Coming out, staying sane

This is Cindy, Gary’s wife. I’m sorry to say that Gary committed suicide on 12/28/07. In a letter to me he asked that I post his last diary entry. It follows. I’ve never met any one of you but I can imagine you all know me. I read through Gary’s diary here over the past few days. It was hard to read for many reasons. I don’t fault him for his feelings. I just wish he would have been honest with himself which he seems to never have been. I still love him and I miss him dearly. Peter has read this diary as well. We’re both hurt by Gary’s actions but we hold no spite and we’re healing.

Gary asked me to keep this up as long as possible so I’ll check back here and there and make sure whatever bill needs to be paid for this gets paid. Gary’s diary is a something that should be available to everyone to read especially young gay boys and girls afraid of who they are.

Cindy Stone




So I did it. Well I did do it if you’re reading this. Yeah, I caved in, gave up and all of that. After my last meaningless encounter with “random guy”, chronicled here, I fell into a deep depression. It was rock bottom, the worst I’ve even experienced. I didn’t decide to kill myself then. It came to me as I was coming out of the depression that I and those I loved would be better off without me around. Deep down I’m bitter, that’s not going to change. I am really becoming a person who wasn’t pleasant to be around and I’m only going to drag down those around me and most importantly I refuse to live a life of quiet desperation. How I will do it (did it) I haven’t decided as I write this and it doesn’t matter anyway.

So here’s my final housekeeping here on Live Journal. Thanks for reading and if you’re reading this journal for the first time you should start from the beginning otherwise the end won’t really make sense. It’s a snapshot of my life and lots of insight as to why I decided to leave this place and dance with the gods.

For those of you who read Losing Jason, I assigned all rights to the manuscript to a friend of mine in San Francisco who will clean it up and try to get it published. Here’s some background for those who care. Much of the background elements of the story come from real life events and people in my life. Jason and Garret (in this sense) are fictional characters living in my childhood world. The character Garrett is based on me recently coming to grips with my homosexuality. What Jason represents I’ll let amateur and, I guess, professional psychologists figure out. All of the other characters except for Betsy are amalgamations of people I knew. Betsy is the only character who is based solely on a real person and the Betsy in the story is that same Betsy in real life. She was a friend of mine in High School who I really liked.


inertia_exe: Thanks for the work on the tattoo. Sorry I didn’t use it. You should show it off. I think it’s really cool. I hope things work out in some positive way with your sister.

thatalexguy: I enjoyed reading your journal. I hope you went to that new school. It seems so much better for you. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders and you seem to have a really cool life in front of you. I wish you the best of luck.

piecesofalife: Thanks for the kind words on Losing Jason. I’ve asked my friend that one of the secondary characters be renamed to Rich after you before it’s published.

artkouros: I enjoyed reading your posts about your life with Caleb. They gave me something to hope for. Pity it never happened for me. Your recipes (technical and otherwise) are very cool too. And what would I do without Thankful Thor's Day and Woden's Day Wisdom. Thanks for those!

heterocide: I’m sure we would be real friends if we knew each other face to face. Your online friendship was welcomed and I enjoyed reading your posts.

halogencycle: You are one of the most interesting people on LiveJournal. Your life is going to rock I know it. I wish you the best of luck.


To everyone else, thanks for reading. I have to go do the two-step with Pan in a few minutes.

Garrett.

So, I've had a lot of time to think about last Saturday night. I've accepted that I really don't want that anymore. I also want to go back and find that guy I used and see what can come of that. We did talk for a little while and got along well. He's a geek and I'm realizing I like geeks. I also like sport bike guys. (Hmm I wonder if its some narcissistic thing?) I never put much thought (or rather allowed myself to) into what I really like. I just had shallow desires of simple stereotypes. Those desires were reflected in the guys from my WWBD nights. None were interesting outside of sex and even that wasn't spectacular.

So anyway, there's this new guy who parks his bike in the same place I park mine and I've seen him a few times and think he's really hot but not in a purely, "I really want to fuck this guy" kind of way. Ahh, he's probably straight anyway but I'll keep my gaydar up and see what's what with that.

Other than that, I guess I'll try and find the guy I should have stayed with last Saturday and just be more me and less Brian and see what comes of it. I'm finding the matchmaker sites are lame. I've never been interested in anyone on them past two emails. I need to figure out how to meet someone who isn't just interested in a fuck. That of course is going to be harder...

I'm in Denver airport waiting for my connection and bored as hell. I didn't end up doing anything beside work in Houston. That was my first time un Houston alone without someone to drive me around etc. I gotta say I think Houston has got to have one of the most fucked up highway systems I've ever had the misfortune of driving on. The most fucked up things are the toll roads. If you miss your exit you have to pay to get off then get back on. For a certain non-toll highway I needed to be on I could only get to it from the toll road. Why? Oh crappy design. Whatever. There's two places in my trip where you're told only once which exit is for a given direction on a highway and the sign is RIGHT NEXT TO the exit. If a truck is in the way and you don't see it in time, oh well! Blah, enough bitching...

I was able to put off my trip to Norway for a while, mostly because lots of people from there are coming to Seattle. I hope to put it off until at least January. I'm actually not making a whole lot of friends there lately. Lots of responsibilities have been stripped from people there and given to me and I'm not playing tip-toe with those responsibilities either.

I should probably pack up and go to my gate.

So I'm going to Houston for a few days this week. Tuesday to Friday to be exact. I'm thinking I want to hit a gay bar(s) on Thursday night. Anyone know the city and can point me in a good direction??

I just ran into this quote and had to share...


"Inside every old person is a young person trying to figure out what the hell happened."

I'm feeling great right now... Other people are picking up on that too. I just want to go back out to the bars and be the confident, sleazy guy who picked up a couple on Saturday night. I would too if Peter wasn't with me tonight. Anyway, you'll notice I'm coming further out of my shell.

I'm going back to Norway in two weeks. I wonder what they're going to think when I show up. I don't know how the shareholders would feel about some dude with a punk hair cut running technology for the company... Whatever, fuck em.

I got a call this morning from someone I used to work with who's starting up a new company. This would be his third. His first went public in the late 90's and had a $300 million valuation on opening day and was acquired a few months later for a few billion. His second was bought in the early stage in a seven figure deal. He wants me on board with his new company in an executive role after the financing comes through. It looks interesting, I may do it.

uggghhh... I still have my "I'm not gay" defenses up. Just today, I went to lunch and ran into this hella hot guy who was checking me out and I clenched up and ignored him. Actually I gave him the "what are you looking at?" look. *dumb* *dumb* *dumb*. Right after that I wanted to kick myself. Maybe its too late and that shit is just ingrained in me now.

Work hasn't let up, its actually gotten worse. I've been working 18+ hours every day this week including the past weekend. I decided that I needed to bust Peter on his class-cutting ways and he was with me at the office instead of going to the party. He was pissed off of course but he's over it now.

Oh, back to work...

Background: Peter is a Freshman in high school. He's going to one of the top, if not the top, high school in the city. Its mostly Asian. There's seriously like ten white people in the whole school of about twelve hundred students. He doesn't necessarily have a problem with that, he's always had Asian friends and girlfriends and best friends. There's of course cultural differences that sometimes can get on his nerves and there's times when he wants a white bread environment and I understand that. He's having a little trouble fitting in, lots of kids call him "cracker" and he takes it in stride mostly. Its not a vicious sort of thing, it more joking than anything but there's definitely is undertone about it conveying his place in the school.

So, recently the other nine white kids, well two of them, invited him to a Halloween party where the others will be. (This is starting to sound like some white power thing, its not, not by a long shot.) He was really excited. The white bread clique are mostly Juniors and Seniors which gives Cindy and I pause. We were going to let him go to the party but make him come home early and use it as a test for him.

I found out today that he cut half of his classes on Friday with the two girls who invited him to the party. I haven't told him or Cindy yet and I'm a bit torn about what to do. I could bust him and keep him from the party (which is the first thing that comes to mind) or I could let it slide because his acceptance into the clique would go a long way towards building his self esteem and decreasing his insecurity. But if it’s a bad group of kids then I don't really give a shit and I don't want him hanging around with them.

Hmm... I thought High school was supposed to be tough for the kids. Why is it hard for me too?

Busy doesn't begin to describe my life lately. I like being busy so its not so bad.

I've decided that I'm going to get surgery to deal with my balding head. At first I thought it was kind of a slimy thing to do but I got a new look at the progression (or regression) of my hair loss and its bad. New techniques give a completely natural look and that's basically why I'm fine with it. I need to go on some sort of regimen to keep the hair I do have otherwise I'd need another surgery what that falls out. I should have done something years ago but I didn't care so much. I don't look good with a shaved head unfortunately and I just look dumpy with the balding spots. Getting old sucks. :)

Cindy and I finally had a serious heart to heart talk and the word "gay" was actually used. She's totally fine with it which is a relief for me. I was just at her place hooking up her internet connection. She was using a free wifi service from a cafe in the area. It wasn't all that stable so she decided to pay for her own service. I get custody of the cats next weekend. The one who basically is my cat is coming over early and the other is just staying the weekend.

Not much else going on in my life. Just lots of work. I need to find more balance and get back to running and Aikido and go on at least one more motorcycle ride before winter. I'm not entirely sure if that's going to happen right away though.

Oh wow have I been occupied. Work is crazy busy and on top of that moving in to my new place is taking longer than I had hoped. I bought a bunch of Ikea stuff and I've been building furniture most nights for the past two weeks. I'm now finally almost done with the place. I get my prints back today so I can put stuff on my walls this weekend.

So much stuff has fallen off while I've been dealing with the many demands recently posed to me. I haven't gone to Aikido in a month. I've been out running only once in two weeks and I've only practiced playing bass for about 15 minutes once while I was waiting for a ride. I'm hoping stuff settles down by the end of the month. It should, at least at home.

Peter's been staying with me a few nights each week and I've been over Cindy's apartment a few days too. She helped me pick out the furniture and other stuff and I've helped her hang stuff on her walls and sort her finances. Its been good between us, thankfully.

Gotta, go. I've been waiting for a slow server to copy files and now its done and I have to go back to work.

Here's pictures that go with my last posts.


The shirt.






Where I was while I uploaded the Stockholm post.

This is the last day of a three week trip to Scandanavia. I'm in Olso now. Tomorrow I return. I can't quite say I'm going home. I'm going to a mostly empty apartment with most of my stuff still in boxes. I arrive late on Monday and I start a series of high level meetings with big hardware company execs on Tuesday morning at 7:30. That's going to go non-stop until Thursday evening. I'm going to be a basket case on Friday. Then I have to arrange for my furnature and help Cindy set up her various technical pieces in her new apartment. So I don't see any break for a while.

I got Peter a bunch of Euroboy clothes. One of the shirts Cindy isn't going to like. Its a image of a boy holding a gun to his head with the caption "Take one for the team". Its from a nihlist clothing store in Stockholm. Its quite the fashion there. He'll think its cool. It will probably stay at my apartment. Other than that I got him more tame stuff.

Bjorn turned out to be ok. It turned out that he's going through detox from anti-depressants. We spent the weekend together mostly. It was platonic to my initial dissapointment but I came to understand the reasons. We talked briefly about how a relationship could work with 6000 miles in between us. There was no conclusion.

I'm not looking forward to a 21 hour journey tomorrow . I gotta pack now and do some work.

I may have sounded a bit too dramatic on Sunday... I was despressed but not suicidal. At least not so far as to seriously plan anything. Like I said, its always been an option that I sometimes pull out and review. I 've never been one to discard an option because it is too radical or uncomfortable. Thanks for the support...

I'm sitting in front of the old Swedish nobility house in Stockholm. The weather is grey. It's been raining all weekend. There's two dipshit Russian women standing in front of me trying to figure out how to use a camera phone. They're really getting on my nerves. They're totally oblivious to me. Whatever. I've been pissed off in general lately. Bjorn turned out to be a major dissapointment. He's a tease and a primadonna and he's just not what I need right now. I don't think he's the cause of my general displeasure but he sure isn't making it any better. He was supposed to be with me in Stockholm but he bailed because he "had to work". Things in general are really shitty with my gay life. So far its a mega failure. I'm not trying to sound like a drama king but I've entertained the thought of suicide a few times. Actually its never been off the table as an option for me. Not since middleschool when I was first able to grasp the concept. I've been ticking off a list of reasons/people that would keep me from going through with it. That list is getting smaller and many of the items still on the list have a tenuous place on it. There's only so long that I can live in quiet despairation. The whole idea, hard wired into me and most humans dor that matter, of relying on other people for happiness and a sense of security really sucks.

I'm spending my first night in the new place. Its bittersweet. I miss the cats more than I thought I would. I just have to say, the view is spectacular from my bedroom. Anyway, the landlord still needs to do some work in the apartment and that's preventing me from unpacking a lot of my stuff.

I leave for Norway next Sunday and I have to clean the old townhouse this week. Actually I only have three evenings to clean it. I'm a little stressed about that. There's a lot to clean and there's still a lot of crap to either be picked up by salvation army or the junk man.

I realized that I'm not really going to have any time for pure relaxation at home for at least two months. I can't order my furniture until I get back from Norway because I don't know when I'll be back. From the day I order it is supposed to take three or more weeks. So that means I'll be sleeping on an air mattress and working off a card table in an otherwise bare apartment.

I'm so tired right now after moving and packing and stuff and tomorrow I have a conference call with Oslo and Stockholm at seven in the morning. Oh man I'm bitching a lot aren't I? I promise to be less bitchy next time...

This is going to be random cause I have lots of shit running though my head right now.

I think people who say being gay is a choice, especially those who then go on to say we're bad people etc. are really gay themselves and have temporarily tricked themselves into thinking they're straight. That "choice" they made to be straight makes them think they're righteous for making the right choice in their minds. Ted Haggard is a prime example.

I can't wait to get out of this shell that was a home. Its mostly empty now, except for the garage which has a bunch of crap that needs to either be donated, put into storage or thrown out. Sorting out stuff in the garage kept me busy a few days this week which was good. Peter is here with me now playing World of Warcraft. This is the second night he's stayed here. Cindy came over on Wednesday and went through her stuff in the garage. She'll be here tomorrow to help clean the place up so we get our deposit back. Its kind of tense for me when she's around. She's definitely harboring anger still but she's also showing signs either that she misses me or she feels pitty for me. Maybe it’s a combination of the two.

I'm finally going to sign the lease on my new place on Sunday. Up until now the landlord had been promising it to me but having his signature on a lease next to mine will make me feel a lot better. I really like the new place. The view kicks ass and its back in the center of the city. Where I am now is outside of the city in a forested area. I went to see it again after the remodel. Its really tastefully done. Everything is top of the line, unlike this crappy townhouse where everything in it is the cheapest the landlord could find. It’s a little smaller that I would prefer but I can deal with that. I don't think all the furniture I picked out at IKEA will fit so I need to rethink my choices.

I'm going back to Norway the day after I'm officially moved into the new place so I'm basically going to have boxes in the middle of the living room awaiting me when I get back. Oh and there will be no furniture, that won't arrive for at least two to three weeks after I come home. I don't know when I'm coming back so I can't order until I know my definite return date.

I'm going to Stockholm for a portion of my visit and Bjorn is going to join me over the weekend. That should be very cool. I'm wondering where things are going to go with him. Most of our relationship has been emails of little depth. Still its interesting how I'm feeling about him. I guess now that I'm letting myself have these feelings its all new to me but not weird. I kinda feel like this is the way it was supposed to be and I was doing wrong until now.

After this next trip, that could go for up to a month, I probably won't be back out until December. If things go really well with us that will suck. Well that is unless he comes here for a few weeks, which isn't out of the question given that he's going to be taking a while off before taking another job.

I've been making some really good progress running. I've tripled this distance I can go. I get a goal to be where I am now by the time I move. I'm two weeks ahead of that. The last time I ran I felt like I go do more when I stopped. I wonder when I'll break the barrier and not have to stop. I know at some point it becomes like walking where you get tired but you can still keep going. Up until my last run I had to stop otherwise I would have passed out. I was nice to feel like I could keep going.

There's more shit in my head but I really don't need to make this really long.

I actually didn't have much of a breakdown Saturday night. Just a minor one after sending my last post. There was actually a cluster fuck with the movers. They arbitrarily canceled the move. When we learned that I thought deep down "Hmm... great she's staying at least a few more days" but I knew that was wrong. Cindy was upset of course. I got on the phone and found a rental moving truck and I helped her move along with one of her friends that she was able to get at the last minute.

I'm actually feeling good about the whole thing basically. I still miss living with Cindy and Peter but when I get past that I'm enthusiastic. I've been keeping busy in the townhouse preparing for my move and cleaning etc. so living in that empty shell of a home isn't getting to me.

I'm taking Peter to see my new place today while I measure for furniture. I start moving in less than two weeks.

Oh and I'm really looking forward to seeing Bjorne in a few weeks... :)

Cindy's moving today. The place is already looking empty. I'm here alone waiting for the movers to get the furniture. All the boxes are over at her new place. I'm going to have a break down tonight when this is over. I just know it. I'm keeping myself together now with some effort.

We had a brief talk and she mentioned how she's the victim of my selfishness. She's right but I wonder if she realizes that I'm a victim too. She's definitely working out some anger right now. She thinks everything I'm doing now like giving her basically everything, helping out etc. is coming from my guilt. That's not the case and it bothers me. I just think its the right thing to do.

We're going to have a deeper discussion probably next week when she's back here helping me clean. She didn't want to get into it with Peter around. I really don't know what's going to happen. The three of us are going to see The Simpsons movie on Sunday so that's a good sign.

I really just wanted to yell, "Don't Go!" so many times. I still do. This sucks...

I went out to a few gay bars Saturday night for the first time in seven years. I started with the one and only place I had been in the past. It seemed smaller than I remembered it but really it hadn't changed a bit. The clientele did seem a bit older though. I was probably one of the youngest guys in the place and seven years ago that wasn't the situation. I did run into an oddball who reminded me of an incident in Stockholm. There a guy persistently kept on bumping into me. I would move away a little and he would follow always trying to touch me when there's plenty of room. I had to walk away to another part of the room for it to stop. What is that? He wouldn't say anything or look at me the whole time, just kept on brushing against me. Anyway again I run into this behavior though it stopped after I moved away for the third time. Is this a common thing? It really irks me. I only stayed for one drink and had no interest in anyone in there, especially the mad brusher.

I decided to branch out and check out the other places. The first new place I tried was a basic bar. There were a few bears, a few leather guys and mostly just regular guys of all ages. I was probably among the youngest but I wasn't alone in my age group. This is where I find the second oddball of the night. A guy deep in his fifties was walking around sporting nothing but a very small piece of fabric on his crotch held in place by very thin straps over his shoulders. If this guy were to get an erection the whole suit would have come apart. He was flirting with everyone and most were trying to ignore him though he would press on. That was almost enough to make me abandon my drink and head for the door before he picked me to harass. Luckily he disappeared so I stuck around and talked a little with the guy sitting next to me (no attraction whatsoever). When my drink was finished so was I.

I walked down the opposite end of the street and went into another basic bar. This one was smaller than the previous. It was evident too that it was a regulars/neighborhood bar. There were no free seats and no one was particularly interested in strangers. There was a Mrs. Pac Man game in the corner. I got my drink and played that until my quarters dried up.

I went back to home base thinking that it had probably turned over by then. That was the way it used to work. It was basically a pick up spot. Anyone who stayed past an hour was stale. There were fewer people and those who were there were definitely stale. I ordered a drink for some reason and stayed for a bit. I left again bored with the whole thing.

I decided to checkout a newer place that had a dance floor. I'm not into dance clubs but it was supposed to be hot. I went and it was definitely jumping. Here I find the penultimate oddball. This body builder dude moved up beside me and started dancing. I wasn't in the least bit attracted to him and made that evident. He kept on dancing and then started yelling at me. Most was unintelligible but the jist was "Don't you want this?", "I'm hot". I completely ignored him which only caused him to get louder and more aggressive. I finally just left and hoped he didn't follow me. Thankfully he didn't.

*sigh* this is the kind of thing I really wasn't looking forward to. I need to find some gay friends around here to go out with maybe its better in numbers?

Dinner with my old friend was fun. I was the most open I'd ever been with anyone ever, except here on Live Journal. It was good for me. It also made me feel a little depressed. Actually it helped focus my depression. I think its made up of these things:

20% Wasted years living a lie

20% Failed Marriage

20% Having to tell friends and family about failed marriage after being held up as the prime example of a successful marriage.

20% Anxiety of coming out (again)

10% Being alone

10% Being gay mainly because its the root cause of everything else


I'm fairly level actually and not deeply depressed. I guess that's because even though I'm dealing with the above, I'm optimistic about my new life. I think some of the things I've started in my new life are really good for me, especially running. I really dig it, I wish I could run farther. I don't know if I mentioned this but I also started Aikido, something I've always wanted to do. Bjorn on the brain every ten minutes or so is also a good thing.

I went to Ikea today to get some ideas for furniture for my new apartment. I went in a little unhappy but after my creative side put a chair with a rug with a sofa I felt inspired. I found a great bedroom set that I really love. I found a chair too that I really like. There's a few sofas that I'm "ehh" about. The kitchen in my new place has a wide open center that begs for an island. I didn't realize I could just buy one at Ikea. I saw one that I liked a lot but it may be too big. Anyway, it inspired me to look into putting an island in. Oh my God I'm so gay. :)