Gay Called...It's for Kevin.

CONTINUATION…


Of course I don’t think I made it beyond the first 10 minutes of Kevin’s arrival home before I spilled everything about my conversation with Stefan. I don’t know what I was expecting from Kevin, fireworks, a fist through wall perhaps…I wouldn’t have put any of it past him. I think he was in a real state of shock. If you assume that life exists on a range of say 1 to 10, there are many people who go through their entire lives living between 4 and 7. When something outside of this number range actually takes place, the varying types of responses are as different as the people they are happening to. With Kevin, I handed him a 10, at least in his world and it just didn’t seem to be computing with him, as if there was no reasonable way for him to process anything of what I had just told him. I know he wasn’t happy. He barely spoke to me for two days, but would occasionally offer a weak, “I can’t believe I’ve been ‘outed’ in Europe.”

For those of you who missed the story picked up by the Associated Press, at least in Germany, the air waves were abuzz…from Berlin to Heidelberg…a ripple of shock and awe was felt traveling down the Rhine and reports of mass disbelief came from as far as France. Kevin had been OUTED in Europe…yes, fans, it’s true…no doubt disappointing some, but in general adding to his already freaky superstar status there. I fielded calls from Cher, Bette Midler and Richard Simmons…Obama’s office was ready to issue a statement but Kevin informed me on Sept. 11th that they had decided to fly the nations flags at half mast instead, no doubt in memoriam for the throngs of women who were mourning the lost possibility of ever carrying Kevin’s seed to fruition and producing an heir. I draped all the mirrors in the house in with a lovely black toile that Kevin himself picked out on a fabric shopping spree just weeks before the story broke. Here in the States it has been my general policy to neither confirm nor deny, but the wave of water cooler talk had, by week’s end, been felt from The Hague to the Vatican. Had it not been for the 9/11 anniversary dominating the press, I fully expect Kevin would have had to call a press conference to address his saddened and adoring fans. It may take years before I am fully forgiven and economically, Kevin is able to recover from the fallout and backlash…and on a side note, Glen Beck, your telegram was just hateful.

I tried to listen in on Kevin’s subsequent phone conversation with Stefan the following weekend, but decided to leave him and his friend in peace. Stefan has been calling and emailing me anyway, and if he wanted to share anything, I’m sure I would hear about it at a later date.

It has now been about a month since Kevin’s mother left our home, and few weeks since all of Europe was deprived of Kevin’s heterosexual prowess…and things at home have thankfully settled back into our normal routine. I, of course, hide all the bags of fan mail expressing distain and disgust at Kevin’s ‘choice’. Mostly there has been a lot of productive conversations about how Kevin can effectively set healthy boundaries with his mother so her next visit, due around Christmas, by the way, won’t be as painful. I have also had my travel agent forward many brochures of top of the line spa vacations that I may choose to embark upon and have Kevin pay to send me too, should I decide I don’t want to deal with Mary on her next visit. No joke. At the very least, leaving the brochures lying around the house has provided good impetus for Kevin to continue to deal with resolving many of the issues of the last month in a timely fashion. I’m not asking for solutions to everything overnight, but there has to be a general commitment to moving forward, and so far, Kevin has not disappointed…I just have to remember that it won’t all happen in MY time, but his own.

My fingers are a little achy from all this typing, probably the longest letter I have ever written. I hope you are enjoying a productive visit to Ireland and hope you have a safe return. I’ll let you know when Kevin’s interview with Oprah is due to air…and until next time…kisses.

Love,

Steve

Secrets and Lies....

CONTINUATION…

Now this phone call was not entirely unexpected. Even before Stefan and Katrin left, there were promises made concerning the sharing of photos that had been taken during their stay with us and some of our day trips around Puget Sound. I believe we all felt the easiest way to share our pictures was through Facebook, since we would most likely be posting most or all of the photos there anyway. I know that Stefan and Kevin were friends on Facebook and I think Stefan asked me to send him an invite, so we could share our photos as well. I have never ‘friended’ Kevin on Facebook and with reason. I don’t want to be censored. That is the same reason he has never read this blog. Kevin is fully aware of the blog and the subject matter. I am very comfortable saying that there is very little, if anything, written here that has not been said to Kevin first. Writing to you just helps me process and sort through things to gain a little more clarity and distance from situations. So then you may ask why not let Kevin read it. Because it is MINE, and just as I am not privy to Kevin’s conversations or letters to his friends, I choose to keep “Dear Tallulah” unedited by a biased voice. I’m going to leave it at that. Anyway, I didn’t mention it at the time, but Stefan had called me at home several weeks ago. Actually he had called for Kevin but he and I ended up talking for awhile and he reminded me to send him a friend invite on Facebook, so he could share his photos with me and vice-versa. I knew that once Stefan had access to my profile on Facebook, he would also have access to “Dear Tallulah”…and I did stop and ask myself, “Would I take the time to look at a blog written in another language, because it belonged to someone I knew?” I would, even if only to look at the pictures. Now Kevin thought it was a little odd that Stefan and I would have had a whole conversation on the phone, after all he was Kevin's friend, but I reminded him that Stefan stayed in my house too, and we were also friends now, but I understood where Kevin was coming from…it’s that awkward moment when you realize that two previously separated parts to yourself are suddenly colliding and there is that split second, for most of us, when we quickly try to fetter out what inconsistencies about ourselves might be brought to the surface. For most of us, it’s a split second. For Kevin it must be an eternity. The Kevin that Stefan knows and the Kevin that I know are two different people. During our first conversation, the first time Stefan called, I not only had to be the person I was when he visited, “the straight roommate”, I also had to uphold Kevin’s persona; the person that Kevin had created for his friends and family. It was all getting very complicated for me…in-fact, I felt my end of the deal on this whole “Straight” thing was getting far more involved than Kevin’s end. And I don’t lie, especially to my friends. As for Kevin, I think he had been lying about his sexuality for so long that he no longer even viewed it as deception…it had just become par for the course, especially having been in the military for 20 years.

“You know,” I said casually to Kevin as we drove somewhere several weeks ago, “Once I ‘friend’ Stefan on Facebook, I imagine he’ll find out about us.” I turned to look at his face. The sunlight filtering through the trees that were rushing past the car flashed blotches of light and shadow on his face. I imagined Mother Nature holding a disco ball above the Pssat as we drove and smirked at the silly image I had conjured up.

Kevin looked at me quickly and caught my smirk and misinterpreted it. His eyes narrowed briefly as he tried to understand my amusement and he quickly asked, “Why?”

“Because I don’t censor myself on Facebook and it has the link to my blog.”

“I want to read your blog.” He stated.

“You can’t.” I replied. There’s nothing there that you don’t know about, Kevin. My blog is my release valve and it’s an easy way to communicate with my friends all at once. Besides, you know that if you read it, you’d be trying to edit what I write and I’m not going to play that game with you.”

“Is it all about me?”

“You’d love that wouldn’t you?…Why would MY blog be about you?  I write about you, sometimes, but it’s my blog, about ME and my reactions to the world around me.", I stated firmly, leaving no room for discussion about how I would conduct myself on MY blog.

And that was that. Honestly. I knew at the time that he was not putting two and two together for some reason, or was he? Maybe Kevin, on a subconscious level, thought this would be a great way to come out! Every instinct inside me said “No” to that thought, but it still left a nagging voice in the back of my head…what if he really wanted to come out, but just didn’t want to do it himself? Maybe he didn’t even realize he wanted to come out. And these weren’t really whole thought out conversations I was having in my head, they were more like passing notions…quick, ‘what ifs’. I sent the friend request to Stefan on Facebook and couple of days later he accepted. I was anxious to see his pictures but they never came. Kevin offered to show me the photos Stefan had on his Facebook wall and I AGAIN said to him, “I imagine that Stefan knows about us by now.” Kevin said nothing. Was I missing something? All this bitching and moaning and kvetching for five years about keeping him in the closet and it did not make sense that he wasn’t picking up on this. So I again thought that perhaps he must really want certain people to know. I admit I did not push the issue either. I knew I could, but I felt like there was a reason that Kevin was acting like this, subconscious or not. On one hand I couldn’t quite believe it or understand it, and on the other, I wanted to see how this hand played out.

“Really, Kevin?” I asked. “No response to that?”

“What can I say? If it’s already happened or it’s already done?”

Very odd, I thought. My guess is that Kevin didn’t really believe anything would come of it. What else could I think? I had been almost a week or two since Stefan accepted my friend request and I still had not heard anything further from him. I realize now he was no doubt reading and digesting “Dear Tallulah”….and now I was on the phone with him.

I was pacing the kitchen floor and listening to Stefan speak. He started out by saying that he had always known about Kevin, even when they knew each other in Germany, years before I had even met Kevin. Stefan thought everyone knew, except Kevin. When he came to visit us in Washington, he knew my place in Kevin’s life within three minutes of being here and neither he nor his girlfriend, Katrin, could understand why Kevin and I were putting on such an elaborate show. They had a nice visit with us, but he thought that it would have been much more relaxed and enjoyable if I had not been staying in a room that was very clearly never used. That made me laugh. Stefan went on to add that he had given Kevin chance after chance to open up to him, clearly saying that if Kevin was gay it meant nothing to him, but he needed to have the honesty from Kevin…the honesty was the important thing. And that is what really impressed me about the whole conversation with Stefan…he was upset because, as a friend, Kevin had not trusted him with the truth, and that had led Stefan to question the very foundation of their friendship. I agreed with him wholeheartedly on every point. And for the next 30 minutes or so, we both tried to figure Kevin out and failed. It was clear that Stefan was trying to be a good friend and it was also clear that Kevin really had a weak grasp on true friendship. If you lie to a friend, I think you are really saying that you don’t trust your friend enough to exercise their right to love you unconditionally and if you can’t do that, is it really a true friendship at all? And here is where Stefan was stuck…not wanting to lose Kevin as a friend…extending the bridge that would allow Kevin to suture the gap between superficial understanding and deeper insight..., but not knowing how to approach Kevin. If Kevin had gone to such great pains to hide everything from someone he truly believed was his friend…well, it called into question the very nature of what a friendship meant to Kevin and I understood Stefan’s confusion and hurt…when this type of betrayal (and I honestly feel Stefan felt betrayed) is played out upon you, you can’t help but question yourself too, and wonder, “What did I do to make my friend lie to me?” Dishonesty disarms a person. You can’t work with lies, but given the truth in any situation and one can either choose to adapt or remove oneself. Stefan really endeared himself to me during this conversation and I was frantically searching my brain for something to say to make him feel better, something that would ensure the chance for a continued friendship between Kevin and him. Thankfully, I was relieved of that responsibility. Stefan said he had thought about writing to Kevin, then thought about writing to me and then settled on a phone call as there was too much to say. He knew that Kevin and I were planning on visiting him in Germany next year, but now, he didn’t want us to come if Kevin was going to play these games with him…he just wanted Kevin to be honest with him and trust him to be what a any good friend would be…unconditional.

My mind was spinning. I had promised Kevin never to ‘out’ him, but I’d done just that. I was thankful it wasn’t his mother on the phone. If it was, I might as well go upstairs and pack my bags. Then it occurred to me…had I really ‘outed’ him if Stefan already knew?…I had only confirmed suspicions…but that’s just mincing words, I thought…it would make no difference to Kevin and I knew that. I told Stefan that I wasn’t really sure how Kevin would react and I asked him to please give me a couple of days to approach Kevin and gauge his reaction before Stefan spoke with him. Based on what Kevin had said so far about ‘not being able to undo what was already done’, my gut told me that it would be alright that Stefan knew about Kevin and I, but Kevin would NEVER want to talk about it. But that didn’t feel quite right to me either, the truth was, I really didn’t know what Kevin was going to say, or how he would react. By the time Stefan and I got off the phone, I knew that he and I were in many ways closer to each other than he and Kevin had ever been. I knew that bothered Stefan but I wondered if it would bother Kevin…would it even occur to Kevin? I let go of that and quickly focused on the real task at hand. Kevin was due home in a few hours, and there was no way I could carry this around silently for a couple of days…it was going to come out tonight.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The 'Outing'

CONT…

I truly believe that when you concentrate hard on something, “it” is put out into the universe and the universe responds. It’s like that moment when you need a quarter for the pay phone and don’t have one. Then you find one on the ground. Most of the time we dismiss such a coincidence as just that, but I believe there is something divine that we attract in these moments through our energy. Aside from all my concentration on NOT outing Kevin, the energy in the house was this odd focus on the relationship between Kevin and me. Mary was determined to either undermine what I had been trying to build with Kevin for the last 5 years or find out the exact nature of our relationship and it didn’t seem like I was going to be able to do anything but go along for the ride. The universe was already conspiring to respond though.
Frankly, I am tired of talking about Kevin’s mother, Mary already. I allowed her to rent far too much space in my head for the whole time she was here visiting. I told Kevin about the run-in I had with Mary in the kitchen. His main concern of course was whether or not I had actually confirmed her suspicions or not. I had not and Kevin was dismissive of the whole incident. As long as he was still in the closet, I guess he was thinking that he could deal with anything else. Of course, neither one of us knew that I would, in fact, indirectly “out” him before the month was up. Not to his mother, unfortunately, though. Kevin has spent 30 years creating an image of himself for the world to see and undoing his handiwork requires baby steps. This blog would be the catalyst for what I hope is a series of progressing baby steps. I know you keep asking why I put up with all of this, but please understand, there is love involved, 5 years of invested time, and 96% of my life with Kevin is great. Three weeks out of the 260 we have spent together is not grounds for divorce, in my mind.

Anyway, after I would butt heads with Mary, I always extended an olive branch. I fully intend to be an indirect part of her life, through Kevin, for awhile, so no need to burn bridges, right? After an altercation, I would go out front and cut some roses to put in her room, on the nightstand by her side of the bed. I did this several times, and it was my way of saying that I still respected her enough, as Kevin’s mother, to make sure that her stay was pleasant and I thought it was a nice gesture. It didn’t require words and like several other things, I found out after she left that she really appreciated it. That simple act of giving her fresh flowers, almost daily, may have been what kept things from completely falling apart.
Needless to say, I survived the whole visit, but not without quite a bit of collateral damage. I had lost a huge amount of respect for Kevin and did not gain any for Mary. When Kevin said we would be roommates ….he really meant it and he played his part to the hilt. I was unable to even sneak into our bedroom at night to steal a kiss or hug from him. I tried. Even though Mary and Archie were downstairs watching TV, Kevin would have none of it for fear of being caught…at least that’s what he said. In reality, his mother had gotten him to “thinking”, about how his choices concerning me were impacting his ‘image’ mostly. His mother could just not wrap her mind around me, as a ‘roommate’. It didn’t make sense to her and with good reason…it was because of her having one hand tied behind her back that I was always able to return to a space of graciousness and not completely go off on her. I don’t blame her for acting like a mom, truly, but Kevin needs to set clear boundaries with her, especially when she is visiting.

So now they are gone and in their wake, I am left feeling hurt, lonely, betrayed and of course, I was dying to have it out with Kevin. I finished gathering my thoughts and processing what I could, but decided to just confront Kevin, diving in and seeing what his thoughts or feelings were.
You would think that after three weeks, both Kevin and I would be totally up for some hugging and kissing and hot sex. Honestly, it was the last thing on my mind. No matter what the circumstances are, I have always trusted Kevin to honor and protect me. My trust had been shattered and there was no way I was going to give of myself intimately to him. Even if he had wanted to, which I found out he did not, I felt that having sex would have been a reward and he was in no way deserving. I didn’t even want to kiss him or hug him. However, I did want to know why he didn’t want to hug or kiss me.
Mary and Archie left early on Saturday morning. Kevin spent the weekend and Monday in his own world…barely talking, sad because his parents were gone and he said NOTHING about their stay...no apologies...no feelings to share….NOTHING….and I thought, OK, he doesn't know how I am really feeling, or, he doesn't know what to say....Kevin has never been good with apologies and frankly he is often short sighted and too into himself to evaluate where he might be wrong. He really lacks the ability to empathize and understand exactly how his words or actions affect others...his whole approach to the world is often based solely on how HE is feeling...so if he says or does something hurtful and it doesn't come back to bite him in the ass, then no harm done...at least that's my interpretation.

“You're just going to ignore the last three weeks, aren't you...and hope it all goes away?” I finally said to him Monday evening.
“What do you mean?” he said.
Honestly, as if he didn’t have a clue. Fucker. I got mad.
“It’s been hell for me, here, the past three weeks, and here's an idea Kevin...say to me, ‘Thank you for putting up with my mother and thank you for putting up with my bullshit and hers’, because it is bullshit, Kevin...’I know how hard it was or must have been for you, but you still made my parents comfortable and I don't know what I was thinking when I invited them here for so long, knowing you would have to spend more time with them than me. I really need to come to some conclusion about what to tell them and my friends, because I see that hiding and lying is a behavior that is not working now that I am in a relationship. I really would like to make it up to you, but I don't know how or what to say." I responded, incredulous. It all came rushing out as if I’d been practicing it, which I hadn’t. I had had plenty of time to sort of script out an approach, but this was purely off the cuff. Now, part of the dynamic between Kevin and me does NOT include arguments…it just never has. My anger and the raising of my voice was pretty new to him and drove my points home. I learned early on, as did Kevin, that yelling and arguing was just not a productive way for us to communicate. It just never worked as well as waiting for a time when we were both receptive and talking calmly. But, I was too pissed to care.
He said, "Is that what you want to hear?"
I said, "Yes… or some variation of that." He would not indulge me though. What he did say was,
“I’m just confused and thinking about some things my mom said.”
It amazed me that I was the one that was upset, and hurt, yet the conversation was now going to become about HIM? I played along for a second.
“What...what are you thinking, what did your mom say, and what are you feeling?”
“I don’t know.” replied Kevin. That just set me off again.
“That's an eight year-old's answer. An adult does not spend three days brooding over inner turmoil and not know what he's thinking or feeling. You’re coming across as emotionally stunted. If you are telling me that we can spend 5 years building a life together and your mother can show up and in three weeks begin to undo what you have already decided makes you happy by making a few comments about you needing to get married, or having kids, which you hate anyway, don't you see how that would affect me? Don't you see how threatening that is? AND what if I just stopped talking to you? Just stopped. No reason given, like you’ve pretty much done since Saturday, and then in all other aspects, tried to make you think you were crazy and that everything was fine? This is not the way you treat someone that you love, Kevin. Since they have left, we have not kissed, or hugged, or snuggled and here I am thinking, thank God, they're gone, now we can get back to our life and really, they might as well have stayed...because you are still acting like we are just roommates.” I said in another rush of words and pent up emotions.
He actually said something about trying to make himself CELIBATE, to see if he could do it or some stupid shit along those lines, to see if it was possible to approach the idea of doing what would make his mother happy… CRAZY, STUPID, misguided, just nuts I thought!
“How about this,” I began, “ you stop feeding your sick little secret, stop giving it and your mother so much power and come clean...You've been skirting around the fact that you're gay since high school...and you always come back to your true nature...if I wasn't with you, you'd be trolling Craigslist and Gay.com again....NOT trying to find a girlfriend, or a wife, or to have kids...Will your mother stop loving you?... NO…Will the world stop spinning…NO...Man the hell up, get over yourself, snap the fuck out of it and stop acting like an 8 year old caught in some nefarious web...you've created this situation, and you know how to extract yourself....it's like you keep hitting this brick wall...so you back up and instead of taking a left or right turn, you slam yourself into it again and again, and each time, you expect something different to happen.” I was on a roll. I didn’t even need to hear him say what he was confused about…I knew.
“I don’t have any answers right now…I’m still processing everything.” he offered weakly.
I didn’t really want to, but I kept getting louder and said, “Then why don't you SAY that then? You have given me nothing...you could have said that on Saturday, or Sunday, or 10 minutes ago... “
So the rest of the evening, he tried to suck up and he kept asking me why I was so quiet, what's wrong now?...I said the same thing is wrong...UNBELIEVABLE!
“I told you how I felt and just because it's expressed, doesn't mean there is a resolution...I'm sick of everything being solely on your terms...I played that bullshit game for three weeks with your parents and now it's time for you to think about ME...now fuck off...!”

I was pissed, and that's where I was. Wednesday, he came home and asked if he was still in the dog house...wouldn't it just be a matter of time before he got out of the dog house?... I said, “No, some answers and a direction for us to take as a COUPLE will get you out of the dog house...”
He said, “Are you just trying to give me a taste of my own medicine?” referring to my silence.

“I’m not playing a game, Kevin. I'm hurt and waiting for your adult response to some real issues that are important to me. I want answers….or I want counseling, or I want out.”

That's pretty much where we left it. This morning he was all kissy and trying to be nice before he left and I just won't have any of it. I am so happy to be home alone and loving the quiet and the space. It’s exhausting being mad, so I needed a break from that too. Then the phone rang…It was Stefan, from Germany. You remember, he and his girlfriend, Katrin had just stayed with us before Archie and Mary came to stay. I had to play the straight roommate when they were here too.
I told Stefan that Kevin was at work, but that he had his cell phone with him.
Stefan said, “No, I wanted to talk to you. I have read your blog, “Dear Tallulah.”

Oh Fuck! I didn't think the universe would use this route.

TO BE CONTINUED…