This time won't you save me?

Alright, so Thanksgiving was lovely. I am currently here in Carlsbad with my father and we had a wonderful feast last night with his brother and his brother's family. I got a moment to look back on this year and really reflect. It truly has been a crazy, crazy year. Almost every aspect of my life is different than it was in November 2009...But that's all coming in a later post. My initial inspiration for this post is something that has been on my mind for a few weeks now. In premise, I would like to say that I have not posted a "relationship"post in a long time, and I am perfectly content with my life where it is. I love my school, I love my friends, I love my life. I cannot remember the last time I was truly sad. Well, I guess that would be sometime around the beginning of June, but either way, the point is I am very happy with my current situation.

Okay, so, in the past two months I have met more boyfriends and girlfriends and friends with benefits and best friends in love than I can count on two hands. I have seen more people find each other and like each other and fall for each other and cry about each other than I have ever seen in my life. I guess it's because we're all college kids, living the real college life now, right? I have seen people who have been together for 5 years and are still going strong, and people who drunkenly stumbled upon each other one night and really found a connection. Love is in the air all around me. And I refuse to be jaded enough to say that love does not exist in the gay community. I refuse to be naive enough to say the gays are too shallow to really be searching for a connection. Those used to be my excuses, my personal ways of explaining why I was so lonely. But everyone wants that intimacy and connection with someone, and that is what I am here to write about. I want a relationship, sure, but I don't want it overnight and I don't want it to be superficial. I want that feeling of someone staring at me endearingly as I get worked up, talking passionately about theater. And something like that takes time. My standards aren't unrealistic. I just won't allow myself to settle, so they feel unreachable. Boys used to stress me out, more than any of you actually know. I've gotten to a point where I realized there's nothing I can do but NOT stress out. If someone is going to love me, he is going to love me. And there is no reason I should be something or someone else for this person. It seems almost laughable doesn't it, that I would need to realize something like that? In any case, I think this is the first time in my life that I can actually say that I'm ready for a real relationship. And along with that readiness comes an extra sense of patience. Because I know the next relationship I am in will be a real one. Which is pretty liberating.

Everything is kind of a blur right now. The quarter system was interesting to adjust to at first, but it's been a good transition. But, I do not really have anything to look forward to. I can look forward to the coming quarters, and after that I can look forward to senior year, and after that I can look forward to graduation and getting a degree. But what's after that? Being here in Santa Cruz has sort of forced me to live in the now. To just enjoy the current state of whatever I'm doing. I am FOREVER living in the future, thinking of what's coming up next, anticipating doing or being a part of something that's ahead. But Santa Cruz has slowed down my racing mind and allowed me to see what's going on right in front of me. Kind of cliche, but nonetheless true. :)

In other news...

A new friend of mine has made it very clear she is an outgoing extrovert with the mouth of a sailor and the mind of a "man." She is continuously talking about how she wants to have sex, she misses getting rough with a man, she needs that feeling of a man's body on top of hers to really relax. However, I've come to learn it's just a front. And I think it's so interesting to watch the way she speaks and the manner in which she composes herself when we're with a group of people, and then to turn around and see the way she behaves with me and our other friend in one of our respective rooms. She is just one example of behavior that I see a LOT in our generation. Why? Why do we insist on giving ourselves these personas, why are we unhappy with the way we naturally are? And if we do want to change ourselves, why don't we simple change ourselves, why do we shield our actual personalities with these "super personas," just to still be the same person we're scared of showing other people underneath? And on top of that, aren't we just making it that much harder to find someone who will really love us? Are we expecting prospective lovers to accept us AND our personas? Are they like our shadows--it's a packaged deal, it's all or nothing? It seems to me that it takes more energy to be two people than it does to be one. And why do we need to put ourselves on one end of the spectrum or the other? I've found that these "personas" are typically radical, extreme, out of control, outspoken, loud, etc. and they're worn by people who are the opposite of those things. Why can't you be a quiet, meek person who sometimes gets crazy? Why can't you be an outgoing kid who sometimes keeps to yourself and has a night in? I'm definitely guilty of this too. Is it because of the people we surround ourselves with? Do our close friends and the traits of theirs that we envy make us feel inadequate?

Cleanup time.

Wow oh wow oh wow I don't even know where to begin. In eight days, I will have been in Santa Cruz for two months. It has been the most amazing experience here, and I cannot wait for the things that are about to happen to me. I feel like I'm at summer camp. I love the people here, I love the environment, I love the fact that on my walk to class every morning I can't count on two hands the number of deer I see. I love that no one has any preconceived notions about me, I love the liberating feeling of not worrying about what to wear to class because people here REALLY don't care. I love being embraced and uplifted because my skin is brown, and I'm homosexual, and I'm artistic. This place was exactly what I needed.

So, what have I been up to for the last month? I was cast in a show called Sissy in an organization called Rainbow Theater, which specializes in ethnically based plays and performances. It's basically a chance to get the voices and stories of each of these groups heard in ways they may not have been able to express in the past. I have so far had a pretty good experience meeting people and being a part of it. It obviously is not going to be anything upscale or superb, but it's really not about that, and I think that is something I really need to remember when I get frustrated with unorganized rehearsals or bad communication between the staff. What Rainbow is there for is to reach out a hand to underrepresented groups in theater and say, "Hey, you do matter. We want to hear your story." So, it feels really empowering to be a part of it because there are so many people involved in it that NEVER thought they would be part of an organization like this. The show opened last night to be totally and completely embraced by everyone in the audience. It felt so good to A) be performing again, and B) in a different kind of context. The playwright was actually in the audience and told us how proud he was of the production we put on. It felt really good to be a part of it.

In other news...

And I guess the most exciting news of all, I am currently pledging the "frarority" Delta Lambda Psi. Let me explain. In 2005, five UCSC students came back from the Western Regional GLBTQQIA Conference and wanted to increase the population and acknowledgment of the queer community on campus. They became the alpha class of Delta Lambda Psi, which began as a fraternity, but very quickly morphed into something else. They soon realized that gender is not a necessarily defining factor in someone's life, and that many people don't identify with their biological "genders" or even either gender at all. So they combined a fraternity and a sorority and DLP was born. I am really excited to be a part of this and have something to really care about and believe in. THIS is why I came UC, for experiences and opportunities like this. I can't imagine myself anywhere else right now. And although there are definitely nights when I'm sitting in my dorm room missing Carissa and Marcus and Karsyn sitting in the Amador Lakes living room eating pizza and drinking, I feel so glad and proud and privileged to be where I am today. And I promise I won't leave another two month gap in blog again. Ever. <3 :)