garlandgrey

• I am seriously considering watching Mad Men after reading this.
• I don’t yet have any prepared statements about those Glee photos.
• I’ve started to discover a curious defense mechanism I have.
• Specifically: I am not willing to confront shitty things that happen to me, personally.
• And when I think about shitty things that have happened to me in the past, I have a very strong urge to downplay them.
• Or be really generous about other people’s motives.
• It is almost as if I can confront things that have happened to other people with the appropriate emotional response.
• But when it comes to myself, I’m sort of bowing my way out the door.
• I look at things individually, without context.
• For instance.
• I remember once in High School, someone approached my Father and told him I was gay.
• And I remember him confronting me on the way home from school, in the car.
• And him calling me a faggot over and over.
• And me crying.
• And I can SAY that.
• I can tell that story.
• But I’m rushing out in front of it, and getting in between it and the listener.
• Trying to explain it. 
• Stretching my arms out in front of it.
• And making excuses.
• I used to assume that this was simply me wanting to protect my Father.
• But I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t understand that you can love someone who was once terrible to you.
• That people evolve.
• But because it happened to me, it isn’t important.
• It wasn’t that big of a deal.
• I’m fine.
• I’m always fine.
• I really don’t think that anything that has ever happened to me was ever that big of a deal. 
• Which would be fine, if that was indicative of actual stoicism. 
• But I’m not so sure.
• I talk about all of those things in a flat, disconnected way.
• Like the bulkheads went down years ago.
• And I can’t remember who any of that happened to.