A forest

The girl boy was never there
I'ts always the same
I'm running towards nothing
Again and again and again

With my slight paraphrase, the last verse of A Forest.
'It's always the same'. That's how the blog has become, to the point where, with one or two honourable exceptions, I get the feeling I've outstayed my welcome. No-one's fault but mine, and no criticism, implicit or explicit, of anyone else.
I think it's probably time, after two years or so of airing it all publicly, if pseudonymously, to complete my disintegration in private. I'm not going to change, but neither is the world going to change for my benefit.
So I end where I began. 'Lost in a forest, all alone.'


Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Justification

To be able to function in the world, I feel that a person has to, at minimum, achieve one objective. To justify yourself to yourself. After two things that have happened in the past 24 hours or so, I'm close to the point where that justification is absent.
The first, ironically, was the incident that so buoyed me up yesterday. Thinking about my so-called 'connection' with that little boy, because he was only a little boy, 10 years old at the most, and possibly even younger, all it really amounted to was projection of my desires onto him. If he did really smile in my direction, and it wasn't just my wishful imagination, he was only doing so either out of some sort of politeness, or the fact that he found me laughable. And I, by having the thoughts about him that I did, have violated him, objectified him. And that was even more the case with the second incident, on the train back from work, early this afternoon. There was another boy, older, maybe 13, travelling alone, on the last leg of my journey. He was, to my tastes, stunning, and I found myself standing next to him as we waited to get off of the train. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him, watching his face in profile. He knew I was looking at him, and looked nervous and uncomfortable as a result. Needless to say, once the train doors had been opened, he beat a hasty retreat. OK, so I didn't touch him, accost him, do anything that could be construed as being against the letter of the law, but I still hurt him, put him in a position he didn't want, and shouldn't have been forced, to be in. Another objectification, the more so because I was starting to become aroused, just by standing close to him. Even as I type this, that physical reaction is starting to return. And that is where the difficulty in accepting myself and my actions starts to become an issue. Easy, on a busy train, to maintain self-control in the sense of direct physical action, but if I'd been alone with him somewhere?
On top of that, despite the dramas of the last few weeks, I'm still lying by omission to my wife, she only knows a part, and, in real terms, only a small part of the whole story. If I was convinced, and was proven to be correct, that she'd react badly to my being gay, that's as nothing to her reaction if she knew the real object of my attractions. I've said before that 'I am what I am', but what happens when you realise that what you are is totally unacceptable, even to yourself?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Connecting

Very briefly, very tenuously, no prospect of a sequel, but a connection it was. He looked back, the cutie looked back, when there was no obvious reason for him to do so. He was walking past the front of the pub while I was sitting outside in honour of today's warm weather, a pace or so behind his father (presumably), wearing a replica shirt of the local lower league football team, so a local boy, almost certainly. I looked, he saw me looking, and he smiled, just a little. I smiled back, in the same understated way. He'd passed, gone out of my eyeline, so I turned in my seat for a last little glimpse - and he was looking back at me! Just curiosity, I'm sure, as to why this fat old git was paying him some attention, but even that nebulous almost nothingness has been a noteworthy landmark in the desert of loneliness and frustration that I inhabit. Call me pathetic, I don't care - even though I'll never see him again in any realistic circumstances, and although I know he'd be far too young for any involvement even if I did, that fleeting exchange of looks and smiles, that evanescent moment, was the best 'boy' thing that's happened to me for months, if not years.

Love & best wishes
Sammy B

Spring in the air

Back to work on earlies this morning, on not much more than four hours sleep, so I was groggy, to say the least. One pleasant aspect was the fact that it was already starting to get light as I left for the station at 5:45, albeit that daybreak was rather muted, or shrouded, by a fairly thick blanket of mist, which took until mid morning to clear definitively. Once it had gone, though, it was a thoroughly pleasant day, plenty of warm sunshine, even if I was too tired to do much with it. I'm hoping to be a bit more venturesome tomorrow, though, when, if the news is to be believed, it is expected to be warmer in London than in Madrid, Rome or Athens. Hyperbole, in all probability, but if it proves to be a repeat of today, it might be conducive to an hour or two of boy spotting. There's always the downside of 'you can look, but you can't touch' frustration in such circumstances, but a few cutie-inspired gooey moments will be at least some recompense.
No word about the outcome of my wife's job interview was forthcoming during the day, despite what she was told yesterday, so we'll have to wait until after the weekend now, I would imagine. At least there hasn't been a 'no', so still some cause for optimism.
And, for no better reason than that I really like it, a picture I found here:

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A definite maybe, and a definite definite

My wife had a job interview this morning, and came back in reasonably good spirits, saying that it had gone fairly well. No celebrations as yet, because there were, needless to say, other contenders, but she was satisfied that she'd given it her best shot. We won't be kept in suspense for too long, if all goes according to plan, because she was told to expect a decision tomorrow. Maybe a turning point, who knows?
Either way, I'm back in Surrey, and back to work in the morning. I don't think I've been so unenthusiastic about coming back at any time since I've been working up here as I was this afternoon when I set out, and I don't feel much better about it now that I'm back at the accommodation. In a backhanded way, my reluctance to return could be a good sign - given that I wasn't at all sure what my reception was going to be like when I got home a fortnight ago, in the light of the then recent revelation about me and its fallout, I could have been back here in much shorter order. As it is, I definitely know I'd much rather still be at home than embarking on what will probably be four, and could be as many as six weeks away. Beggars can't be choosers, though.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It was all a bad dream. Except the parts that weren't.

I woke in the early hours of this morning from a dream/borderline nightmare about being molested. As an adult, by another adult, incidentally. I wrote a slightly tweaked version of the dream earlier, and posted it in Nephelokokkygia. Karma, I guess some might say, given my proclivities. Like all dreams, though, I don't attribute a great deal of significance to it. Neurons in the sleeping brain, doing their thing, and the brain system as a whole doing the primate survival enhancing thing of seeing patterns where they don't necessarily exist.
And anyway, reality is nightmarish enough, most of the time. If there actually is such a a thing as karma, my just deserts for the iniquities of my life are being dispensed when I'm awake, not when I'm asleep.




If dreams were all like this, though, who would ever want to wake up?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The cure is worse than the disease

I'm still at home, and will probably be for another day or two. The medication I was prescribed yesterday for the oedema is a diuretic, so the toilet has become my new best friend today! The prospect of a four and a half hour train journey in such circumstances was out of the question, so I'm on the sick for the first time in over a year. Hopefully my system won't take long to adapt to the new pills, and I'm expecting to be back at work before the weekend. Still, given that I was supposed to be heading back to four weeks away, the prospect of an extra couple of days in Cornwall, even in slightly embarrassing circumstances, is a welcome one. It doesn't come without a price, though - my wife has found my predicament thoroughly amusing. Schadenfreude, moi?! Well, yes, actually!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

And it gets worse

Another finance related phone call, from an unexpected source. I'm getting towards the end of my tether. It's all shit, all becoming too much. Tomorrow I'm due to leave Cornwall for at least four weeks. It could be more permanent than that.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Just how I feel

Found at the same place as the odious #ToMyUnbornChild link the other day.

I just wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew what we could do. And I’m tired. I’m tired of having to walk around in a world constantly barraging me with the message that I’m a joke, a freak, an abomination, a deception and lie, delusional, a sinner, an acceptable target.

Written by a transgender woman about the attitude of society towards her situation, but very, very apposite to my position as a boylover.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Many more, and I'll rattle

I went to see my GP on Friday, not because of any new health issues, but for one of the periodic reviews of my existing condition, the heart arrhythmia. She decided that it was time I had another blood test and ECG, to see if anything had changed of late, so I was back off to the surgery this morning. for an appointment that was supposed, as far as I was concerned, to encompass both tests. Sadly, it seemed that the doctor had booked me into the wrong clinic, so I could only have the blood taken first time around, and had to go back this afternoon for the ECG. That would've been irritating enough in itself, but was exacerbated when the practice nurse who was administering the test spotted, when applying one of the ECG electrodes, that my leg was rather swollen, and called the doctor in. I was diagnosed with peripheral oedema, which came as a complete lack of a surprise to me, because I've had this issue, on and off, for years, but because I've never seen it as a problem, I've never done anything about it. The upshot of it is that I'm on yet another pill for the next four weeks. Hence the title of this post. Too many pills, costing too much, for too little benefit. The joys of impending old age and its concomitant physical deterioration, needless to say.
At least, for once, it wasn't all bad news today. The first job my wife has applied for since her resignation just over a week ago has resulted in an interview on Thursday. There are, of course, no guarantees, but at least she's cleared the first hurdle. I'm pretty convinced it's a job she could easily do, but it is a slight departure from her previous work history, so it depends, I suppose, on what sort of impression she makes, and who she's up against. Like any other job interview, thinking about it!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Death in....Asda?

Maybe I'm misremembering a film I saw donkey's years ago, but something that happened today seemed to be suggestive of a scene in Death in Venice. I'm sure von Aschenbach followed Tadzio through the byways of Venice, catching odd glimpses of him as their respective positions and the 'lie of the land' allowed, and if I've recalled it correctly, I had a similar experience in the supermarket this afternoon. There was a seriously cute boy, in a grey tracksuit, that I caught sight of from time to time as we progressed around the shop, up this aisle and down that, but always, it seemed,  just disappearing around the next corner before I could enjoy the view. It's all nonsense, no doubt, but that's the kind of incurable romantic - of sorts! - I am.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Familiar places, changing faces

We were up and about relatively early this morning - for a Saturday, at least - to head the 15 miles or so over to the village we'd lived in when we first moved to Cornwall, to have a look at the rented house we'd seen advertised on the internet earlier in the week. We parked in the public car park next to the village pub, and walked the three or four minutes from there to the house. It was quite a nostalgic experience - the village doesn't fall into the 'picture postcard' category, by any means, but it was a friendly, unpretentious place, and from the people we still know from there, although we didn't see any of them today, it doesn't seem to have changed very much in that respect. The house itself was more than acceptable, albeit quite a bit smaller than we've become used to, so we'd have to be fairly ruthless in 'downsizing' if we were to move there. There are a few things to discuss before we make a final decision, including the incorporation of a significant piece of financial information that I'm waiting for at the moment into the process. Hopefully we'll be able to say 'yea or nay' before I have to go back 'up country' on Tuesday evening.
Within the last hour, I've had a bit of a surprise, although, in practical terms, it doesn't make that much difference. For the first time since my daughter's Finnish exchange partner was here, almost six months ago, I saw CBW boy close up - he was out with friends just around the corner from here when I got back from dropping my daughter off at her stage school. There's no doubt that puberty has kicked in with a vengeance in those past few months - although he's still not that tall, his face has changed a great deal, he's gone from, last summer and autumn, being 'dead centre' in my 'age of attraction', to almost looking too old for my tastes, even though he's still far from hard to look at. Good for him, of course, and I hope that he finds what he wants in life. Good for me, too, in a way - there's less chance that I'll do or say something that will get me into trouble!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Gone, gone forever

After a trip I made this morning, something I suspected some months ago has been at least 90% confirmed. My wife had booked an appointment at the hairdressers in our neighbouring town, so I dropped her off, and after undergoing the much less complicated procedure required to have my own hair cut, I was left with an hour or so to kill. I decided to take a drive down to the place I used to work, in the hope that one of my former colleagues, who I always got on well with, would be on duty, a hope which proved to be in vain. In heading to my former workplace, I passed a certain house, where a certain person was living while I was working there. Judging by the way the housefront has changed, different car, no child-related paraphernalia as was always the case, I'm pretty sure DBJ and his family have moved. Not that, on a schoolday, I would have had any expectation of seeing him today in any case, but knowing where he lived was the last tenuous connection I had to the boy. And now that seems, to all appearances, to be gone. In practical terms, I suppose, it doesn't make any difference - after all, I never even spoke to him in any organised way, still less had any sort of relationship with him, but I can't help but feel an ache of melancholy. It's debatable whether I could really say that I was in love with him, perhaps in love with my image of him would be a more sensible assessment, but there's no doubt at all that he, that beautiful boy, changed my life, brought my boyloving side back to the surface after years of suppression and denial, albeit completely without active involvement on his part. But now I'm never going to see him again, in any realistic circumstances. Coincidentally, I found the closest candidate yet for a 'lookalike' picture of him last night, on one of the eye candy sites I frequent, but it still wasn't any more than a 30%-40% likeness, the hair, in particular, being all wrong. If I ever do find a suitable picture, I'll post it, just so everyone can see what all the fuss was about. Because 'was', it seems, is now the operative word.

Love & best wishes to all (and most of all to you, J)
Sammy B

Caretaker

Because of my interests, I suppose, the way that the #ToMyUnbornChild thing came to my attention was through a blog which concentrated on its homophobic elements - of which there were all too many, of course. I've found something else today, though, which gives me further pause for thought about the motivations for and attitudes towards parenthood that some people have. It seems that there are also a substantial number, if not as many as expressed homophobic tendencies, who would disown/beat/kill their (potential) children for being atheist. OK, I'll admit that if I wasn't an atheist myself, that aspect might not have jumped out so readily, but what I'm thinking of here is the overall philosophy, if you like, of bringing up children. The attitude I've taken is encapsulated by something I read 25 or more years ago, long before I was a parent, indeed, at a time in my life when I didn't have the slightest expectation that I ever would be a parent. What I read was a letter, written in response to something or another, I have no idea what at this remove, that had been shown on TV, in the pages of, of all the unlikely places, Radio Times. The writer of the letter said, and I'm necessarily paraphrasing, that the role of a parent should be as a caretaker to their child, providing physical necessities, trying to guide the child towards living a moral life in the sense of having a good awareness of right and wrong as those concepts relate to other people, but, ultimately, accepting the child as an individual who would have to make their own decisions as to how to live their lives, and accepting the child for whatever they are, irrespective of whether the parent agrees with the child's choices or not. I'm not suggesting that my version of parenthood is either right, in absolute terms, or easy to adhere to, but I believe that anything less treats the child as a chattel, as less than a person, a mere adjunct of the parent and their prejudices. If you can't accept the idea of your child as an autonomous individual with their own wants and needs, thought and opinions, then don't have children in the first place, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sinking in a quagmire of hate

Following on from the post I made earlier, I found a link from the Twitter hashtag link I mentioned, where I was 'treated' to another morass of homophobic cant. OK, I'll admit to being biased, to being on the wrong side of the fence from many people's perspective, but I have to say I just cannot, in any way, understand the vehemence of the hatred aimed at LGBT people. I can easily understand why people wouldn't want to live a 'gay' lifestyle, whatever that is, themselves - if it's not their thing, why would they want to? But it is completely beyond me as to why they arrogate to themselves the 'right' to deny those who do want to live life their way the option to do so. I wouldn't for a moment presume to tell anyone they had to live like, be like, me, so why should anyone think that they've got the right to say that I should be like them? If you don't like it, don't do it. If you don't like what I want, please feel free to mind your own fucking business.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

One of the most depressing things I've ever read

Found here.

Recently, another hashtag, #ToMyUnbornChild has been trending, where people speak messages to their future children. And an alarmingly large number of these messages are along the lines of “If you’re gay, I’ll beat the shit out of you / kill you / disown you / etc.”

There's little more I can add, apart from my despair.

Edit -I've just found a selection of the tweets, and read some of them. I wish I hadn't, I'm even more depressed now.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I've had a glimpse of the future....

....and it wasn't a pretty sight. There was no actual argument, but it was made pretty clear to me that if I want to stay in any sort of relationship with my wife, I'm going to have to accept whatever crumbs she chooses to let fall from her table, and if I don't like it, I can go my own way. No doubt there are many who would say that's all I deserve, but I was left feeling hurt and disappointed, and even a little angry at what seemed to me to be more than a little cynicism on her part - she knows what I want, and that it's in her power to say 'yea or nay', and she seems to be ready to try and take advantage of that power. For a while, maybe an hour or two, I was almost ready to pull the plug and walk away. I don't want, and never have wanted, to dominate her, but I equally don't want to be dominated. If this is the way she thinks things are going to go, then maybe it is time to give up the fight. I want us to stay together, and I've made no secret of the fact, but not at any price.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Don't think

Another Orwellian concept has been illustrated this morning.

....being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.


Part of Orwell's definition of 'crimestop' from Nineteen Eighty-Four. And, I'm sorry to say, exemplified by my wife's reaction to my daring to talk about religion and atheism, and their relative merits, earlier on. She actually said 'I'm bored' in lieu of a real answer after little more than a minute of conversation on the subject, which began when I mentioned my distaste for the 'religion industry', more an American than British phenomenon, admittedly, the rich 'televangelists' with their mansions and private jets. It really does fill me with dismay when an intelligent person, born, raised and living in a more or less secular country, won't even think about this issues raised by religious belief, just accepting what they've been fed with uncritical naïvety, seemingly preferring to give up their autonomy and be infantilised by saying 'God did it' rather than considering even the possibility that it all comes from within, that 'God' is as much a construct of the human mind as art, fiction, music, or anything else the species has made. Personal belief, is just that, personal, and I'm really not out to 'convert' anyone, but the closing down of thought, the refusal to even consider an alternative point of view, strikes me as worrisome and dangerous.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wants

One of those days marked by a series of reminders of what I want, but can almost certainly never aspire to. Cute boys, seaside places to live, stability....happiness? I've no divine right to any of those things, of course, and I'm aware that they are wants, not needs, I can live without all of them. I can, but do I want to?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sunny Sunday

It's been a thoroughly springlike day here today, notably warm and sunny. I can't claim that we used the sunshine to best advantage, really, because the only time we went out was to the supermarket to do some grocery shopping, but it was nice to look at, at least. There were a few tensions this morning, too, no real hostilities breaking out, but I think my wife thought I was trying to put pressure on her about job hunting, whereas I thought I was just asking about what she intended to do. I bit my tongue, because I've got no wish to argue at the moment, but that is another problem with our situation, and, specifically, my part in it - I'm feeling I can't say what I think, in case my wife turns around and says she doesn't want me here anymore. A bit of a 'living on a knife edge' sort of feeling, for want of a better description.
I found an intriguing new blog - a Tumblr, actually - earlier on, seemingly belonging to an aspiring writer, containing some interesting quotations. Here's one I especially liked, with my 51 going on 14 kind of personality -

What is the use of being a boy if you grow up to become a man, what is the use?

— Gertrude Stein 

The blog is called 'peeling the orange', and you'll find the link in my blog list. I'll be interested to see how it develops.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Parallels, and plenty to do

Much as I went through a 'What have I done?' phase after coming out to my wife last week, she's had a similar experience about the situation with her job during the course of today. Like me, though, I think she's burnt her bridges, and needs to look forward to what comes next, as opposed to regretting what's passed, and I've told her so. We spent quite a while earlier looking at job and housing options, courtesy of the internet, to the point where my wife's eyes were starting to glaze over more than a little. The only immediate practical outcome is that we've rung the relevant agency to express an interest in a rented house back in the village we lived in when we first moved to Cornwall, somewhere that all of us are very fond of, so there could be a sliver lining of sorts if circumstances find us there when the dust settles. There was another house, too, one that I would almost sell my soul for, if I had one to sell, and not out of reach financially, either, with a view across a favourite beach of ours and out to sea, although I have to admit it would make transport options very awkward, especially for my daughter to get to and from school. A very appealing daydream, though. Jobwise, we found a couple of things that I certainly believe my wife could do, and do well, albeit in a slightly different field than she's been involved with hitherto, but whether I can convince her, or, probably more significantly, she can convince herself that it's for her remains to be seen.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

More twists than a soap opera

I hope nobody thinks I'm making this stuff up, because I'm finding some of it hard to believe, and I'm living it. This morning began quietly enough, the only slight ripple being my wife reminding me, rather coolly, as she left for work, that we still had to talk about our situation, and its implications. Then I had a little breakfast time treat - as I was in the kitchen making coffee, CBW boy, dressed for school, looked out of his window for a few seconds, looking down in my general direction as I looked up at him. He is such a cutie, and even a brief view of him like this morning's is more than worthwhile.
The general calm and afterglow of seeing the boy didn't last long, though. Just before 10:00, the phone rang. It was my wife, in tears. She spoke, and I had to ask her to repeat what she'd said. She did. She'd just resigned from her job. While this wasn't a total surprise, given the attitude of her management over the time she's been with the organisation since her job was transferred to them last summer - they've been doing everything they can to force her out, because she was transferred on a higher rate of pay than the current people wanted to pay for the post - it does throw a very large grenade into our lifestyle, because even if I worked every single day, which I'm not allowed to anyway, there's no way I could make up the difference financially. She's going to take advice on employment law to see if there's any recompense that might be available, for 'constructive dismissal', or whatever, but that's not something we can rely on.
Just under an hour after her phone call, she was back at home. Her unexpectedly early return, and the fact that she'd regained most of her composure by the time she arrived back, led to the anticipated 'talk'. About us, and what happens next. I repeated much of what I'd said to her on the phone last Saturday, that I loved her and cared about her, and felt a commitment, a responsibility to look after her, and our daughter, in accordance with the marriage vows I'd taken, while she told me how she was struggling with the concept of my being married to her while wanting, in her view, something different, to the extent that even the idea of my fantasising about anyone else was, in a way, being unfaithful to her. The upshot of it all seems to be, at least at the moment, that we're going to try, particularly in the face of today's other development, to find a way to go forward amicably, together for the moment, but with the possibility of parting further down the line still not ruled out. A messy compromise, I suppose, but at least something to work with. In the same way that one of my immediate reactions to what happened last Wednesday was a sense of relief, I think my wife must have felt some lightening of the load, because we even found some humour in one or two aspects - there were a few laughs, albeit with a slightly melancholy edge, perhaps.
So, more discussions to come over the weekend and into next week, financial, housing and employment issues, as well as just relationship things. Maybe my first sentence was superfluous - you couldn't make this lot up, could you?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Home?

Nothing has happened. I'm back at home, and it all seems unnervingly normal. It's like waiting for the sky to fall, but finding the sky stubbornly doing its normal, staying up there, thing. I have a feeling that there's going to be something more going on in the days to come, it can't stay this bland for long. Can it?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Death of a fantasy

I've published a story in Nephelokokkygia this evening which I have little doubt will be thoroughly unpalatable to many, if not most people, or be seen as symbolic of my current situation, or both. It isn't a happy story, at all, but what I will say about it is that there is a subtext. The name of one of the principal characters isn't coincidental. It's not a case of wanting to harm someone physically, in real life, but maybe a case of wanting to get past something, someone, who is stuck in my head and needs, for my psychological well-being, not to be there. Whether this sort of projection into fiction does any good at all is a moot point. I can but try, though.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Good, bad....or just a mess?

My wife rang me earlier, the first time she's called me, rather than me initiating the contact, since last Wednesday. She was upset about work, and how her manager is treating her, and needed to talk. And, of course, I'm here for her, if that's what she wants or needs. I listened, tried to sympathise, tried to make constructive suggestions. All things that I've been able to do before.
But then, another direction, with her changing the subject and saying she 'couldn't square things about us'. It wasn't a definitive answer to what I'd said to her on Saturday, but it doesn't sound encouraging. She still wants me to go home on Thursday, as things stand, though, and she wants me to ring her tomorrow. So I don't know.
Towards the end, she said it all. 'It's just a mess'. What could I do but agree?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

That would have been just about the last straw

One panic attack later, I've regained my equilibrium. When I got in from work, around an hour ago, I switched on my laptop - and it wouldn't boot up. It offered a 'retry' option by pressing the F1 key, which I did - and it still wouldn't boot up. After a few moments of what was little short of despair at the prospect of losing my 'window on the world' at what would've been just about the worst possible time, I remembered the IT helpdesk mantra. I switched it off, and switched it back on again, and, self-evidently, it's now working. I just hope it was a glitch, and not the first sign of a terminal decline. Sad as it may sound, I'd find it pretty hard to get along without my access to cyberspace, even in normal circumstances, and certainly in the prevailing climate of my life.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

To travel hopefully

'To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive'. So R.L. Stevenson said. He probably didn't get delayed on the way to work, and again on the way back, though, like I did today, meaning that I effectively spent three hours commuting today, with a relatively messy shift in between. And that was after doubling back from last night - I didn't get indoors until 10:30, and was out again at 6:15 this morning. As a result, I'm astonishingly tired, and have little doubt that I'll be asleep at a pretty early juncture tonight. Just four more early shifts to do, though, and I've got almost two weeks off. How restful and conducive to recuperation that time will be remains to be seen, of course.
Reverting to type a little, I've glanced at a few 'eye candy' sites this evening, and it struck me how many of these sites there are, and how they mostly have different pictures, and yet what a high percentage of the subjects are so lovely. Thinking about it, there's probably a simple answer - there are so many pictures of lovely boys because a great majority of boys are, in one way or another, lovely. Sammy's (facile) Hypothesis!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Heartfelt

Well, I said my piece, and I wasn't rejected out of hand. My wife has at least agreed to think about what I said to her this morning, and give me her response when I see her on Thursday. I've told her that I love and care about her, and that I'm sorry for hurting her, but that, ultimately, I am who I am. I've also told her I don't want us to split up, and while that might seem to be me wanting the best of both worlds, I haven't been unfaithful to her - there isn't anyone else in my life, and the chances of that changing in the future are remote, to say the least.
It was an emotional conversation, hardly surprisingly - I literally couldn't speak at one point, for a good minute - the feelings being heightened by today being a significant anniversary in our lives. Twenty years ago today, we got engaged. Twenty years on, and I asked for her forgiveness. I'll have to wait and see what her decision is.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I nearly know what I want to say

I have, of course, been thinking about what happened on Wednesday, and how to proceed. At the risk of sounding like I'm trying to get my excuses straight, I'm close to framing something I want to say to my wife, something I want her to think about, rather than just reacting to. I have absolutely no idea whether she'll be willing to do that, all I can do is to ask it as a favour from her. It will probably be tomorrow when I ring her, because she's at work now, I'm leaving for work in less than an hour - after yesterday's experience, I don't want to talk while I'm at work, even on a break - and I won't be back at the accommodation until around 10:30 tonight, which is certainly too late, by my wife's standards, to discuss anything seriously - whatever else, she isn't a night owl.
So it will be tomorrow morning. It might be a last shot at redemption. It might be the end of it all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's not as bad as I thought....

....it's far worse. We had another conversation this evening, while I was on my break at work, another 30-odd minutes of unmitigated nightmare. I'd like to say there was any sort of chink of light, any potential redeeming feature in the situation, but there are none. I was always pretty certain how my wife would react, as I've said before, but, if anything, I underestimated how vehement her reaction would be. And that's without any mention of boys.
Why did I have to be so fucking honest? This is a disaster of biblical proportions.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The morning after....

It's hard to describe how I feel at the moment. There's such a mixture of emotions. Relief, as I said last night, up to a point, that some of the pretence has gone - but not all, of course. Regret, that it came to this, because I didn't have the courage to be honest, even to myself, years ago. Trepidation, not knowing what the future holds, hardly even what the rest of the day holds, still less the weeks and months to come.
And in about 5 hours time, I'm going to have to go to work, and carry on as if nothing had happened. Put the now cracked mask back on, and face the world. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to do it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B