Looking In

I have everything money could buy and every desire I’ve had has been fulfilled and surpassed. I am “happily” married to a beautiful woman who loves the camera more than she loves me but I digress.

I guess you’d like a little run down on how I got to be the most jaded, cynical, hypocritical man to ever walk earth and still appear innocently charming in a Christian southern boy kind of way.

Well I wasn’t always this way... I’ll tell you that. I used to believe in good-natured people and used to think there actually was a pot of gold waiting for me at the end of each rainbow but as life would soon show me, there are no such things. Things like that only happen in your dreams.

I have to admit that I’ve had it pretty good since I was born. I mean sure the health problems were a pesky little nuisance every now and then but other than that; I had it all from the very beginning.

I had the most caring and understanding parents a human being could deserve. My parents love me more than they love God and that’s a whole fucking lot! They raised me to follow in their footsteps and be a good Christian boy and I was. My extended family was amazing as well. I would always be seeing my cousins and aunts and uncles and people that I didn’t even know how I was related to them. We were a very close and very loving family. We had affection and love to last us ten lifetimes.

Another thing about my family was that they were very musical. My mom and dad would sing all the time in church and so would my older brother. I soon joined that family tradition. I believe I was five the first time I sang in front of our congregation. So music was always a big part of my life. Especially since I was given this gift (or curse, depends on how you look at it) to sing.

I grew up loving to sing and perform so when my cousin Kevin called me from Florida to offer me a spot in a new vocal group, I jumped at the chance.

The other guys were quite affable although I must confess that one of them kind of freaked me out. I grew out of it though. It turns out he wasn’t that weird.

Well that’s when it all started. This group I initially thought would be nothing turned out to be this huge chick magnet. Girls would flock to us like ants to a picnic. We recorded album after album and sold them like it was nobody’s business so by everyone’s standards, we were successful but were we really?

You look at me and see the man
Who lives inside the golden world
But don’t believe
That’s all there is to see
You’ll never know the real me

By the world’s standards we were very successful because according to 99% of the human population, success in your career equals success in your personal life but they couldn’t be more wrong.

All my life I’ve felt as though something has been missing from me and I’ve been trying to fill that void ever since I have recollection of events. It’s all been in vain though.

When I was younger I thought church would fill that emptiness but it didn’t work. Then I thought girls would fill that hole but quite frankly, not even close. My last hope was my career. When that didn’t work, I was devastated.

He smiles through a thousand tears
And harbors adolescent fears
He dreams of all
That he could never be
He wades in insecurity
And hides himself inside of me

I kept telling myself, “When you sell this amount of albums and when you are this popular and this accepted, then you will be happy” but I was lying to myself because I saw that come and go and it did absolutely nothing for me.

Don’t say, “He takes it all for granted.”
I’m well aware of all I have
Don’t think that I am disenchanted
Please understand

At the peak of our careers, I was unhappy, truly unhappy. That’s when I realized that something must be done in my personal life so I did. I married the first woman willing to marry me. I found her rather quickly. She was and quite frankly still is an out of work actress. An old, fake breasted, dumb, out of work actress.

I know it sounds a bit harsh to be saying that about your wife but you wouldn’t think the same way if you knew her. I mean this is the same woman who wakes up and rather than tell me good morning, she asks me for money to go shopping. I think I’m her personal piggy bank.

It wasn’t until recently that I’ve begun to decipher why I am just so damn unhappy.

My cousin Kevin and I had a talk a while ago and out of the blue he said something like, “Career goals are great and all but you have to be kidding yourself if you think that is all you need. Commercial success does nothing for personal accomplishments and neither does denying the person you are and always have been.”

It seems as though I’ve always been
Somebody outside looking in
Well here I am for all of them to bleed
But they can’t take my heart from me
And they can’t bring me to my knees
They’ll never know the real me.

For a while I sat back and just dwelled on his words and the more I did, the more they made sense to me. I didn’t quite understand by saying that I was denying the person I was and always had been but I definitely understood the rest.

I wasn’t going to be confused about that other issue forever. I was going to ask him what he meant. And ask him I did! He merely smiled at me and said the word “Nick” or was that the name “Nick.”? I don’t know. Honestly I don’t but whatever.

When I asked him to elaborate on what he meant he said, “First take the first 18 years of your life and the girls in those years that did any and everything to you and for you but you felt nothing and then add a sassy blonde boy you met soon after and have been inseparable since then. What do you get?”

I told him that there was no way Nick had to do with anything because I felt this way before I met him. He just laughed at me and continued.

“What you’re supposed to have figured out on your own is who you are. After that, you are supposed to realize whom you need. And after that, and only after that, will you have your happy ending.”

“Oh fucking shit!” I said to him and got up. It took me a few days but I got it. I was gay and had been in all my life. And even bigger SHIT! I was in love with Nick.

To you I must appear like the most stupid creature on this planet but I swear to Jesus all mighty that I wasn’t aware of this. I mean I was because obviously I felt nothing towards women but I always thought I just wasn’t very sexual. Now that I’m really thinking about it... I have to chuckle because the thought of sex with Nick excites me. I feel like a teenager. You have to understand me though. It’s because I never really went through this stage of hormone driven sex drive because all I had was women around me and that just didn’t trigger my hormones.

Sorry. I’m just now coming to terms with this so... Okay I’m lying. I came to terms with it last night. That’s right; last night I came to terms with it as I came inside Nick.

THE END

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