Revelations
I have never been a religious man, in fact, I really haven't been in a church on a regular basis in quite a few years and even then it was only to sing in the choir.  However, this past evening I was blessed with a revelation.  It would have been the talk of religious leaders except for one reason: it happened in the process of being in a bar.
I went out to the bar in hopes of escaping a work weekend.  I had been asked to go dancing and I thought that maybe it wasn't really a bad idea.  I was hoping in one sense to run into a person I had dated previously to give him some photographs that I had taken of him.  They probably wouldn't have mattered much had they not been naked photos of him.  I had gone through one of those artistic phases where I want to shoot him naked and he had not seen them.
I went to the bar and on the way there, I did some of my subway car philosophizing.  You may ask exactly what that is because it may be the last place one would want to contemplate the ways of the world and life, but for me, it always seems to be the best place.  For some reason, when I ride the subway, I get to see life happen in a way that people like to see animals at the zoo.  Here we have hundreds of people trapped in boxes with windows and they can't leave.  Freud would have had a field day if he had been on the ones in Toronto.
I digress however since that wasn't the point.  The point is that the subway seems to be my place of thinking since there is so much time to do so.  I sat in my seat peering at people around the subway car and made a realization about my dating life.  Here is what it was: I discovered that I had dated people not because I wanted to date a particular person, but because I wanted to date someone.  The difference you ask?  Well in the past year, I think I may have dated people purely for the fact of dating someone, not for dating that particular person.
Now I don't want to place that little importance on the people I have dated.  Almost all of the people were nice, but I think I was more caught up in them for the reason that they found me interesting rather than whether I found them to be people I was interested in.  I looked at the people I had dated in the past year and realized that I was the one being noticed almost in all occasions.  This isn't a bad thing, but it left me with the thought that I have been running through my head in the last few weeks that I need to change my dating patterns from when I was in Regina, where I would date anyone interesting because there was much less selection where in Toronto, my selection is much greater and therefore I can't date all of them and wouldn't want to for many reasons.
Well I got off the subway car and headed to the bar to go dancing whereupon I realized that I was probably going to meet and give the photos to one such person that found me attractive and then I dated probably for that reason.  I stood in line for the evening outside the bar talking to a few people I knew and finally when I went in, I ran right into him.  To remind all, this was the first time that I had talked to him since we practically broke up a month and a half ago.
Well my run-in with him was rather off-putting.  He was still attractive to me, but there was a loneliness I detected from him that I never saw before.  He was with a few friends, but for some reason, every friend I mentioned to him of his was not as close to him anymore.  In some ways, he was very happy to see me and I had the chance to really talk to him, not one of finer points in dating.  I gave him the photos which threw him, but he was grateful upon learning their contents and I think it was exactly that resolution that I needed from the evening from him.  I actually think we might be good friends after all of this.
Well the evening didn't quite stop there.  Then there was him.
I wish I could use names, but I don't like regarding people unless they have input into what I am saying.  The him I am regarding is my weakness, the one person who seems to move me like no other had moved me and he was at the bar as well.
I always hug him as if I haven't seen him since the war ended and he is comforting in so many ways.  After dealing with my ex, I was quite content with the world.  I had made a conclusion and was about to leave the bar, but I had to say goodbye to my weakness.  Well the old familiar happened and I was caught underneath his spell.  What would normally would have been a simple kiss ended up in a make out session for almost an hour which everyone in the bar saw.  I'm not sure how many times we kissed or how long we stared into each other's eyes over the course of our make out, but it left us with the old feelings that continue to conflict me. And thankfully him too.
When I refer to him as my weakness, I mean him to be the one person who makes me give in to whatever happens at that moment.  We layed into each other the entire time and it was so hard to leave that embrace.  Why are we not together or dating?  The problem sits in our interpretations on relationships: I couldn't be with someone without being in a relationship and he can't imagine being in one at all.  This problem leaves us in a sort of limbo that neither one of us seems to escape and we usually end up in each others embrace and unable to move beyond that.
We taxied home after, me getting off at my place and him moving on to his own, and yet again I was left in that state of suspension.  I would date him in a heartbeat, but I can't because he can't and yet when we get together, there is burning chemistry that cannot be denied either.  I went to bed with these feelings and despite the goodness of the evening, I was left empty on how to resolve this dilemma and unfortunately he didn't seem to give me any answers either.  It just ended the same way, both of us unable to move forward.
It wasn't until I woke up in the morning that I finally received a sign that showed me some insight into who he was to me.  For anyone who has ever seen the film, Moulin Rouge, this will make sense and for those who have not, go out and rent the movie because it is a beautiful story (that was my shameless plug for the month).  I realized that my weakness was Nicole Kidman.  I sense a pause from the reader when reading that last sentence that may suggest that after all of reading my articles that I wasn't gay after all.  For confirmation, I have absolutely no attraction to Nicole, that is unless she sings a song.
No I realized that my weakness was a direct correlation to the character that Nicole Kidman plays in the film.  They are people who play with many and because of this, cannot imagine a world where they might be able to love someone.  It doesn't mean that they cannot love, but to love is a state of disbelief that is impossible for them to imagine being a part of their life.  It was this morning that I realized that I was in love with a cortezan, only he doesn't require money for his services like Miss Kidman.
Now here I am sitting over my computer as Ewan McGregor sat over top his typewriter telling his love story and I have to wonder that maybe the one person I would have in my world is possibly the only person I can't have in my world.  Am I the one who is supposed to teach this person how to love or am I the one who has to see this person being unable to love at all?  Do I give me life to someone who can't love and remain unhappy or do I wait for the impossible journey that he will go through to find love?  Am I drama queen or what?
We are all faced with evening where our world are opened up and we are given insight into how our lives will carry out.  Sometimes they come in something small like a horoscope or maybe a dream, but sometimes we are revealed information right before our eyes and we have to make the choice to take in what we see or ignore it and move on.  I hate these moments just as much as anyone because it means making a decision.  As Robert Frost wrote about two roads diverging in a yellow wood and having to choose between the two to find out which one to take, life is exactly about offering us many choices and somehow we have to make one a reality.  Sometimes though that decision is not necessarily one for us to make and somehow we have to move beyond that question that has been asked of us.
I do believe in higher powers, not ones that force us into positions, but ones that give us not only questions to ask of ourselves, but also guidance into how we should answer the questions without cheating and telling us what to do.  How we decide to take in these revelations, these questions and answers that are given to us, is all up to us though and it is because we are put in the position to follow our hearts and mind on these matters that makes life interesting.  Last night I was given a revelation and it may take a bit to figure it out.  I guess you'll have to keep reading to find out if I make the choice.  Until then try to keep and eye out for your own.  They maybe as close to you as a trip of a subway car or a night at the bar.  Doesn't life move in mysterious ways?