Cleveland
I have posted about my last amazing trip to Cleveland last year and what an amazing experience it was and when I went earlier this month, it was no different. I did have the added bonus of having my roommate with me who made the trip go by so fast! It has been so long since I went on a road trip with anyone but myself I forgot how fun they can be!
I had a couple people comment about how they couldn't understand how anyone could get so excited about visiting Cleveland, and to be honest if it was just the town I might agree to a certain degree, but it's the people I know and love in Cleveland that make it such an amazing place. There are few places in this world where I feel I can really just be myself and that is one of those places. It's this amazing mix bag of feelings of love, understanding, compassion, acceptance, caring and the list goes on. People who hugs are filled with hope and love, conversations that are filled with caring and excitement.
There are just amazing people there that I look forward to seeing everytime I get to go to the area, an amazing group of people who make me laugh, who make me feel good about myself and make me feel like part of a group. People that when looking from the outside in seem like strangers, but never feel like strangers from inside the group. People that make me feel like I'm home even though I don't live there, people that greet me like family although we had only met a few times. Great friends that came about by crazy circumstances that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't lived through them.
These people make me so happy, happy like I feel when I'm with the rest of my dearest oldest friends which are really few and far between but it makes them all the more treasured. I enjoyed our casual trip, and it didn't take me long to already miss them all. I have grown to hope that someday I can form a group like that where ever I am to build them into my already amazing daily life and add them to an already all star cast of friends I have surrounded myself with.
Have I gushed enough yet? Probably. lol.
There was a point in the trip when I was able to sneak away and go visit my cousins who also live in the area, I hadn't been able to visit with them much for a couple of years and it was amazing to see them again and made me wish I had more time to visit. We had only been able to see each other for 10 minutes here and there at family gatherings, most of the gatherings only one of us made it to so we were always missing each other. I grew with my cousin and was one of my best friends, only a year apart, our birthdays a day apart, we did everything together and I have missed him so. He's a grown man now with a fancy job, an amazing wife and some really great kids and as I sat there visiting it just felt like a huge distance between us, one that really doesn't exist anywhere but in my head.
He treats me the same as he always did, we laugh and joke and talk like we always have and minute by minute I was trying to close the distance in my head, but the more I thought about it on the way home the more I think until I come out to him I will always have that distance in my head. He made a comment the last time I visited him a couple of years back that has always stuck with me about how he's not sure he could ever deal with one of his sons if they were gay. It was born out of a silly conversation but I've been carrying it around with me ever since. Since then I've been very guarded and protected with my conversations avoiding the subject all together afraid of what would actually happen. Someone once told me he might change his outlook once he found out that someone he loves so much was gay the whole time, but I have a hard time trusting that.
Oh those darn trust issues again. When I'm ready and we have a better time to sit and talk, I'll tell him whatever the outcome may be. I don't know when, but I know if I don't tell him, this distance I'm creating in my mind is only going to push us further and further away and I don't want that. I would love to add him to the list of amazing people of Cleveland because is so many ways he's already there, I think the hardest part will be letting him in and giving him the chance to be who I know he already is.
I had a couple people comment about how they couldn't understand how anyone could get so excited about visiting Cleveland, and to be honest if it was just the town I might agree to a certain degree, but it's the people I know and love in Cleveland that make it such an amazing place. There are few places in this world where I feel I can really just be myself and that is one of those places. It's this amazing mix bag of feelings of love, understanding, compassion, acceptance, caring and the list goes on. People who hugs are filled with hope and love, conversations that are filled with caring and excitement.
There are just amazing people there that I look forward to seeing everytime I get to go to the area, an amazing group of people who make me laugh, who make me feel good about myself and make me feel like part of a group. People that when looking from the outside in seem like strangers, but never feel like strangers from inside the group. People that make me feel like I'm home even though I don't live there, people that greet me like family although we had only met a few times. Great friends that came about by crazy circumstances that I wouldn't believe if I hadn't lived through them.
These people make me so happy, happy like I feel when I'm with the rest of my dearest oldest friends which are really few and far between but it makes them all the more treasured. I enjoyed our casual trip, and it didn't take me long to already miss them all. I have grown to hope that someday I can form a group like that where ever I am to build them into my already amazing daily life and add them to an already all star cast of friends I have surrounded myself with.
Have I gushed enough yet? Probably. lol.
There was a point in the trip when I was able to sneak away and go visit my cousins who also live in the area, I hadn't been able to visit with them much for a couple of years and it was amazing to see them again and made me wish I had more time to visit. We had only been able to see each other for 10 minutes here and there at family gatherings, most of the gatherings only one of us made it to so we were always missing each other. I grew with my cousin and was one of my best friends, only a year apart, our birthdays a day apart, we did everything together and I have missed him so. He's a grown man now with a fancy job, an amazing wife and some really great kids and as I sat there visiting it just felt like a huge distance between us, one that really doesn't exist anywhere but in my head.
He treats me the same as he always did, we laugh and joke and talk like we always have and minute by minute I was trying to close the distance in my head, but the more I thought about it on the way home the more I think until I come out to him I will always have that distance in my head. He made a comment the last time I visited him a couple of years back that has always stuck with me about how he's not sure he could ever deal with one of his sons if they were gay. It was born out of a silly conversation but I've been carrying it around with me ever since. Since then I've been very guarded and protected with my conversations avoiding the subject all together afraid of what would actually happen. Someone once told me he might change his outlook once he found out that someone he loves so much was gay the whole time, but I have a hard time trusting that.
Oh those darn trust issues again. When I'm ready and we have a better time to sit and talk, I'll tell him whatever the outcome may be. I don't know when, but I know if I don't tell him, this distance I'm creating in my mind is only going to push us further and further away and I don't want that. I would love to add him to the list of amazing people of Cleveland because is so many ways he's already there, I think the hardest part will be letting him in and giving him the chance to be who I know he already is.
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