Welcome to the healing blog

Anyone can make an acquaintance or surface-level friend, it is the integrity of the individual that creates a quality friendship. These connections can take a while to form or can be created out of chance encounters. I have been on a mission to have quality friends in my life. I proved to myself in Rio that anything is possible and will most likely occur when least expected. 

Foreign Gay Culture; Nightlife in the city; to spending time with connections. 

In Italy I found myself a bit love-struck, so there was a switch in the type of nightlife I experienced. I walked into a different feeling of a safe gay space, and it felt better than walking into any dive diner, or nightclub. It was in the presence of a Brazilian Man. It was the feeling of safety that only another person can offer, a sense of knowing that your emotions and inner-self are permitted the ability to shine through for a short period. However, this is not a full sense of safety from the world, events, or of being kept. It’s these brief moments in life that we get with people who enter the scene for a reason or a season. I indeed allowed my messy walls to crumble, a brick at a time, with this man. This is my wanderlust account of my Roman escapade, with a Brazilian. 

As I start to put myself out into the dating world, making connections and mistakes, I am going to account for them in this Blog that will evolve into multiple parts. The stories and mishaps that occur along the way will be documented.

Love can snatch you by the hair and make you question your very existence. This blog post has taken me some time to create, because I needed to process the emotions that went along with this individual. The beautiful young man from the Brazilian dance floor.

Well, it is finally happening. I can feel my heart beginning to open to the possibility of falling in love. It is at a snail’s pace, but I am not immediately running from the feelings. In the past when this feeling would present itself, I would block the guy and find the nearest hot body, hook-up, and rid myself of that mindset. I no longer want to riid myself of the feeling. What I want, is to fall in love. I want normalcy and someone I can depend on; someone to share life’s obstacles with. 

This one is going to be a different kind of love - the self. What does it mean to love yourself? Do you go get a pedicure? Do you see a relative, laugh, hug, and talk? Do you surround yourself at a dinner table with your favorite people, just to hear the sound that it produces? Do you go shopping for a new pair of shoes? All the lotions, potions, and creams will not buy love. These are all things that one could categorize as being kind to yourself or showing yourself love by looking your best. Whatever analysis brings a label, it can all boil down to love. A deeper type of love for the self is respect, values, character, and demeanor.

They say that whenever you find yourself in a non-reciprocal emotional attachment, you must move on to someone new. This time I did not want sex, I wanted a conversation to see if I felt something. I am changing my ways in that I did not find the next hot body to rid myself of the fluttering feeling. I wanted to see if I could move on without using sex as the vehicle. Oddly, I found myself speaking to a man who shared the same first name as the man I had fallen in love with. In Brazil, these are common names, nonetheless, I shall call them OG Uno and New Uno. 

Going outside and facing a fear of the world and people was not as difficult as I thought it would be, when you add learning new cultures into the equation. Whenever I try something now that used to elicit a panic attack or freeze response, I give myself a little fist bump on the cheek like Julia Childs. All you have to do is try. 

Every one of us has an inner child that still has a desire. How you were raised evades this topic, as this cradles a different desire. As a child, you tend to pick up on the most innocent of objects to marvel at. Mine was the Christmas tree. Like Kevin, I found myself drawn to them at an early age. The symmetry, glowing lights, and the joy that it brought to the masses that stood below observing the silent beauty.