Interviews and Confessions Part Deux
this entry is a little dated, but i have been in flux this past few days so i only got a chance to sit down and write this relatively important news now. well, last thursday was the day before my last day in houston and i started off the day with my last interview i had scheduled while i was in houston. it was at 10:00 so somewhat earlier in the day. like the other firms i had interviewed with earlier in the week, this was a large, supposedly interdisciplinary firm that did "urban design" work. overall, i think the interview process went well, i think they were thoroughly interested in me since they proceeded to ask many more direct questions like when i could start, where in their multicity firm i could go, and even how much money i wanted. i tried to answer those questions as diplomatically as i could...especially something like how much money i wanted (is that what you are suppose to do?). but i dunno, i got the feeling actually that it wasn't a firm i would be interested in, for a few reasons. a lesser one was that the project scope that the firm enagaged in really didn't seem as developed into the urban design realm as i would have liked, and the thing is, even though i think their enthusiasm to go into those "type" of projects is evident and real, i began to feel like their real "qualifications" for interesting urban design projects really weren't "quite" up their yet. so it let me wondering if i was going to be really able to do any urban design actually. the second, larger reason that began to sway me away from the firm was also they seemed to not at all acknowledge that i had experience before and that i would be going into the firm really on an entry level position. and not that that is a surprising thing, but its not the ideal situation in my opinion in my own evaluation of my talents, experience, and need to be in a certain place career wise. it just seemed that this firm would place me right into the "herd". the funny thing is, this sort of "horizontal" structure to a firm i actually think may not be what i am looking for as i am ideally looking for a position of distinct responsibility. anyways, all of this is fairly too early to say as since there is no physical job offer (from any of the firms i interviewed with, there's not much point in discussing it ad infinitum).
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anyways, so that was my morning. i got home about lunch time and that's when the second big thing happened to me that day. you know how in my previous entry about my discussion with my dad and how i said it ended kind of anticlimaticly and without much resolvement. well, all i can say is... ye, of little faith. i guess i just need to realize that these things need a little time to settle in and you just kind of have to let things develop on their own. and did they develop. so apparently after my discussion with my dad, where in essence i told him, that the secrecy between me and him and mom was basically making my life sad and i saw as a significant road block to seriously considering houston as a place to "start my life", dad apparently went back and talked to mom.
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what he said i will never know, and honestly i probably don't want to know. but that day, after i got back from my interview, mom said she wanted to "talk". whooo, i was thinking. actually my dad had given me a head's up the day before that we were going to "talk", but still hearing it from her still had effect. i didn't know what to feel and i guess i was just curious above anything else. so basically, she sat me down and first she asked me... do i want to come back to houston after school. i told her the truth, now at the moment i was in, i had no reservations to come back, meaning that it was relatively on an equal playing field with all the other places i was looking at. then she proceeded to tell me that dad had expressed what i talked to him about and that basically she wanted to thank me for giving her such a long time (7 years) to slowly digest it and to think it over. she basically said, that she didn't want to be something that caused me to be unhappy with my life and that she appreciated the gesture of honesty and the attempt to at least start dialouge. she said that all she wanted was for me to be happy, but she only requested that i don't make a point of it in front of her friends.
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that request didn't matter really. i was already satisfied that she said she wanted me to be happy. and its true, i am not out to convert anyone. i don't require my parents or anyone to "accept" my lifestyle, but i do require that they (if i care for them and hopefully they care for me) are cognizant and acknowledge my lifestyle. in short, i can't leave my life walking around in circle and walking on eggshells with those i care about. i am not (usually) a flamboyantly gay man, but if i want to and feel the need to to discuss my "personal" life i don't want to lie and start using mixed up pronouns or feel like i can't share that part of my life with people i care about. this especially refers to my folks. plenty of times in my life, i have had "relationship" issues where i wish i could talk to my parents (who are in that way still the closest people i know) but i couldn't because to really get the answer that would be helpful i would have to fully disclose. but above anything else, i just personally feel that honesty is a qualification of real love and care, because its about trust, its about acceptance to a degree, because you accept that you care about someone's well being, and that you try "your" best to understand... but it's not that you have to totally accept this person's "lifestyle" but that you are willing to still accept the person him/herself though. to be simplistic, your closest friends and family may have habits you actively disapprove of.... smoking, eating meat, etc... but you still accept them based on their personality and the shared history you have, which personally "habit" are a part of, clandestine or not. its just ideal that in real trusting relationships, the clandestine part if not there.
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so my mom basically said, ok... you are gay. i accept that (eventhough i wanted to say i don't require you to accept it, i got the feeling that it would be better just to let her talk) and i want you to be happy. in some strange way, i can't say that i started bawling and started hugging like crazy. in general it was actually very calm, but it was calm in a good way... meaning that i was thoroughly satisfied that at the very least, i had really gotten through. funny to say, but the past seven years of secrecy sort of just vanished in 15 minutes. it even took me a while to really understand and to have it sink in that now, i wouldn't have to avoid topics like love. hopefully this will also put an end to those annoying jabs at getting married and everything, which i am not rejecting because its straight marriage they were thinking of, but because i just am not thinking of marriage now period.
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i got the feeling or the itch what have you to really "discuss" things and minutiae like relationships in particular, and health, and all that... but i also realized that it was a good moment just in itself and that i should "talk" too much. i waited seven years to talk and when it finally came i realized that "everything" couldn't and shouldn't be resolved right their. i have to bring "them" onto the journey. i basically told them, that i want them to "judge" me based on the overall nature of what i am doing, and that is what i expected of everyone else. if they want to hate me based on my sexual orientation, that's their choice and their perogative. but it will be to their lost if they don't see me as the good, socially beneficial person i truly want to be. i told them that i want to have a 95% "normal" life and now that we can "talk", they can be part of that. i told them that my life did not drastically change but now my life with them would not have to be in shadows and beyond that its not like i would now morph into something completely different.
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which is all true. my personality mode and my life directions have been in the making for years now, those won't change. but this point on honesty between us is what i needed to take the next steps in my life. i am happy that they have decided to take those steps with me. because i really still need them.
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i prayed to have god give me the strength to do what i felt i needed to do, and that's what i still pray for. now that there is transceparency i feel like there is even more impetus and expectation to really do something "good" with my life, and expectation in a good sense, not overbearing. because now, i can really try to express my life as i want to, to not be hesistant about things, to take my life in control of my self and do things, to live my life so to say. i am not saying now its easier, in fact, probably even more challenging because i in a way have further molded my life and like i was saying before, now eyes are turned even more on me. and i want to prove to everyone, epsecially my folks that all their care and love and attention has, can, will foster a life that really is an addition to society. it makes me even more aware that now i have a priority to really exceed in life, to really give back, and to really show that my life, ultimately, in maybe just the smallest way, will leave impact for the better, and that it is because of my acts of honesty that this becomes truly fruitful.
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there is some old saying that basically says you choose everything that befalls you basically. you choose it because it is through the nature of your reaction to the uncontrollable things in life that you live either a happy life or not. at this point, i've come to believe that honesty is part of the happy life i envision, so i made this choice to finally "come clean" so to say. i can only hope i made the right decision, no...i take that back, i can only hope and pray that god will give me the strength to make that decision the "right" decision.
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i see it as a harbinger of good luck that this developed near the begginning of the new year, the "solar" and "lunar" new years. this was at least one resolution that i was able to take, and in some ways, i think the most important of those i talked about. happy new year.
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posted by faux chink @ 7:43 PM
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