Like A Roller Coaster

So, happy New Year to everybody.  It's amazing how fast 2012 just flew by, but I have to admit that I am looking forward to 2013, and hopefully the changes that it will bring to me personally.  I used to not make any New Year' resolutions, but last year I decided to set one up, and I was actually very successful at achieving it.  A little over a year ago, I was 6'0" and 260 lbs.  I was greatly overweight, I was depressed, and finally I just had enough and said that something has to change for me in order to get out of the funk that I was in at that time.  So, I decided that losing weight was my New Year's resolution.  I started working out some, but my main success came from dieting.  I stayed away from carbs as much as possible, dropped the sodas and chips, and fortunately had a lot of success in losing weight.  Today I weigh 190 lbs, and even though I'm still working on toning my body, I'm pretty happy that I weigh less now than I probably did in junior high school.  I was a very skinny kid all the way up until probably eleven or twelve (I played baseball until my mid teen years), got fat from then until last year, and am now slimming up and feeling better about myself.  I still have some work to do, but progress has been steady, which has been very encouraging for me.

 Anyway, the point I was making is that I had success with last year's New Year's resolution, so I am going to make one for 2013, and it's actually really simple:  Come out to at least one person in my family in 2013.  That would be life changing for me, and hopefully it would get the ball rolling to finally coming out fully and feeling comfortable in my own skin.  Due to my circumstances, I've never really felt comfortable in my own skin.  I have never been happy with who I am, but especially with who I have become.  In fact, I really don't recognize the person I am today, which takes a heavy toll on me all the time.  Some days are easier than others.  Some days I feel like I'm on top of the world feeling great about myself, and the very next day I'm in a dark valley wondering about what my purpose is in life.  I know it sounds cliche, but it's like being on the ultimate roller coaster.  It messes with your head, it confuses the hell out of you, and it becomes extremely difficult to get motivated and do something with your life.

 Speaking of my life, I've been thinking a lot lately about my future.  As I've said on here before, I am a history major (senior), and will probably teach high school history once I graduate.  That was never a goal or dream of mine growing up.  Like many kids/teens, I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life, but trust me, teaching was far from being at the top of the list.  Of course, the typical far fetched aspirations of being a lawyer was something that I talked of a lot as a kid, but you find out when you get older that it's not that easy to become one.   To be completely honest with you, I'm not even 100% sure today with what I want to do with my life.  I know it's far too late to change direction now considering I've put a lot of time and effort into where I am currently at, but I just don't see myself being a teacher for the rest of my life.

  It's kind of funny, actually.  I've always been kind of a quiet guy, never one to search for the spotlight.  I was almost always perfectly content with keeping to myself, taking care of business, and worrying about number one in school.  And, I was successful at it, especially after my second year of seventh grade (which needs some explaining).  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I've always been a pretty smart guy, far from being a genius, but more intelligent than your average Joe for sure.  I did well in school up until the seventh grade, and that is when life bitchslapped me in the face.  My parents went through a divorce that year after several years of marriage; my grandmother briefly went missing after having a health scare while driving; my great grandmother died; my dad broke his back and almost died after having a workplace accident; and finally, one of my grandpas (who I was pretty close to) died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack.  Needless to say, school was the last thing on my mind during this hellacious period of time, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd in school, and I ended up failing miserably, something I had never done before in my life.

 While that year was undoubtedly the toughest of my life, it was also a turning point for me.  Don't get me wrong, I had fun with the friends I made during that year, but I also realized that if I did not change my perspective on life, then I would be doomed to become how my parents are still to this day.  So, my second year in the seventh grade I was like a completely different person.  I made straight A's, was in the top ten in terms of GPA in the entire seventh grade class, and from then on education has become very important to me.  I graduated high school in the top five percent of my class (and that's without taking any advanced or AP classes), and I have done very well in college thus far as well.  The only problem is that school has become my life, so much so that I really haven't been living and enjoying life and people, and a lot of that is because of dealing with my secret for so long.

 Thinking about where I am in life, once again, is like being on a roller coaster.  On the one hand, I'm very happy to have done well in school, and will probably be thankful in the future for laying the groundwork for my future.  On the other, I'm still stuck in the closet, I have virtually no social life, and sometimes I regret the direction I've chosen as far as my career goes.  I guess what I'm trying to say is just that I'm confused.  Even though I've never been one to seek attention, I do feel like I have something big to offer the world.  I love to write.  I always have, and always will.  Hell, even in the seventh grade when I failed, the one class I passed (with an A by the way) was reading/writing.  I've always been commended for the writing/reading portions of state exams, and I even had an essay of mine published when I was in junior high school.  I've had (and continue to have) teachers/professors ask if they can use samples of my writings for their future classes, and when I was still in high school I was paid by a relative of mine in college to write essays for her English classes.  She always received maximum grades on them, until one professor caught on and accused her of cheating, going so far as to allege that she bought the essay off the internet.

So, I know I can write, I know I have a vivid and wild imagination, and I am flattered that so many people have acknowledged this over the years.  That said, I don't know what to do with my talent.  I have written short stories.  I have even written almost a full book.  But, I've never had the nerve, nor the knowledge, to push forward with my dreams.  Like I said earlier, I know I have something to offer, I just feel it in my bones, but I don't know how to move forward with it.  Anyway, I could go on and on tonight for some reason, so I'll go ahead and wrap things up here.  Sorry for the long post, but I've just had a lot of time to think lately, and felt the need to release some of my thoughts here on my blog.  I hope to blog again in the next few days, and I hope and pray that 2013 will be a big year for me as far as coming out goes, so wish me luck.