fish that washed ashore. We made a great team in that first week of prep. She was one of the few people I actually enjoy working with. It was a natural partnership from the beginning. It was a great feeling to look at the dock, our dock, and know that we had accomplished all the work on our own. I felt a great sense of pride and that's a feeling that doesn't come to easily for me. I was surprised how freely that came when Annie and I worked together.

The yummy fish that floated up on shore!

Growing up with two parents who are do-it-themselvers I've learned how to handle myself in a wood shop, chopping wood, using power tools, acting as a mule. I've done more then my share of physical labor, usually with a frown on my face. But when it was just the two of us, I had a great time. I could sense that Annie was like me too. Other female counselors were a bit more dependant but by no fault of their own. I find dependence is one of the most unattractive qualities and in that same breath I thought Annie was one of the most attractive people I'd ever met. I like people who can fix their own problems and Annie fit the bill!

My admiration quickly grew into intimacy and then to lust. I was lusting after Annie (but only in my head). It was a secret kind of lust which festers late at night. Encouraged by my own imagination and maintained by our deepening friendship. I started to look forward to the time I spend with her and always wanting more. The feelings became more real and as she described her past girl friend I became aware of the fact that I wanted to be that next one. I didn't just want to be Annie's best friend, canoe dock companion or partner in crime, I wanted more! With her beautiful personality Annie had uncovered my proverbial G-spot and brought out the best in me. When we were together, I felt we could accomplish anything!



There were just a few problems in my way; I had a boyfriend, wasn't gay, didn't know how to be gay, was terrified to tell her, even more scared of the repercussions and stricken with fear that she would reject me. I had an important decision to make, perhaps one of the most life changing decisions I have ever made. Up there on my 'list of important life changing decisions' along with decision #8- Do I want to go shopping tomorrow? #5-Should I quite smoking? #2-Should I floss everyday? #1- What the mofo am I doing with my life?

I could take the plunge or suppress. Meet the challenge or run from my feelings.