Reaching Out ...

"If you are in pain, or know someone who is; if you feel there is no one who can relate to what you're going through; if you have been frightened into immobility by secrets you believe you have to maintain to protect yourself, your family, or your career, understand that you are only as alone as you choose to be. One phone call, one email, one text to the right person or agency can make the very literal difference between life and death. You just have to decide to do it" 

Becoming Superman by J.Michael Straczynski p439-440 

This is from a powerful autobiography which I don't know how to easily summarize other to say when the cover says "My Journey From Poverty to Hollywood With stops along the way at Murder, Madness, Mayhem, Movie Stars, Cults, Slums, Sociopaths, and War Crimes" it is not exaggerating and is not talking about say what he wrote about but what actually occurred to him and around him.

The quote is at the end of a chapter looking at the challenges that some former cast members of one of his shows had with Drugs, Alcoholism, and Mental Health and connecting it to the physical and emotional abuse he and his mother and sister faced and speaking to the importance of Reaching out in all these cases.

This seems especially timely as this is a season many of my friends are struggling with mental health and actors in shows I am currently watching are publically struggling too. This is a season within a larger time period which has been hard for so many of us.

Also, I know that reaching out sounds great on paper but it can be extremely hard to do when it is needed. So I am not going to end this post simply telling others to reach out but meeting you all halfway.

One of the greatest challenges in my life at this moment is I have lost my purpose, my compass. Busyness has overtaken meaningfulness and I am currently a bit lost. A number of factors play a role (Mental Health, being in-between Jobs, former Jobs that drained my soul ....) but in the end, I have somewhat forgotten how to dream big, bold, impossible things vocationally.

So my Reach Out:

I am soliciting vocational dreamers:

What impossible/improbable things do you see me setting my eye on? What wild things do you think I should reach for? Really anything to shock me out of my blahs, because right now all vocational goals seem blah. I think I need a "send a person to the moon" type of challenge. 

*** You can't go too big or wild assuming your suggestion is actually physically possible (yea time travel is out) and something I might actually enjoy (I have zero interest in say climbing Mount Everest, or being a playboy bunny or a supermodel etc  use your judgment :) :) :))

I need help breaking out of my vocational immobility (I think some of my struggle to actually work on Job searching is because it is a lot of effort for something I feel Blah about, If I have an exciting "send a person to the moon" to aim for the searching will feel less like pointless effort, because it will have a purpose)

***Note: I am seeking vocational dreamers not resume/interview/networking/ to-do lists/should-do lists.

This is NOT life or death at all but I recognize I am stuck so I am reaching out. I hope this also helps others reach out with their own challenges small or great. If we all get in the habit of reaching out we will be more able to when it is life or death. Thanks for your help in keeping me from "Going Through The Motions".    

Moments and Memories of Coming Out

Happy National Coming Out Day

It does not matter if you shout from the rooftops

It does not matter if you whisper it to a close friend

It does not matter if you cry it out in your inner heart

(Because if the words are said out loud where you reside

It means physical or mental trauma or harm or hurt)

You are absolutely, supercalifragilisticly amazing

No matter Who you Love or How you love

No matter how you express your identities

No matter if gender and sexuality are not your cup of tea

No matter if others understand or refuse to understand

Know this day, no matter when or if you come out,

You are beloved, You are worthy, You are beloved

First, I am aware of my own privilege I have had in my various coming out moments. I am aware that many others have had much harder and more traumatic experiences around who they are and who they love. I am also aware that coming out is a life long process, something which needs to be repeated over and over again.

Second, these are just brief moments/thoughts of the process I have gone through and are still going through. I am already out so this is not some big gesture just a "let's remember" for me, which seems fitting on this day. Also, it should go without saying this is not a list of every moment just a few which jump out to me.

Before I figured it out:

• Growing up and wanting to be some nice couples "beard". Watching the movie De-Lovely and thinking that was perfect. Someone to sing to me and take me out to a play or concert once in a while but who had someone else for the whole sex thing.

• Marrying my stuffed brown bear during a marriage equality event at college. Others brought friends or roommates or classmates but it made more sense to me to bring my stuffed bear. (The "marriage" was temporary and just a moment of activism but I think I still have the rings somewhere and still like the idea I am married to my bear.) 

• Having the doctor, I spoke to during training for the Peace Corps, believe me when we got to the sexual activity/birth control question and I said I have never had sex and didn't plan to. He did not give me a hard time or doubt me. (Peace Corps, in general, found that many young adults far away from home, tended to engage in potentially risky behaviors so Peace Corps tended to not believe individuals who said they would just not have sex for two years) This random doctor in many ways was the first to accept I was Ace even before I had the language to define myself. 

Coming Out:

• June 2013 figuring out I was Asexual (Ace). Some joy because it meant I was somehow apart of the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Some reasonable anxiety less around my identity or coming out and more getting lost in the comment section. Here is part of my first email on the subject. (Note there are millions of typos it was 1:30am and I had other things on my mind than spelling or grammar or even sentence structure.)

• "After reading some articles on huffingtonpost and follow up research )http://www.asexuality.org) etc the last few days I think I determined I am probably asexual. It seems to make a of of sense. My 1st reaction was ok that makes sense and cool i am now one of the cool people LGBTQQIAA (I think that is the full version lol). Also I was like cool good timing since pride is next weekend. I was pretty amazed how not a big deal it was for me. Then i kept doing research and learned there are grumpy people out there who prejudiced against asexuals (which if being prejudiced against LBGT community is dumb and pointless because it does not effect the people who are all grumpy being prejudiced against asexuals is super dumb). But now I can't turn my brain off, it keeps going round and round in circles, How does claiming the asexual title change my life, it does not, but it does, but it does not. Also while I know this kind of grumpyness is felt by the LGBT community all the time honestly right at this moment 1:30 in the morning lol the suckyness of the situation is hiting home. And honestly i don't like it. And part of me wants to scream it from the rooftops and part of me don't want anyone to know because it does not change anything at this point and will probably confuse people more then clarify anything."

• I will say figuring out I was ace and claiming that identity meant it kept hitting me that others were not Ace. That people actually had sex or wanted sex and did not just talk about it like an overused trope.  

After I figured it out:

• I was privileged to be very supported by those I told. The first person I contacted, a pastor at the church I was attending, was great and their first question was about my gender identity but that was because they were more involved and knowledgeable in Trans issues. The most common response I got was: "What does that mean? But again this shows my privilege and the fact I was in a large liberal city and most of my friends etc were already involved with LGBTQ+ issues. 

• I changed my facebook image and kind of thought I now had come out to everyone so I was always surprised when people did not know. I remember emailing a different pastor about a small group where they were all surprised I was ace and the pastor saying they did not know and that they did not know what my Ace Flag colored heart meant. I remember being a bit annoyed that the grapevine had not worked to share the news lol.  


• Processing through writing poetry and story stories and even a NaNoWriMo. And redoubling my mission to make sure everyone knows they are not alone. That they are loved.

Final Thoughts:

For me, my "coming out" process was more a discovering of the language around who I was. This language was both helpful and not helpful at the same time. Even though my pen name is Dreaming Ace and this blog is called Adventures of a Dreaming Ace I still run into individuals who don't know for a variety of reasons. 

Personally, whenever I see or hear a reference to asexuality I always smile and my day is always a bit brighter. And I know asexuality is not widely known so I simply smile when at a Pride event someone asks what my flag stands for or when chatting with someone at an event, they say can I ask you about being Ace? My friends are using that term more and I don't know what it means.

I am still in the process of coming out and will probably be so for the rest of my life. And I know for too many coming out is not possible or when they do they face unspeakable violence or hate. I am not pushing anyone to come out on this day if it is not safe for you to do so or if you don't want to share that part of yourself at this moment. 

But the more of us in the LGBTQ+ community who speak up, the easier it is for everyone to know who they are, know they are not alone, know they are amazing. More likely we will see ourselves on TV and in movies and in stories. More likely we are to be able to face the major challenges within our community from issues of a lack of respectful health/mental health care to issues such as the tragic killing of Trans Women of Color.  

So much progress has been made in a short time frame for us all. Just imagine we might even have a President Pete Buttigieg and a First Gentleman Chasten in 2020 which would be simply amazing :) We will keep coming out on days like national coming out day and on random days no one celebrates. We will keep learning how to be ourselves and learning how to build welcoming and inclusive communities. 

So ending with my poem once again:

It does not matter if you shout from the rooftops

It does not matter if you whisper it to a close friend

It does not matter if you cry it out in your inner heart

(Because if the words are said out loud where you reside

It means physical or mental trauma or harm or hurt)

You are absolutely, supercalifragilisticly amazing

No matter Who you Love or How you love

No matter how you express your identities

No matter if gender and sexuality are not your cup of tea

No matter if others understand or refuse to understand

Know this day, no matter when or if you come out,

You are beloved, You are worthy, You are beloved

Adventures in Elul and High Holidays

A season of contemplation comes towards an end 

A Lent in August, The month of Elul, 10 days of High Holidays

A season of thoughtfulness, of internal exploration

It is time for me to turn a page and see what comes next

These adventures actually started back in August when I worked through a Lenten devotional. (Yep I had already done various devotionals for Lent Lent but decided to do an extra Lent season this year)

Next was Elul because I decided I might as well continue to self reflect since I had already started.

Elul was filled with emails Elul Unbound (by Judaism Unbound), Jewels of Elul (which the first day I found in my spam folder, google had gotten all confused lol), and Preparing your heart for the High Holy Days: A guided Journal.

Finally, the High Holy Days were upon us. Apples and Honey to begin. Working through the Q10 questions. And my first services in 15-20 years (1st since my cousins' bar and bat mitzvahs, which I think were my first "first" times) thanks to live-streaming and on-demand. 

You could say I jumped into the deep end and ended up streaming 11*, One for each Holy Day plus one for the new year?  Though since they were all streaming sometimes I had it on as more like background and would do small cleaning tasks at the same time. 

This year's High Holy Days played out differently than last year. 

Last year I donated 100 items, this year only 40 items. Last year I read a different High Holy Day picture book each day, this year I did two kinds of "fasts". I chose not to spend any money on food during the 10 Holy Days which meant I had to be creative with all the food I already had on hand and kept being reminded how there are so many people who actually go hungry and not buying food is a truth not a choice for them. 

Also, I fasted on Yom Kippur (Well almost after a small nose bleed which I figured was because I was dehydrated I did have 1 can of soda sipped over the 24.5 hour period but still I think I did well for my first serious attempt at a Yom Kippur fast) And I broke my fast with some of my last box of Passover matza, as well as some apple and honey.

Last year my resolution was "I will try to live lighter, less stuff, less energy drains, less resources used." and this year's resolution is "I will try to go deeper, deeper into relationships, deeper into myself, deeper in general"

Overall it has been a full season, full seasons, I wish you all a Happy New Year and may you be written into the book of life.

* The 11 Services I streamed via https://www.centralsynagogue.org in case you think I made up that number :) 

1. Erev Rosh HaShanah
2. Rosh HaShanah Morning Day 1
3. Rosh HaShanah Family Service
4. Rosh HaShanah Morning Day 2
5. Shabbat Services Friday Evening
6. Shabbat Services Saturday Morning
7. Kol Nidrei (Service 1)
8. Kol Nidrei (Service 2)
9. Yom Kippur (Morning)
10. Yom Kippur (Family Service)
11. Yom Kippur (Afternoon)

Ishida: Self-portrait of other

(On seeing Ishida Self-portrait Of Other)

There is a crisis of belonging in this world

A lost connection, A lost sense of community

We each have maps tattooed onto our skin

Which we hold close to our hearts, ever beating

Even while the rest of the world feels it is burning

Loneliness and isolation stalk this land, this time

When the tradition of a hand held has lost its way

The atmosphere can be thinner than on the moon

And yet we breath and breath and breath again

Seeking, Seeking Oxygen, Seeking Hope

What journeys of joy, journeys of sorrow, have you lived?

What maps are tattooed onto your skin this day?

Where have you stretched out your own hand for another?

What do you need on your quest for belonging?

How can we end Loneliness and Isolation for all?

Thursday I got to go to the newest exhibit at Wrightwood 659. "Ishida: Self-Portrait Of Other" pieces by Tetsuya Ishida around the subject of the "malaise and alienation wrought by a brutal economic system." 

There has been more and more conversation around the fact that there is a "crisis of belonging"*, an increase in social isolationism (individuals who do not feel they have acquaintances let alone friends or other relationships), and an increased lack of community and connection. Past social structures have changed and we have yet to find the deep and meaningful social structures of tomorrow. 

Ishida (who died in 2005 at the age 31) captures these feelings in his art. This exhibit calls on us to take a deep breath, do some deep self-reflection, and know in a world that can feel isolating we are not alone. It is up to us to creatively find ways to connect with others and build the social structures of tomorrow. This is not easy work but this is quietly rewarding work which we all much undergo.

* "Crisis of belonging": A term which Mayor Pete (Mr Pete Buttigieg) has used over and over again on the campaign trail