Category Archives: Emotions

Emotions, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Personal Development

what do if you have a homophobia brother and your gay

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[Content Note: Homophobia]

The title of today’s blog post is based on a search term that someone used to find my site the other week. Strangely, I had a friend who was offering guidance to a young lesbian facing a similar situation ask me for any advice I might offer her several months ago. As such, I thought it would be good to talk about this subject.

First, I have a great deal of sympathy and empathy for anyone in such a situation. One should not have to deal with homophobia – no matter how minor or subtle – from one’s closest families. It can instill a real sense of betrayal and that you don’t belong. So to anyone who is reading this and is facing anything less than perfect acceptance from their immediately family, know that I would totally give you a hug right now if I were able to and you were comfortable with it.

To address the question, we first have to understand what we can do and what is our responsibility to do. For example, many of us – myself included at times – often think that what we need to do is convince our loved one to stop being homophobic. And in a perfect world, our loved ones would end their homophobia. (Well, in a perfect world, they never would’ve been homophobic in the first place, but hey.) But here’s the thing: we can’t make people change their mind or their behavior. It just doesn’t work that way. And trying to do it will only leave us even more frustrated and possibly (more) depressed and a lot of other things. In the end, we have to give our loved ones the freedom to address (or not) their own prejudices and their own actions in their own time.

So instead, we need to look at what we can do. And the thing I think we most need to focus on is the same thing we really should be focusing on anyway. We can and should focus on doing what it is that we need to do in order to feel good about ourselves. We can and should focus on making sure we like ourselves.

Liking ourselves and finding the good in ourselves can be difficult, especially when we have people saying or implying negative things about us. Doubly so when some of those people happen to be close and dear loved ones who are supposed to embrace, accept, and encourage us. In those cases, we have to struggle even harder to remind ourselves that we’re amazing people. (And if you don’t believe you’re an amazing person, please find someone safe to talk with about that fact as soon as you can!) Look at the things you enjoy and the things you are good at. Do you like to write? Write your heart out and cherish what you write. Treat yourself like you’re the next literary genius in training. Do you like to draw? Draw your heart out and treat your drawings like they’ll be hanging in the Louvre some day. Think of all the great qualities you offer the people in your life and the parts of yourself that you have to share with them. The sting of homophobia will never fully go away – especially when it comes from a loved one – but being able to confidently see yourself as a valuable and wonderful person does help.

Another thing that you can do is find the love, support, and encouragement you need. After all, that’s one of the really sucky parts about homophobic loved ones. Loving, supporting, and encouraging you is supposed to be THEIR job, and they’re failing at it in at least some ways. So it’s time to find people – and there are a lot of them out there – who would be happy to take on at least part of that job. Find and focus on other family members who are more supportive. Be honest with them and let them know that you need their support. Focus on friends – and make new ones if you need to – that will give you the support you need. When I came out nearly twenty years ago, I built an entirely new circle of friends. Oh sure, I kept in touch with some of my older friends and even have the occasional contact with some of them to this day. But my new friends were the ones who were both able and willing to walk with me through the process of self-discovery and self-acceptance. They were also the ones who felt safe to go through that process with. Those are the kinds of friends you need.

So if you don’t have them, find them. If you’re in school, see if your school has a GSA. See if there’s an LGBT community center or LGBT social groups in your area. See if there’s an active PFLAG chapter in your area.

Don’t rule out online friendships, either. For the first ten years after I came out, a lot of my friendships were online. Even the close and supportive friends I knew in person were people I mostly stayed in touch with via the Internet. An online friend may not be able to give you hug, but they can listen to you and tell you that you’re okay and that what you’re feeling is okay too. That’s extremely valuable.

You’ll notice that I talked about finding support after talking about learning to love yourself. There’s a couple reasons for that. The first is that while support is important and good, other people ultimately can’t make you feel good about yourself. That’s a gift you give yourself and you need to give it to yourself.

The other reason is because knowing what you like about yourself also helps you think about what you have to offer friends and possibly how to find them. If you’ve figured out you love to write, then finding friends that accept you for who you are and share that love of writing is an excellent plus. Maybe you can find a writing group locally or join a writing site online. The same is true of drawing or any other talent or interest you have. And the bonus is that they’ll encourage you and remind you that your talent or interest is awesome and valuable. Hey, other people can’t make you like yourself, but they sure can remind you of what there is to like about yourself!

The last thing to consider about finding love, encouragement, and support is to consider whether you want to and would benefit from talking to a trained mental health professional. If you have someone who is frequently – or even only slightly frequently – saying and doing things, that can really take a toll on you. It may be helpful to have someone in your corner who is trained to help you sort through that.

The final thing that you can do to take care of yourself in such a situation is try to limit your interactions with said loved one as much as possible. This can be tricky, depending on your circumstances. At 41 living on my own, I can get away and stay away from any homophobic relatives I may have as much as I want. If you’re a younger person who’s still living at home, you may be stuck living with a homophobic parent or sibling. If that’s your situation, you again have my sympathy. That totally sucks. It especially sucks if there’s more than one homophobic person in the house with you, or even if others in the household doesn’t see what the big deal is with the homophobic person’s behavior. Maybe they think you’re overreacting. They’re wrong.

In that situation, you can only do the best that you can do. If you can stay in your bedroom – and the rest of your family will leave you alone rather than barge into your room and try to force conversation on you – that may be what you need to do. You may need to find ways to keep yourself busy. (Again, this is where having those loving and supportive friends may be helpful – as you can go spend time with them whenever possible and get away from the homophobia.)

You may also want to consider calling out the homophobic person’s behavior when they’re being hurtful and disengage. “I feel what you just said or did was hurtful to me and I would like you to leave me alone now.” Then walk away if you can. Be aware that this can be a difficult thing to do. The other person is likely to get offended. They’re likely to try to get you to tell them exactly why you found what they said or did was hurtful – most likely so they can tell you that you were wrong to feel that way. If you decide to go this route, don’t let yourself be drawn into an explanation or an argument over it. Simply say, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I need time to be alone.” Stick to your guns. Go talk to one of your supportive friends or loved ones, someone who will totally understand why you’re hurt and will tell you that it’s okay to feel that way.

At any rate, that’s the best advice I can offer to help anyone going through such a situation. My readers are welcome to offer their own insights in the comments. Maybe some of you found something that helped you. Please feel free and encouraged to share.

Moderation Note: All comments complaining about how “easily” the word homophobia gets thrown around will be deleted. Any commenter trying to open a debate about what does and does not constitute homophobia will be banned. This is not the space to get defensive over how your words and actions are properly labeled. This is a space for you to listen and carefully consider how your words and actions impact the LGBT people in your life. If you try to do the former rather than the latter, than you’re part of the problem, and likely a bigger part than you want to admit.

 

Emotions, Gender and Sexuality, Love, Personal Development

Coming Out Anniversary Post: The Need for a Relationship

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Going to Hell Tee ShirtIt’s April 1st once again.  For those who have been following my blog for a while, you know that this is significant in that it’s the anniversary of my initial coming out.  Eighteen years ago, I quit denying that I was attracted to other men, quit claiming it was “just a phase,” and quit trying to change myself.  (Well, where my sexual orientation is concerned.)

I don’t commemorate or blog about the event every year (See the bottom of this post for links to older anniversary posts), though I decided I wanted to again this year.  This year, I want to consider how my attitude about dating has changed since I came out.

When I came out, dating was extremely important to me.  This is partly because part of the reason I finally came out was because I was tired of being alone.  I was tired of suffering, thinking I may never be able to find — or even allow myself to find — someone I could deeply care about and build a lasting relationship with.  So when I came out, finding someone to love was of grave importance to me.  To put it quite frankly, I was rather desperate at the time.

Consider that I was walking away from years of belief that being gay was bad and that the kind of relationship that appealed to me was strictly prohibited.  Consider that rejecting that belief required me to give up a lot of my identity (being an evangelical Christian — and most evangelicals still insisted that the phrase “gay Christian” was an oxymoron and an abomination at the time — was a huge paart of my existence and idenity) and to strain many freindships and relationships.  So the idea that I’d give all that up and still end up alone was terrifying.  So I ended up putting a lot of energy into the idea that I had to find someone.

It’s a mentality that lasted for years, over a decade and a half in fact.  In time, though, it’s a mentality that began to fade and is now more or less gone.  That’s not to say that I don’t want to find someone to build a life with.  Dating is still important to me.  Having a loving relationship is still important to me.  It’s just not my single-minded obssession anymore.  Now, it’s just something that I’d like to achieve when the time is right and I meet a great guy I’m compatible with and mutually attracted to.

I think I really began to notice this change a few months ago, when I ended my most recent relationship.  I ended it because I just couldn’t see myself being with him long-term, which was something he was definitely looking for.  In general, I’ve found myself far more picky about the guys I date and continue to invest time in, which I think is a positive thing.

I think part of this is due to the fact that once I quit spending so much time and energy figthing with myself over my sexual orientation, I was able to slowly build myself back up.  With the question of how my being gay affects my identity and worth, I was able to more fully explore my identity in all areas of my life.  I was able to build up who I saw myself as, and where I found my sense of worth and emotional strength.  As a result, that idea of a relationship quit being the life-vest I clung to out of desperation.

But that’s something that could only develop once I came out and accepted that one part of myself.

Previous Anniversary Posts

Also, be sure to check out Journey to Queerdom.

Emotions, Meta-Blogging, Writing

Still alive and sharing a link

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Hello all!

Man, I’ve been silent for months now.  In some ways, it’s a shame that I’ve allowed this blog to remain untouched after spending November and December working so hard to get a regular schedule going.  But alas, I felt it was necessary.  Trying to keep it going through January — when I was completely unmotivated due to memories bringing up personal emotional issues (I’m fine now, thanks for asking) would have been disastrous, I feel.  At that point, keeping the blog going started to feel like an obligation of drudgery rather than something of I enjoy.  So rather than totally kill my own love for my blog, I decided to take a break.

I hope to pick this blog back up again, so I appreciate anyone who is willing to keep it in their newsreaders or on their blogrolls.  I won’t make any promises of when or how frequently I will return right now, as my attentions have also been focused elsewhere.  During my absence here, I started a new blogging project, which I’m really getting into.  Unfortunately, due to the nature of that project, I’m required to do it under anonymity.  That means that I am unable to let you all know where or how to find it.  Sorry.

I’m also trying to get back into writing more, which means my Writing.Com portfolio is slowly starting to see some action.  (My apologies to the prudes and those just not interested in male-to-male sex, but most of the stuff I’m working on right now is sexual/erotic fiction.)  I also just updated my writing-specific blog over there with an entry about one advantage visual media has over the written word.  I encourage you to check it out, though I warn you that it relies heavily on spoilers to the movie The Sitter.

I hope you all are well. Drop me a comment and let me know what’s new with you.

Emotions, Personal Development

We all have our bad days

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Today’s post is going to be somewhat personal, as it’s what I have the energy and mental capacity for today.  I’m still recovering from my FINE[1] day yesterday.  I get them every now and then.[2]

One of the things I’ve found over the past year that it’s actually helpful to acknowledge such days and even indulge in them.  Prior to entering therapy last January, I would fight hard against such days and demand that I “just get over it.”  After all, it was “just a feeling,” and I should be able to control them.[3]  I would seek to diminish my rough days if not outright repress them.

The problem with that approach is that they never really go away.  Things just build up, waiting to get out.  Eventually, when you can’t hold it in any longer, it all boils over, explodes, and makes a huge mess.

Yesterday, I actually had a much better day by acknowledging that I was having a bad day and allowing myself to do so.  I was able to both indulge in a bit of self-pity and make light of it.  It made the whole experience not great, but far more bearable and manageable.

As a society, we tend to encourage people to put on a happy face, to act like nothing’s wrong, and to think of people who “have it worse.”  The problem with this is that while there may be people with worse problems out there than what we are facing, our problems are still very real and we need the freedom to deal with them.  And we can’t do that if we can’t even acknowledge them or feel like we have to downplay them.

Notes:
[1]  FINE is short for “Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.”  An old coworker taught me that.  He learned it when he was in counseling years ago.

[2]  Right now, they seem to be happening every other week or so.  I think it’s the holiday season combined with the fact that a few “major events” happened in my life around this time of year, and my mind tends to gravitate towards the associated memories.

[3]  The need to be in control is a major issue for most codependents.  One of the big wake-up calls I faced when I finally acknowledged my codependency and got help for it was acknowledging just how much I needed to be in control of not only myself, but my circumstances and others in it and how I sought to exert that control.

Dating, Emotions, Love, Memories, Music

Music, Memories, and Emotions

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The other day, I was listening to the radio while driving, and “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith came on.  I absolutely love that song and want to include it here.  So thanks to YouTube, enjoy a nice rendition with lyrics, no less:

I actually have an emotional history associated with this song.  The song was quite popular on the radio back in 1998, thanks to Armageddon.  At the time, I was also involved with a young man name Zech.  It was actually my first relationship, providing you don’t count the friend I experimented with in high school.  The song meant a lot to me back then.  Every time I heard it, I thought of Zech.

The other day when I heard the same song, it made me think of another guy.  I’ll call this guy D (until he tells me he’s ready for me to talk about him by name.  D and I have been talking, hanging out, and otherwise enjoying each other’s company.  We’re not actually dating, though I hope that changes some day in the not-too-distant future.

What I find interesting is that while similar, the reaction the song evokes in me regarding D now and the reaction I had back when I was involved with Zech.  In both cases, the theme of the song — the desire to be with that special someone as much as possible — resonated deeply with me.  However, the emotional undercurrents are worlds apart.

As I mentioned, Zech was my first boyfriend (though come to think of it, we never officially dated).  We were both young and immature, and I was only recently out (I had only finally accepted my sexuality two years earlier).  This meant that I was going through a lot of emotional turmoil, and tended to cling to Zech in a sense of desperation.  And that desperation came through back then as I’d listen to the song.  I didn’t want to miss a thing, because I was terrified that things would end.  Part of me wanted to squeeze as much out of the relationship before the horrible ending came, and part of me foolishly believed that simply by being ever-present, ever-vigilant, and ever-suffocating, I could actually prevent the horrible ending from coming.

I’ve grown up a great deal in the intervening twelve years, and I now listen to that song again with a new guy in mind.  And once again, I find myself nodding along with the song.  But rather than a nagging sense of desperation, my heart is filled with a sense of peace and contentment.

The funny thing is, there area  few parallels.  There’s no guarantee that things will work out between D and I.  (Is there ever really any such guarantee?)  I don’t know how long I have with him or even if we’ll ever become a couple like I’m hoping for.  I think it’s likely though.

But in the end, it doesn’t matter.  I have this time now, and I want to make the most of it.  Not out of fear or desperation, but out of hope and joy.

People often talk about how music can evoke powerful emotions and we can associate specific memories and feelings with a song.  However, I sometimes think that people forget that new connections and associations can be made with old songs that replace or overpower the old ones.  I know from personal experience that this is true, because I enjoy “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” far more today than I did back in 1998.

In fact, I think I’m going to go listen to it again.

Emotions, Grief, Love, Personal Development

Old Diary Entry: Tears of Gold

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"Freya" (1901) by Johannes Gehrts. T...

Image via Wikipedia

I wrote the following entry and posted it to Bloopdiary (when I was still there) on 19 August 2005, when I was still processing through my breakup with Mike, who I had been with for four years.  I recently mentioned this entry to someone else and realized I no longer had a copy online.  So now it’s online again.  Enjoy!

As I’m getting settled into my new apartment and finding ways to establish myself in Rochester, I find myself realizing just how little I think of Mike. In some ways, I find myself in that strange state where it just doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve cried my tears, and while I feel the slight ache of being alone once again (and not getting any younger), I have a strange peace about having lost him.

It was a rough journey getting here. I found myself emotionally distraught about the whole thing. I cried so many tears. To be honest, I never realized I could cry so much over the end of a relationship when I was the person to end it. But there you have it. And I think I learned a lot about it. I came to understand one of Freyja’s myths a bit better.

When Freyja lost Od, she cried tears of gold. Indeed, according to Snorri, this is why “Freyja’s tears” became a kenning for gold. I always found the fact that her tears were gold a mild curiosity. Now I see it as an incredibly profound mystery. And I have a much greater appreciation for the value of grief. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that true grief is a sacred act in its own right. Hence the tears of gold.

I wanted to quit being sad over the breakup. I kept wanting to “move on already.” I didn’t want to shed any more tears. I was “wasting time.” But no, the tears, the sadness, the grief kept coming. And my sweet Lady kept telling me, “No, you need this. Cry your tears. They’re my golden tears.” So I did the only thing I could do, I cried, and I explored my grief.

Then I realized why I cried so much. I was experience true grief, the kind that only comes when one loves so freely and without reservation, only to lose that love. In effect, I wept bitterly because I loved fully. And there is a certain beauty in that.

You see, I think that’s the mistake we too often make. We’re too afraid of that kind of grief, so we avoid being so vulnerable. We only love grudgingly, often holding back and never truly letting go. We do that because we think that sense of grief is bad and to be avoided.

After the past couple months, I’ve come to a different way of thinking. As painful as such sorrow and grief may be, it is in its own way a celebration. My tears were bitter, but they were born of my precious love. I came to understand that as I cherished my love, I could cherish my grief which came as a result of it. In that view, they became bittersweet, and I could see how they really were tears of gold.

I’m not sure many people would understand that. But that’s okay. I guess it’s one of those things you have to experience and come to understand yourself. Me explaining it just won’t do. But for those who do understand, I can just imagine their reaction to reading this.

Emotions, Grief, Love

Hurt

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The Voice of a broken heart

Image by WolfS?ul via Flickr

I love you and I miss you. But I’m also hurt.

I understand
you’re in a difficult position. I understand that it’s frightening for
you. And I understand why you’ve made the choices you did. My heart
breaks for you that you were ever in a position that you had to face
such choices.

But you were in that position, and you made those
choices. What’s more, you made many choices that helped to leave us in
the situation we now find ourselves in. And I feel like you chose to
ignore that fact, and instead place responsibility entirely on those
around you — including me — instead of accepting your fair share of
that responsibility.

Please understand, I’m not saying it’s all
your fault, either. We both made choices, and not all of mine were the
wisest or best choices I could have made. And others have contributed
as well. There’s plenty of “blame” to go around. But it hurts that you
seem to want me to shoulder your responsibility — or at least part of
it — in addition to my own.

In some ways, I wonder if I made a
mistake in trying to make things easier for you. I sometimes steered
clear of bringing up the consequences of your choices or the painful
decisions that you might have had. I find myself wondering if in doing
so, I merely encouraged you to continue denying your own
responsibility. If so, then I suspect I did both of us a great
disservice.

So I’m hurt right now. But I still love you, and I still miss you. I think that makes the pain all the more acute.

Emotions, Grief, Love

I Miss You

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The Voice of a broken heart

Image by WolfS?ul via Flickr

I miss you.

I
miss our talks. I miss your requests, even though they were often more
like demands than actual requests. I miss the way you’d get excited
about something and become completely consumed with a thought or idea
that struck your fancy.

I miss how you could be tender and
loving so much of the time. I miss how you yearned for both physical
and emotional intimacy, and I cringe at the thought that we may never
share that intimacy again.

Some people want to think it was just
about sex. I know the reasons they think that, but they’re wrong. It
was never about the sex. Yes, the sex was nice and I’ll miss that too,
but sex alone does not make a relationship.

Besides, let me be
honest. If I was just interested in sex, there are far easier avenues I
could pursue to get it. I could get a room at the spa if I just wanted
sex. I could hang out at the Home Depot if I just wanted sex. I could
have answered ads on craigslist if I just wanted sex.

Accepting
the complications, limitations, and risks of our relationship would
have been way too much foolish effort if I had merely been in it for
the sex. I’m amazed at anyone who can’t see the truth of that statement.

It’s
the memories of moments spent lying next together and talking that are
most powerful. It’s the memories of hopping into the shower and
lovingly washing each other’s bodies that make me ache for more such
tenderness. It’s the memories of your smile as you tell me about every
little detail of your life that fill me with wistfulness. The thought
that I may never have any more of these experiences with you is what
tears at my heart so much.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope that some
day we might beat the odds so that we can be together gain. I hoe that
some day we might again share such moments of tender joy together.

But for now, I miss you.

Deep Thoughts, Emotions, Family, Grief, Love, Memories

Remembering a family man from my past

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In an entry on Mutiply, I talked about my perspective changed in regards to getting involved with a guy who has kids. It seems proper to note that while I’ve only become fully aware of this change, the actual change process has been a long time in the works. In fact, I can trace its beginnings back as early as 2001.

Back in 2001, I met Mike, who I ended up dating for four years. Mike didn’t have any children of his own, but was fiercely devoted two his sister’s two sons, especially David, who was in his mid teens at the time. In fact, he was so devoted to them, you would’ve thought they were his own kids.

Again, this level of devotion was very attractive for me, for all of the same reasons I mentioned in the previous post. And there was the fact that Mike was devoted and close to his family in general, including his mother. (To be honest, he struck me as something of a “momma’s boy” at times.) That in itself was also an attractive quality. I myself have always been close to my family, so it was nice to see that reflected in the person I was with. Of course, I also think that it was a bit of a comfort to me, as my family was becoming more distant at the time, too. So it was nice to be reminded that such closeness could still last, even if not in my family. (Fortunately, things are on the mend in my own family now.)

Of course, in the end, Mike’s closeness with his family contributed significantly to the end of our relationship. This is mainly because in the four years we dated, Mike never reached the point where he was comfortable coming out to his family. This meant that he spent that entire time leading a double life, keeping our relationship safely separated from his relationship with his parents, sister, and nephews. This also meant that when his time was limited, that time was usually spent with his family rather than me. After a while, that simply became unacceptable to me. Along with other issues, I finally confronted him and ended our relationship when he admitted he was unwilling to do anything to resolve these issues.

In retrospect, I don’t hold Mike’s devotion to his family against him, even if it did contribute to the end of our relationship. To this day, I consider that a positive quality and something I’d still find attractive. However, I do take issue with his unwillingness to integrate his devotion to me and his devotion to his family, because his failure to do so was the real problem. To this day, that fact is something of a sore spot in my life, though I’ve mostly made my peace.

Through the grapevine, I’ve come to understand that Mike’s gone back to dating girls, and has been with the same girl for at least a year now. I guess things are going quite well, at least from what I can gain from indirect sources. When I first found out about this, I was deeply hurt. In fact, I won’t say I don’t still feel a twinge of pain over it now. However, I’ve come to be more accepting of his choices, and I hpoe he can truly find happiness with this woman. After all, I don’t think he’d ever find happiness with me or any other guy. Because it’s become clear to me that he could never make that choice that would ultimately be necessary. So I hope he can find happiness in the choices he has made.

I know I have. And to be honest, I’m starting to realize that my new choices since breaking up with him have offered me more chances for happiness than I ever would’ve had with him. (I just hope that doesn’t sound too cruel.)

Emotions, Health, Introspection, Personal Development

Being turned on by my younger self?

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Thanksgiving Day, I had a bit of a personal experience. After I had gotten to my parents’ home and was seated in the dining room chatting with them, I began to look around the room. On the one stand next to the interior wall, I spotted an old picture of me. If my mother is right (I mentioned it to her later), it was the casual picture I had taken when I had my senior pictures taken in high school.

When I first saw the picture, I did a double take. “That was me?! Damn, I was cute back then!” In fact, I was so taken by the picture that I almost had trouble believing it really was me. I looked rather different back then. It was before my hairline had really started to recede and before I put on an extra 70+ pounds. This realization was somewhat depressing, and for a moment, I even mourned the fact that I was no longer that young man in the picture.

What’s more, I mourned that I never realized how good looking I really was back then. I never considered myself ugly (and never have), but I did consider myself pretty plain. Part of that was because the school nurse kept harping on the fact that I was “slightly overweight” every year. Add that to the fact that none of the girls in school really seemed all that interested in me (nor the boys, but I wouldn’t have been ready to pursue that possibility anyway), and it just never occurred to me how great I looked. Of course, that made the realization rather sweet now, even if I did wish I would’ve taken better advantage of my looks back then.

But then Miss Thing (Have I mentioned that I love having a patron goddess who let’s me get away with calling her names like “Miss Thing”?) began pointing out to me that I’m still very good looking. Despite the decrease in hair and the increase in weight. And besides, I’m slowly, very slowly, doing something about that latter part. It is entirely likely that in three or four years, I could be that “slightly overweight” (in which case I will party) guy in the picture again, just at twice the age. But it’s going to take time, patience, and a lot of self love. After all, if I try to rush things, I’ll only get frustrated and sabotage my own efforts. And besides, I need to accept I already look great so that it becomes a matter of improving on an already great thing rather than some struggle against myself.

So I will continue to do my exercising (which I admit I’ve been bad about for the past couple weeks). I’ll get back to eating healthier. And I’ll continue to do so because I enjoy it (I’m already pining for longer days and warmer weather again so I can return to my walking). But at least now, I do it with a glimmer of hope that despite not being my primary goal, there’s proof that I could really enjoy the fringe benefits in the long run, too.