Leaving Home in The Everyday (A Diary Of Sorts)

I used to keep a blog at another site, where I was known as "The Rickster," and previously as "Dave Dog." Actually, I'm still there, or at least my blog still is, but lately the site in question has been acting up, big time, and it does that every so often. It's annoying, not only because it doesn't run very well at times, but because I pay good money to access a site that is supposedly professionally run and fairly trouble-free. Now I know asking a site to be "trouble-free" is a tall order, and I don't ask perfection, but hey, how many sites that one pays for are down or not working well for days--and even weeks--at a time, because nobody has bothered to maintain it on a regular basis? There aren't many as far as I know, and the ones that are like that, aren't around anymore.

So I'm leaving home, so to speak, and I'm here now, where things seem to be running smoothly and access is easy. I also like the concept of putting entries into "Books." That's cool. I have several prosebooks at this point.

In a way, I feel badly about the thought of leaving the place that was my first internet "Home." That was well over ten years ago, only a year after the loss Kevin, my significant other, whom I considered my husband, even though we were not, because we could not at that time, be married legally. Same-sex marriages are now legal here in New York state. I wish he'd lived long enough for that day to come so we could have actually wed without shame, in the light of day, and shared with those we loved the joy in togetherness that we had found with one another. He died before even something as simple as a "Union ceremony" could be performed, though one was planned. My world changed then, and I went through a long time grieving in silence, because I was not "out" to much of anyone, save for a few close and trusted friends. Oh yeah, and there was the other "Home" on the internet, where I had support from other site members, who literally saved my life from certain disaster, and me from equally certain mortality. Really, I wanted to die.

Those days are long gone now, and I have the internet and the people I met through it to thank for the fact that my life has undergone the changes it has. I'm out now, having even outed myself to an entire church congregation who loved and accepted me as I was. (Contrary to what many think, not all Christians are so narrow-minded as to hate gays or think them sick or evil. Some of them believe LGBT individuals are loved by God, as God created them as they are, and God loves all that God creates. I am one of those people. I am gay and Christian, and I see no contradiction in that, no matter what some supposed "loving" Christians tell me.).

My life has since starting to write on the internet been a strange and miraculous journey. I've gone through the throes of grief, to open heart surgery, having had a near death experience that the defibrillator that had been implanted in my chest stopped from becoming a "completed" death experience, and now, I'm experiencing renal failure, and am combating it with dialysis treatments three times a week. Despite how that sounds, my life really is better than it was at one time; were it not, I would not have had the strength to withstand the changes in life that having kidney failure issues have put me through.

I'm a thankful, happy person these days. I have my down moments, but I get counselling to help with the bad times, and I have good friends who care about me as much as I care about them. I also have a family who lives close to me, and while I am currently single and living alone (albeit with a cat, whom you'll be hearing about in these pages.), I'm content with things as they are for now. I'd like to be in a relationship again, and I'm not closing the door on that ever happening, though I've already had several chances at one that didn't work out very well. One of these days, I'll meet someone, and they'll think I'm as good for them as I think they are for me. I can dream, right? Dreams are good.

So this is me, not in completeness, but as much as I need to tell you right now. Keep reading, and you'll learn more, and feel free to look at my other books too.

It's just life, you know...and life is so good, even when it's not, because after all, it's life. It's life.