Mardi Gras Parade 2010
There's actually a lot to say. Last night, I participated in my sixth Mardi Gras Parade. I had not planned to participate. I had not planned to be there at all. I was 'over it'. But my employer of the last three and a half years, RailCorp, the NSW government organisation who run Sydney's rail transport network, was to have its first float in the parade. During the previous week they had offered a forum to all LGBTI employees of the organisation. As I am a contractor who has just recently taken a month of leave to visit Paris with a project deadline imminent, I did not feel that I could attend that forum. I was happy to join their float, an experience which I greatly enjoyed. The participants were a group of ordinary working men and women, drivers, guards, station assistants, as well as office staff like myself, who live out in the suburbs and are not at all part of the gay 'scene'.
I knew that I would be able to see friends while we waited for the parade to start. As it happened, we were next to the sporting teams who will be attending the Gay Games in Cologne. Among those teams are the Sydney Frontrunners who I hope to rejoin as an active participant in the next few weeks. datisi was among them with the Sydney Rangers Soccer Club. It was good to catch up with Bernard and to have a friend close by. I knew absolutely no one in the RailCorp float. (It is an organisation of 14,000 employees, plus contractors such as myself.)
It had been an interesting week. On Friday night, I attended the Acceptance Mass in Newtown, partly as a preparation for the parade, but mostly in solidarity with my Catholic friends who have been subjected to harassment and threats of violence. The police were keeping a watchful eye on Friday night. I know - because I saw them. The editorial in Same Same expressed the position very clearly. I had seen the film 'Prayers for Bobby' at a Freedom 2 b[e] meeting and I am sure that the introduction by my friend, Anthony Venn-Brown, would have been very powerful. However, the challenge is not confined to pentecostal and charismatich churches.
As I was dropped by text message last weekend, as I explained to Bernard, I have officially joined the 21st century. It was not a surprise. Iindeed, I was planning that our next conversation be 'that conversation', for no other reason than that we do not meet each other's needs. It is not that we are not good people. It is just that we do not meet each other's needs. It happens. I have known that this could be the outcome for some time. I thought it would be unfair to make a precipitate decision without giving my partner the opportunity to know what was afoot, and what it was that I needed. In the end, we could not meet each other's needs. So today, I wrote an email that I hoped would close the relationship with care , respect and dignity, with the possibility of remaining friends in the future. It may not happen. You can only do what you can do.
Alone but not depressed, I resolved to join the next Come Out get together tomorrow night. I had invited one of my new found friends. This afternoon, I invited another, and understood when he said that he had never been involved with a gay social group, that there are men who are much more isolated and lonely than I feel myself to be just now.
I knew that I would be able to see friends while we waited for the parade to start. As it happened, we were next to the sporting teams who will be attending the Gay Games in Cologne. Among those teams are the Sydney Frontrunners who I hope to rejoin as an active participant in the next few weeks. datisi was among them with the Sydney Rangers Soccer Club. It was good to catch up with Bernard and to have a friend close by. I knew absolutely no one in the RailCorp float. (It is an organisation of 14,000 employees, plus contractors such as myself.)
It had been an interesting week. On Friday night, I attended the Acceptance Mass in Newtown, partly as a preparation for the parade, but mostly in solidarity with my Catholic friends who have been subjected to harassment and threats of violence. The police were keeping a watchful eye on Friday night. I know - because I saw them. The editorial in Same Same expressed the position very clearly. I had seen the film 'Prayers for Bobby' at a Freedom 2 b[e] meeting and I am sure that the introduction by my friend, Anthony Venn-Brown, would have been very powerful. However, the challenge is not confined to pentecostal and charismatich churches.
As I was dropped by text message last weekend, as I explained to Bernard, I have officially joined the 21st century. It was not a surprise. Iindeed, I was planning that our next conversation be 'that conversation', for no other reason than that we do not meet each other's needs. It is not that we are not good people. It is just that we do not meet each other's needs. It happens. I have known that this could be the outcome for some time. I thought it would be unfair to make a precipitate decision without giving my partner the opportunity to know what was afoot, and what it was that I needed. In the end, we could not meet each other's needs. So today, I wrote an email that I hoped would close the relationship with care , respect and dignity, with the possibility of remaining friends in the future. It may not happen. You can only do what you can do.
Alone but not depressed, I resolved to join the next Come Out get together tomorrow night. I had invited one of my new found friends. This afternoon, I invited another, and understood when he said that he had never been involved with a gay social group, that there are men who are much more isolated and lonely than I feel myself to be just now.