Travelogue 42, Oakland, CA: A Truer Travelogue than the Truest Travelogue I've Ever Written

Well, that did not go as planned, not that I had a plan beyond doing it and then feeling  oh so relieved.

I did not crawl under a pillow after I sent it, but instead, massaged Japanese styling wax into my scalp and spiked my hair up into a do I've always fantasized of having, but never had the guts to sport. Then I put on dark glasses and went to the Oakland Gay Pride Street Party. I felt ridiculously self-conscious, as if I were more of a blaring social abnormality than the seventy-year-old transvestite with his penis bulging through a tiger skin g-string. I wandered, alone, in a crowd where it was just as impossible to fit in as it was to not fit in. That is the nature of LGBT events. For hours I obsessed about what I had written and what I was sure you were thinking about it. Shortly thereafter, I knew what you were thinking, because the phone calls, texts and emails started pouring in and I got so guilt-ridden that I thought I would melt down into a puddle of shame as desirable as that spilt Slurpee on the sidewalk.

I'm telling it like it is.

One would think that voice messages, texts and emails shouting, "WE LOVE YOU! OUR HEARTS HURT FOR YOU! HOW CAN WE HELP YOU?", would make a person feel grand. It should, and does, for a person in her right mind. I wasn’t in my right mind, because G2 was screaming, "Look at all this trouble you have caused! Look at all this attention you have gotten. You are an emotional leech sucking the energy out of your friends and they are just putting up with your shit.  Nobody wants to be around this. You should be ashamed! Aren't you ashamed? How can you stand yourself? You've made this into such a big drama and people are probably thinking this is your cowardly way of crying out for help and they are responding as if you said you were going to blow your head off and you're not and so you are exaggerating just for attention and now you've got all these people worried and they are thinking you are just doing it for attention and they feel sorry for you and you were so stupid for sending that. (breath) ( resume tirade)  It is nothing but self-serving and the way you wrote it was so common, so UNexceptional, so average. You will never be anything but average. There is nothing special about you, though you'd like to think there is and let me tell you another thing, people are just feeding you a bunch of crap when they say you are amazing, talented, blhaa, blhaa, blhaa. They are just trying to make themselves feel good by being supportive. Everybody is amazing. Everybody is special, so just stop trying to be anything but the mediocre waste that you are. If you weren't so pitiful you wouldn't need to hear other's praises. You are a praise addict. You have no center, no self, no courage, no anything. You are weakness embodied. And nobody cares about your insignificant dribblings about it.”

And then G1 took over the whip, and did a fine job of continuing the flogging.

What was I thinking?!?! Where in the world did I get the whacked idea that if I exposed my interior dialogue to people I love, it would make me feel better? or it might help someone? or like I’m a super-hero to the masses? Did I think I would click send and then a peace that passeth all understanding would descend upon me like a dove and I'd go skipping back out into the sun?  Did I think the rush of triumph I know Elenor Longden and Glenon Doyle Melton felt when they took off their microphones at the end of their TED talks would take hold of me and carry me to euphoria on its shoulders? They had speech writers comb their confessions to perfection. They had been invited to share. They had the momentum of an eager audience that had paid $1,000 or more to hear them tell their story. Until I have that, it’s just stupid to put myself out there. I know better than to tell people how I really feel when I am having an episode. I always end up feeling guilty and ashamed and regret it. Bad decision! Bad decision! How could I not have thought ahead to the plunge I set up for myself? I hate telling people when I'm depressed, because it gets me so much attention, which is what I need, and what I HATE and what I don't want, even though, if I don't get it, I'm sure I will die like an untouched newborn ignored in an incubator.

Just telling it like it is.

So, that’s what happened. It’s two days later now and I’m feeling....jittery and haunted by the one comment of 17 that said I would be better off had I not shared what I shared. I am hopeful, though, and right on the verge of saying: I've opened this can of worms, so I may as well dump it. I mean turn it upside down and thump the bottom. By that I mean, keep telling the story behind the story. Showing up as is, writing what it's like and pushing through the fear of the consequences. It's ONLY because of the overwhelming response and all the lovely messages you wrote back to me that I am considering it. Thank you.

Several people said they tried to leave a comment, but couldn't and put it in an email.  I posted them in the comments section. I highly recommend you read them. They are just as meaningful as what I wrote. I made some setting adjustments that I hope removed the comment block.

As for life outside my head, there is stuff to tell and things on the horizon:
tomorrow I leave Oakland for Dallas
Sep 5-12 High Hope Ranch (where I did Vision Quest in May) Glen Rose Texas
Sep 16-Oct 23 walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain
Oct 26-Nov 8 Cuba
Nov 8-Nov 26 Uruguay
Nov 27-Dec 13 Cuba
Dec 14-???hopefully by then one of the many tour companies I have contacted will offer me a high paying tour in an exotic place

With much love and some serious gratitud, G