Tales from Cornwall

Where has the time gone. Wow, two years ago life was so different, I was working at a different job, I was in school for Secondary education, and I was in the beginning stages of a great relationship. Things have changed, not necessarily become better or worse, just changed. I’ve been working at Target for over a year now, and it has been the best move of my life. I changed majors to photography and the dropped out of school temporarily, and in the last 6 months I’ve ended my previous relationship and have now started a new relationship.
The present has rapidly approached and now the past seems so far away I can barely remember what it was like, but that’s a trait of the past isn’t it? Here today, gone tomorrow, forgotten the next day. I’ve always been a firm believer in never regretting, never regretting the decisions I’ve made because I made those decisions for myself in my best interest. There’s nothing I can change about those decisions, I could go against my better judgement and try to take it all back. However, what would that change? It may change the historical record or timeline of my life, but in all actuality it would change the obstacles that brought me to that point of decision making. I would have to change my thinking, behavior, or life to ignore or overcome those issues or the same problem would arise in the future.
That brings me to my next point, I refuse to change myself to alleviate someone’s shortcomings, I have very high standards for myself and I hold others to those standards as well, that may make it hard to keep people in my life, but that also means I have a quality over quantity standard for those people I surround myself with, which keeps me happier more frequently. People should not have to change to my will, that is not my argument, they should be good decent people with a moral compass and an open mind. That is not too much to ask, it’s what everyone should strive for, and strive to surround themselves with because all and all they are worth more than the fickleness self loathing with which most people saturate their lives.
In my old job, major, and relationship I found myself slipping into that same trap I try to distance myself from, and that’s not the fault of those experiences, that’s my fault for letting those things and people bring me to that dark place. It was selfish of me to feel and think those things and let those toxic thoughts and behaviors affect those directly influenced by me. This is one of those instances where I could look back and regret the last two years of my life, but I choose not to, I look at it as a lesson for myself in the future. I will never let myself become toxic to others ever again.

Strange things are happening! (Taken with Instagram at Cybertron)

My side table. I think it really captures my personality! (Taken with Instagram at Cybertron)

My favorite view of the lot! Can you say vantage point? (Taken with Instagram at Target)

Just sitting back and relaxing after a dumb day at work! (Taken with Instagram at Cybertron)

Wow, is this really what I’m going to talk about today? There are a few different reasons I chose this topic. Firstly this is a key to understanding who I am and where I came from. As much as my father may have shaped me, this part of my life really turned it around. My girlfriend doesn’t really know any of these stories because she chose to forget the past and move on, which is a very respectable stance. There are very few people in this world who are kind and understanding in that way, so I urge you to take note and make the difference.

There are a lot of people in my family who really dislike my social views, especially on the subject of homosexuality. That is because people are by nature fearful. There are a number of people who believe I forced myself to grow up too quickly, because I had strong opinions even at a young age. I believe in equality and love for all people; I’ve been on the other side of the wall. I’ve seen people’s fears manifest into hate. This world should be willing to love people despite their views or sexuality.

When I was very young I knew there was something different about me. I knew that people weren’t comfortable with the way I thought. I was the weird kid who wanted to play with dolls and then go inside and watch Pokemon and play video games. I remember adults trying to steer me away from dolls and socializing with girls because they were afraid I would turn into a faggot or a pussy. Well I analyzed what they said and decided I was going to do whatever I wanted to do because that seemed more logical in my small child mind.

I know there are going to be quite a few people that feel strongly opposed to the statement I’m about to make, but if you know me you also know I don’t really care. I knew I had an attraction to boys at a very young age. People always argue with that statement because that means that sexuality is not a choice. People don’t realize that children who are “normal” develop an attraction toward the opposite sex at a rather young age as well. They try to figure out why “fags” are gay, maybe it was molestation or another form of abuse. Why is it that people who are constantly persecuted are put under a microscope, and told that the devil must have been at work. The devil invented rock music for the “niggers” in the ghettos, and the devil made women stand up and say “I have a voice!” Maybe people need to stop persecuting others and realize that sometimes people just need to be true to themselves.

I’m sorry, I’ll try to refrain from ranting anymore about that, but I have seen this persecution first hand and it hurts. This is why I feel so strongly about this cause. Moving on, I will tell you a few stories about my sexuality and then I’ll tell you what each situation has taught me about myself. I knew I had an attraction to boys at a very young age. Call it a mistake or an act of confidence, but I took it upon myself to come out at a very young age as well. I had moved to Albion, IN at the age of nine in the third grade and I met my best friend Chris. We became very close, and we were in similar situations at home. Either of us had a father, we were both very adult and forward thinking for our age, and we both had rather strong opinions of things, which was hardly ever seen at our age.

I came out to Chris in the fourth grade, that was an experience I will never forget. I was a young boy who was rather new to our school. I had been dealing with the fact that I was different for a number of years at this point, and I felt that I had no one to turn to except Chris. My internal thoughts were so frightening though. What was he going to think? Is he going to stop being my friend? Is he going to tell people and if so who? I was terrified, I knew I couldn’t talk to anyone in my family about my sexuality, though I didn’t know that term at the time, I went to church every Sunday and I knew that God hated my thoughts. So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. (I chose to go the way of the hard place, because at least for all I knew it wasn’t a rock.)

I was at Chris’ house and we were hanging out, playing games or whatever it was that we did to pass the time in our one horse town. I looked at Chris and said, “I have to tell you something.” Of course he was rather taken aback because I wasn’t one to get serious very often. I told him that I was gay and he freaked out for a short time. It was the first time he had heard anyone say it in person. Hell, it was the first time I had heard anyone say it in person! A rush of happiness flowed through my body. I was finally free of the chains that were my secret. I was truly happy for the first time ever in my life.

I refrained from telling my mom for many years, mainly because she was the rock in the previously stated idiom. So I told the people who I knew couldn’t really do anything about it. I told my friends, by sixth grade everyone in my middle school knew that I was gay. I was happy, but I in no way knew that I was going to be constantly judged by others. Middle school is when I realized the sting of rejection, the kind that makes you wince when you think about it. (It was like being a steak in a dog pen.) I was the person everyone wanted to be in middle school. I walked the halls proclaiming who I was because I wasn’t afraid of how people felt about that, but that made me a target for hate and intolerance. The reason that sticks with me so well is that people aren’t born with opinions of hate, those are traits learned and then acted upon.

From that point on I made it a goal to be out and open wherever I went. I left Albion and came back to Fort Wayne attending Northwood Middle School. I was OUT at that school as well, this was my first experience with a “homosexual relationship” if you can call it that. I met this boy named Jaron through another friend of mine. I was instantly obsessed, we were both young men dealing with the same things. We were both gay and we were both out to our friends, but we had not told our parents. We never met face to face because we attended different schools, but we would talk on the phone for hours at a time, talking about school and life.

I was in a rather deep depression in my eighth grade year, I attribute a lot of this to my home life at the time. Amongst other things I wasn’t able to talk to my family especially my mother about my sexuality, so as any teenager would, I withdrew from them. I began thinking about harming myself because over the past four years I had avoided this rock/hard place scenario and I felt as though it was whirling out of control. Eventually my mother found out that I was writing suicidal poems and thinking about the potential of suicide being an option for me. She did some more searching and found out that I had a “boyfriend” named Jaron. In her fear and rage she immediately pulled me out of school and placed my in a mental hospital.

I remained there for about a week, learning about my depression and how to deal with it. I also came to the realization that these people who were prescribing this medication to me, just wanted me to be myself if that’s what it took to make me safe. When I left the hospital my world was flipped upside down. I had been enrolled at a parochial school, so that I could be immersed in the spirit of god. All I found was a hate filled micro-culture that persecuted people with different views and beliefs. My mother then sent me to a Christian therapist, her name was Bonnie. She was a rather fat woman with frizzy permed hair. She was pasty white and looked to me like Richard Simmons with a thyroid problem. One day she decided she would talk about my struggle with sexuality and told me, “You’re sister could arouse you, but that doesn’t mean you are attracted to her.” Then she proceeded to tell me to start masturbating. To say the least, that was the last time I ever went back to her office.

I met a boy. I had been working at Scott’s for about nine months and this new boy started working there. His name was Gage, looking back I can’t remember what it was that attracted me to him. He was scrawny and short, but I instantly fell for him. We started dating, he was the first boy I had ever really dated or with whom I had had a real meaningful sexual relationship. I was crazy about him and I felt as though it was time to confront my identity crisis head on. I told my mother, and she was once again furious and fearful. She had tried so hard to believe god had cured me of my “demonic” ways, but she eventually came to terms with my stubbornness. I would not change my mind just because it would make life easier. I then moved on and told my sister, expecting her to be more open minded due to the fact that she had had two children out of wedlock and was a single mother, she knew persecution, right? I had assumed she would maybe not understand, but tell me she loved me and be my support system. She did a 180, she told me that I was disgusting and that she wanted nothing to do with me. I was hurt, but I moved on. I continued my relationship with Gage until it fell apart some months later due to some rather unfortunate events that I will discuss at a later date. My family and I have made amends for the hurtful things said to one another since, but it definitely changed our relationships forever.

After being betrayed by Gage I swore I would never get into a relationship again. They always led to lying and betrayal. So I went about two and a half years without dating or even pursuing a relationship because I was so hurt by the situation. I then started to become very close with a girl that I worked with. She knew Gage and had even hung out with him on occasion. She knew the situation and was very sympathetic to my pain. Her name was Kelly.

Some years later after the pain of my past had subsided, Kelly and I started hanging out on a day to day basis and realized we loved being around one another. We were intellectual and could talk about anything for hours at a time. So one day we decided to start dating. It was a pretty big leap I made having been betrayed so heavily before, but I took the leap and since then we have been enjoying a relationship together.

I have learned so many things from experience with my sexuality. It has made me realize how fickle people can be if you share your views. I have lost more friendships sharing my views than I can count, but I have become much closer to the friends that have stuck around. I have learned that you can’t count on your family to be supportive all of the time, but unfortunately you’re stuck with them so make the most of it. I have felt the sting of betrayal, but you never know who or what you’re going to find on the other side of that pain. Most importantly I do not believe that I need to align myself with being gay or straight or bisexual, I am exactly who I need to be. I don’t think sexuality should be some war that people fight, but a part of life. It is a force that surges through all of us and it is very personal and unique to each one of our lives. It’s like an river of mystery that ebbs and flows, let us not question it but stand in awe of it and marvel at it’s diverse beauty.

My father has always been somewhat of a legend or so an anti-legend. I guess you would maybe consider him a cautionary tale. The story goes that my mother had two children and was divorced. She often had to pick up second jobs to support her family, because child support checks were very few and far between. My mother found a job painting apartments with a man who had moved from Colombia a number of years earlier. He spoke English, but not very well by American standards. Probably the kind of man that was from time to time thrown a dirty look in the supermarket or told to “go back to where you came from,” This man had been previously married or had some sort of engagement and had two children of his own, but he was divorced. This man was German Salazar, my father. After working with my father for some time German began pursuing my mother to start dating. She resisted for sometime due to his stature, in that he was a rather short and “wirey.” Eventually she gave in to this man of dark skin and thick accent, finding him exotic and romantic. She became pregnant and he made it quite clear that he did not want to raise a child with her in anyway. So he walked out of the situation, he left my mother to fend for herself. Not only to raise her two previous children by herself, but also another. In the end he proceeded to evade child support throughout my entire life making it quite difficult to survive. This, is that story.

My name is Adam CHARLES Reavis, many people ask me, why is your middle name the same as your older brother’s first name? Well my mother realized that she was going to have a third child and he was not going to be of the same lineage or race. He/She will be a half-sibling and that could potentially create a schism in the family, and eventually lead to resentment toward one another. Not only did I receive my brother and sister’s last name to represent inclusiveness, but I got my brother’s name to represent the fact that even though I did not have a father, I had a stake in this family. We were one, and there was nothing that could tear us apart. (I never thought about this, but it really sounds like something from the Old Testament of the Bible)

When my sister turned 16, her father decided he didn’t want the hassle of child support anymore so he offered my sister a car if she would move from our home in Fort Wayne, IN to Churubusco, IN. As a young woman whose only goal was freedom, that sounded most appealing, so she agreed to leave. He was officially off the hook, but he still had to get out of the boat so to speak, so one year later he offered the same deal to my brother, and he instantly agreed. So there I was, feeling abandoned by the only family I had known at the time. Why was I not good enough for my father to stay? What did I do to chase off my brother and sister? The only family I had at the time was my mother, which eventually became more acceptable in my mind.

When I was 14 years old I was in counseling for depression, caused by numerous things, but that is a story for another day. I was also in a brand new school which at this point in my life was not a big deal because I had changed schools numerous times in my childhood, but I was still rather new having only been there for about 3 weeks. The night was October 31, 2005 and my mom and I were heading home after my counseling session. My mom asked me if we should stop off at the Walgreens by our house to buy candy for any residual trick or treaters in our neighborhood. Maybe it was my Zoloft or my newly discovered empathy for people, but I agreed that we should get candy. We got out of the car and went inside to pick through the candy that had been ransacked by others who planned ahead, more than us. We got in line to pay for the candy and I remember standing behind my mom and realizing her stance becoming rigid. Then she turned and whispered over her shoulder, “Don’t look now, but your dad just walked in.” What the hell was I supposed to do with that information at my fragile state? All I could say is, “Let’s get out of here.” I was in no way mentally prepared to meet the man I had spawned from, but then again who would be?

We got into the car, in the parking lot of the Walgreens and my mom said to me, “Are you sure you don’t want to go meet him? Aren’t you in anyway curious what he’s like?” I hadn’t seen him when he walked in to the store, so I had no idea what he might look like, but I couldn’t respond to my mother’s questions. I was frozen, watching people walk in and out of the store from inside the car wondering if one of the gentlemen was him. After waiting for a response and getting nothing my mom jumped out of the car and said, “Come on then, we’re going back in there.”

As we neared the entrance my heart started racing as if it were going to shoot out of my chest. Then, before I had processing time he was in front of me. We had met face to face with perfect timing at the entrance of the store. He turned and said to us with his heavy accent, “I am so embarrassed, I should have come and said something to you when I saw you, I don’t have a lot of time right now, but we need to get together sometime and get to know each other.”

Every second of that experience is a blur. I was trying to listen, but I didn’t care what he was saying. The only thing I remember as clear as being face to face with him are his eyes. As soon as I saw him I immediately saw his eyes, because we had the same eyes. The one thing I had always wanted throughout my entire childhood was to find a place where I belonged and I never felt it until that moment when I saw his eyes. I still feel it when I think back to that night. It was cold and windy and I didn’t want to be standing there, but at the same time I couldn’t have imagined any other place I would rather be, because I finally had seen my father.

January of 2006 my father followed through for the first time in my life and came to my home. He came over just to talk and catch up. So we sat and told stories and talked about plans and made some sort of acquaintanceship, but clearly nothing lasting because that was the last time I saw him. He never called or sent letters or stopped by to see how life was going. He was there, and in the blink of an eye he was gone, again.

I’ve come to accept the fact that I don’t have a father, it’s a harsh reality that a lot of us have to deal with. Some people find it odd that I didn’t want to pursue my father after I met him, but I think they take for granted the fact that for the first 14 years of my life I pursued him, or at least the idea of him every day of my life. I think that I am able to take a break now, and make it his turn to pursue a relationship with me. This experience has made me a stronger man, and nonetheless I still have the memory, of looking in to his eyes and belonging for the first time, to hold in my heart.

I am currently interested in some self reflection and because my blog never really took off in the direction I thought it would, I’m going to pool my thoughts here on Tumblr. To preface all of these stories in the case that these posts are in anyway stumbled upon I want to say that I am in a happy relationship with my girlfriend. She is at this time my everything, but there are parts of my history that she may not know for one reason or another. I’m thinking that the only way I could ever share these stories with her or anyone for that matter is to sort my thoughts, that is what leads me here today, so here it goes…

Milk Moooo-Stache!

Within the last 24 hours my life has been forever altered. I have received some bittersweet news from my girlfriend about yesterday’s post. I say bittersweet because that is how we should always see the world. It is ever changing and we should take note that more times than not, the world will hurt us in the end. We just need to roll with the punches and make the most of what we are handed in life.

In the last 2 hours I have spent some time watching a documentary that I first saw spotlighted on Oprah about a year ago I believe. The title is “Waiting for Superman,” which shows the real story behind the failures of American Public Education. I have given it a lot of thought over the past year, where would i want my children to go to school? In my free spirited willy-nilly parts of my mind I would like to say I would be comfortable sending my child to Public school even if I had the choice. In most cases it has a more diverse community and there are some amazing teachers in the public school system, but the problem with public schools is not the good teachers, it’s the fact that they cannot weed out the bad teachers. Due to teacher’s unions the shittiest teacher can keep their job mainly because of their tenure.

Issue 1 that I see with this is the fact that teachers have unions, there are more than enough labor laws to protect almost any worker in any area, so please let go of the 1940’s mentality that everyone in this world is out to get you. Unions harbor laziness and in this cases especially only hurt our children’s future in education.

The second issue I see with this is the only other options you have for your child to be a successful student is to move into a district with a high performing public school which is rare, send your child to a parochial which is fine if you have the money but it costs massive amounts of tuition to send your child to these schools, or your third option is a charter school producing good results which is harder to come by than a public school with good results also if you don’t have the money to pay for the education or if they don’t have enough open spots in the school your child’s education is left up to a lottery of sorts where their name is drawn from a hat so to speak.

I find discomfort in the fact that the teachers and the unions are not taking immediate action. They have created an Us vs. Them mentality and that doesn’t manifest success. There needs to be a public school reform so that you don’t have to go with one of the pricier option. There needs to be a sense of accountability in the public schools. We need to stop sitting around “Waiting for Superman,” get off our asses and become Super(hu)mans!

Break The CYCLE!!!

-Adam

Early Bird