Thanksgiving. Again. Time to get unusually mushy.
Well, I am thankful for a lot of things. I am thankful that I have two living parents and that we still have Thanksgiving in the only place I really think of as home, the place I grew up. I have been living in Manhattan for nine years and I lived in Woodhaven with Knucklehead for eighteen months prior to that. I lived at school before than. But my parent's house is really a place I think of as Home with a capital H. For better or worse. It's a strange phenomenon. I mean, I am 35, I am living on my own, but that wonderfully tiny rent-stabilised apartment onthe Upper East Side does not completely feel like home. Sometimes it feels like it's really just the cats' apartment, since they are there full time, and I am jus the big hairless guy who shows up for 10 hours a night, and longer on weekends, to make sure they eat and drink and have a nicely changed litterbox.
I suppose Home should actively involve more one person; can't say that about my time with Knucklehead, either. After all, a relationship should involve TWO people, not just ONE. But that's another story, and fodder for fiction. Not too ironicaly, the two Thanksgivings we spent together were spent apart, with our respective families. You see, we weren't out to our families then. The only difference was that my parents had already figured it out, and when Mom packed up leftovers, she knew I'd be feeding him as well. Cannot say the same for his mother.
But I perseverate... I am also thankful for my brother and belle soeur, who comandeered the cooking of the turkey with great success. I am thankful for my aunt, for all her inherent goodness, vivacity, and liveliness.
I am also thankful for L, who joined us again this year. She's a good friend; I have known her for 11 years.
I am also thankful for the perennial stupidity of the Long Island Rail Road, for stranding us without explanation for a half hour between Elmhurst and Flushing, but more importantly for not coming through to collect tickets. Especially since I didn't have a ticket, since the station was too crowded, and I was in a hurry, and I would have had to pay a penalty. I am also grateful for the ride home from my cousin Ken.
I am also grateful for having a good family, one I didn't have to run from, like so many gay people have had to do. I straddle the great divide. One foot is planted in the domesticity and community in which I was brought up, and the other is on as solid ground as it can be in a community that is still treated as second class. It's the odd paradox of my life, that I am so highly regarded, actually, in my family, and yet society as a whole denies me fundamental rights. I am afforded no legally recognized marriage rights and I have to live in a constant fear, of potential violence, of potential discrimination, of a lot of potentials. While no lightening has struck me in major ways, the minor adjustments I am forced to make are oppressive. And I don't want to sound like a perpetual victim. I just want Justice.
Yet I am glad my life is like this. Living a paradox, living on both sides, allows me to examine them both. Being inside alone doesn't give any perspective. As an acquaintence of mine once said, "Being gay has allowed me to have a more interesting life. I recommend it highly to everyone!"
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