GAP Year, Plan X, History

Last weekend I went out to two events, a Bear coffee klatsch and a BiSexual dinner-and-discussion group. They were both very interesting. They made me feel welcome and it was pretty comfortable.

Living alone is a hard transition, and I've got it pretty good. I'm staying in a friend's house which is empty, because they winter in Florida. I have the house until April 1st, which is five weeks away. I need to come up with a plan.

My plan for the spring and summer is: I'm going to be a trail tramp. I'm going to ride back and forth on the GAP and C&O, ride a lot of miles, camp almost every night. I think I can live that way cheaper than getting a cheap apartment. It appeals to me more than getting a cheap apartment. We'll see if the experience matches the appeal. I'm going to consider this my "GAP year". (GAP Trail, GAP Year, I'll be here all week)

So I'm on the verge of what could be called chosen homelessness, or it could be called a summer on my bike. Instead of Plan-A, I'm calling it Plan-X. There are two jobs that may open for me in the spring. If either of them comes to pass, that'll change my trail-tramp living situation. Those would be my Plan-A and Plan-B options.

I'm acutely aware of my mental illness and how my up-to-now living situation has insulated me from the vagaries of the American failure to deal with mental illness, and that by spending a few months on the trail I may be opening myself up to becoming "that mentally ill man in the tent".

I expect to be able to refill my meds in the towns along the trail. A theft of my gear or meds would be catastrophic.

My primary psychologist assigned me the movie Billy Elliot, which I watched twice. It was very interesting to me. I was amazed at the way he spoke to his father without fear of an overwhelming beating. The movie told me more about me than about the character. In the last sequence, it was ambiguous whether Billy Elliot was gay of straight and the point was: it didn't matter. He was being true to himself.

I must also say, as a Pittsburgher, that Billy Elliot was partially a North England remake of Flashdance.

There is only one history of any importance,
and it is the history of what you once believed in,
and the history of what you came to believe in.

(Kay Boyle, 1903 – 1992)

I have come out of Catholicism, I have come out of Christianity, I have come out of believing in a Deity, I have come out of religion. But I feel I'm still immersed in the cultural trappings of my upbringing. In the same way that a now-unbelieving Jew might be said to be culturally Jewish, I'm not sure I've really stepped out of all the programming of American Christianity.

I feel like I've identified Religion as a story I was told as a toddler. I've also seen that the mainstream view of America is also a story I was told as a toddler.