After a considerable amount of hesitation, I've finally taken the plunge and begun a blog. My name, for blogsphere purposes, is Sammy, I'm 50 years old in a few weeks time (hence the second half of my blog's title), with a lovely wife and an almost teenage daughter. The latter two people are the reason I'm using a nom-de-plume and a Hushmail address - I love and care for them both very much, and there's no way I want to risk them being hurt in any way by anyone taking exception to anything I might write here, because I suspect some people won't care for some of my opinions and predilections - assuming that anyone bothers to read what I've written, of course!
There are a few reasons why I want to keep a blog, the simplest being that I enjoy writing and have done for most of my life, but only really for my own amusement up to now. I like to think I'm fairly articulate, and hope that I can write something that at least a few other people might find interesting. My intention is that this blog will become a mixture of ' real life', for want of a better phrase - what I'm doing, what I've done that's led me to where I am now, and, for what they're worth, my opinions - and, speaking very loosely, 'creative' writing. I've tried coming up with fiction and poetry over the years, and, if I might be excused a little bit of vanity, I'm curious to see if anyone else thinks there's any merit in any of my efforts.
The other principal reason for my starting the blog, and perhaps the answer to the question 'Why now?' is that I feel I need in some way to share my thoughts and feelings about a number of issues. The immediate catalyst for beginning deserves a little explanation. Over the last 6 to 9 months, I've been reading a considerable amount of fiction online, much of it falling into the categories of gay erotica and romance. As I've already said. I'm married and I love my wife, but I'm well aware that, since my early teens, I've also been attracted to my own sex. It's taken me the best part of 35 years to work it all out and to come to terms with my sexual orientation, but I think I'm finally able to say conclusively that I'm bisexual. Ironically, now that I have worked it out, it's fair to say that I'm not really sexually active at all, due to one or two health problems that have developed over the last couple of years, so I suppose you could say that I'm only theoretically bisexual! As a result of my wanderings through online fiction, I came across the 3 interlinked blogs that have inspired me to being my writing. The first is a blog-novel called 'Twinergy and the Boys of Clear Lake' which I've been following avidly for a few months now, and through which I found the other 2 links in the chain which led here, a blog called 'JJ's Yacky Box', written by a very interesting and articulate young man, and another called 'Grown Up Wrong' which was really the ultimate reason for beginning my blog. I thoroughly recommend reading all 3 blogs, even though the circumstances surrounding the third on my list are dreadfully upsetting and affected me deeply by reminding me of a terrible time in my own life, which I hope to be able to write more about before too long.
As an introduction, I think this post is probably a lot longer than it should have been, so I'll leave it at that for now. I'll do my best to produce more easily digestible portions in future!
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
