For all over-correct philologists and meticulous guards of the English grammar and spelling: Please note that this is not my native language, so regarding my frequent abuse of what I have been taught for far too many years: please bare with me.
For all the horny (yet, aren't we all?) single-handed net surfers among us: This time neither graphic language nor anything else arousing in here. Try gettting your rocks off somewhere else J
For all straight homophobics, who still believe that being gay is a kind of mental illness: Gosh, what are you doing here anyway??
For everyone else: So finally I decided to write this. I hope you find it entertaining or even better it gives you something to think about. For me writing this is a kind of therapy. I've been going through some hard times in the past months, brooding, raging against fate, God and the laws of nature. But when all energy is spent and the punching bag has still no intention of going through that darn wall, there comes a time to think anew, gather up what self-pity has left of my spirit and move on to new things. So now exposing my feelings to the anonymous crowd of great people, nice gays and horny old men will hopefully be the final step of regaining focus and taking on new challenges.
Nathan's Soulmate
I have never believed in the concept of "soulmates", that exist for everybody. "Love" to me, was a wonderful feeling, a strong bond that I shared with many people. My family, my girlfriend, my friends: there were a great many people that I loved as much as they loved me. As I viewed the whole thing, there was nothing miraculous or mysterious about it, love was simply a part of myself as a human being. I had also long ago admitted to the fact that I was bisexual, and though at the time being I had never even fooled around with any other boy (plus I share my life with the most wonderful girl to live on this planet), my fantasies were pretty open, if you know what I mean...
Yet, sometimes good, old fate goes throwing the dices again and if no one's watching she decides to have some fun with us. But before we get too far along the story, I ought to introduce myself. (If, Heaven forbid, my mother should ever read this, there should at last be no doubt that I kept up good manners...) My name's Nathan and I just turned 20 last month. For the ones who take interest in these things: I'm pretty tall (about 6 feet) and weigh 80 kg (no fat as I do lots of sport, mainly Kendo, a Japanese swordart). I've got dark blonde hair, which I prefer to keep pretty short. The thing I like most about my body (in fact the only thing I really like) are my eyes, which I inherited from my mother. They are a mixture of blue and green with a ring of light brown around the pupil. Anyway so much for the looks department, let's move on to more lasting things...
So, summing it up, things were running all fine. Before I would go to university to become a teacher, I planned to spend some time for more intensive studies of meditation and sword fighting. Well, just then, when I was settled in comfortably, I was struck by my love to Joshua.
I met him at a summer camp week, where I was spending some time as a counselor and bad role model for a bunch of kids from a friend's company (I keep getting talked into all kinds of voluntary work, it's a curse. I just can't say no to people...sign of weak character, I know. sigh!).
The first time I saw him, I was instantly transfixed by his eyes. He had that kind of blue eyes, that is like the color of a saphire held against the sun. The one glance we exchanged was enough to touch something inside me, a cord in me that started swinging and made my blood sing.
Having made it through a pretty wild puberty with several more or less severe crushes on both girls and boys, I was quite used to the feeling of "falling in love". Yet this was something completely new. First of all it was nothing sexual. There's no erotic desire inside me, when I look at him, nore do I think is he attracted to me in an erotic way.
During that week, our relationship has become something different. It began with him following me, wherever I went. Not that the other guys wouldn't have liked to include him into the group, he just wasn't interested in them all too much. Luckily the team spirit of the group was very strong, so they didn't start to pick on him, asides from his sister beginning to refer to him as my "shadow". We didn't talk all that much though, most of the time camp activities kept us busy. Yet just by spending time close to each other our bound strengthened everyday. It was then, that the term "soulmate" came to my mind for the first time. I was light-headed and confused at the same time, for the frontiers between friendship and love seemed to fade until they vanished wholly.
In retrospect I often ask myself, if things would have been different if one of us had wished to talk about our feelings. Yet we never did. And while we were both growing closer everyday and foolishly starting to pretend that this would go on forever (don't the young ones always do?), time passed by.
I won't go into the details about the days we spent together at the camp. I'm not so much of a story-teller, and if I told you about every moment or affectionate gesture we shared, I'd probably exceed all limits of bearable cheesy romanticism, even more than I already did anyway. Let's just say that life for me was a sweet dream, one of those you don't want to wake up from, yet you do when the morning comes...
Finally our last day had arrived. We had been outdoor with the kids the whole day and were on returning to the camp for a shared goodbye-dinner with the parents. Before dinner we went outside with most of the kids for some final ball and wrestling games. It was then, when the kids were off racing after the ball, I had a private moment to talk to Joshua.
I took his hands into mine and looked into his eyes: "Hey, Joshua... you know, I'm gonna miss you.." He looked at me, first startled, then there was that frightened look in his eyes when reality hit him: He had told me that his family was going to move to Europe this fall, his father's company requiring them to do so. And in 6 weeks I would take a plane to the other side of the world, where I would study with my old martial arts teacher for a year. Chances were few that we would ever see each other again... I'll never forget the way he looked, when suddenly, he broke away racing towards the camp's main lodge.
I should have followed him right then, yet in that moment the kids came back cheering around and trying to tackle me again, while I was fighting to hold back the emotions that were welling up inside me. Later throughout the whole dinner, Joshua would sit on the opposite side of the room, trying hard not to look into my direction. After the dinner there were a number of speeches from a company representative, the counselors and so on. I don't recall how I made it through my part of the speech though, my thoughts were racing, but I guess at that time nobody was really paying all too much attention anymore. So luckily I was largely saved from any major embarrassments. After that everybody started saying goodbye, the parents finally being quite relieved to return home.
I was just trying hard to get over the seemingly unavoidable small talk with one of the mothers (the hard to come by "How did my little sunshine behave with you?"-questions, that are inevitably asked by the group bully's most naive mother...), when I suddenly noticed that Joshua's family wasn't around anymore. Muttering some poor excuse to the quite surprised parent, I raced to the exit, just to see Joshua in front of his family's car. He was helping his little sister inside her seat. Realizing that he would have left without daring to say goodbye to me again, I stopped dead at the lodge entrance.
It was then when he turned his head and the pain in his eyes made my heart tear apart 100 meters away.
In a just world, in a better, or a more Hollywood-like world, we would have raced to each other, holding each other in a tight embrace and in some miraculous way, a magic solution for all our problems would have appeared out of the blue.
In the world that I live in, Joshua made several steps towards me, and cupped his hands too shout all over the place: "Hey Nathan, I'm gonna miss you too. - You know, I'm gonna miss you even more..." His voice broke and then he turned away, towards his startled family...
The rest of the day, saying farewell to everybody, the drive back home - everything turned into one big blur. It was like you have that wonderful, perfect dream, and then you wake up and no matter how hard you try you cannot fall asleep again and continue dreaming.
I was once told that humans have a certain scheme to react on disasters.
The first reaction is denial. This is what happened to me every morning, when I continued waking up at the very same time as during the camp week: Yet every time having to realize that I was back home again. The next phase is rage. Boy, did I rage... I was furious, angry at life itself, at fate, that had allowed me a short glimpse at life as it could be, just to toss it all out of my reach when I tried do grasp it in my hands. Besides regular training and running I took up rope skipping, as well as beating up my old punching bag regularly until all my energy was exhausted, and in this total exhaustion I discovered relief...
And slowly the rage went away and left me in melancholy, the love to Joshua still burning inside me.
But in my sadness I discovered new strength, as my old teacher once said to me:
"Inside beauty there is sadness, Nathan, and inside sadness there is beauty. Beauty and sadness are two sides of the same coin..."
The burning inside me changed. It no longer hurts me to think of Joshua (ah, the heck, of course sometimes it still does, but it got a lot better by now anyway). Instead, thinking of him makes me feel a new kind of responsibility inside me. I don't know whether I will see Joshua again or not, but if I do, I don't want to have the time in between wasted. I have to continue to grow, but now I'm not doing it for myself, but in the name of my love, our love to each other. And on the day I realized this, I felt the desire to write this down, as an oath, a poem. So here is a translation of this poem (doesn't sound too well in English lyrics, maybe one day I will work on a better version) and with it I want to, at least for now, end this story of Nathan and Joshua.
From Nathan to Joshua:
I train my spirit, For on his wings I will Show you the world I train my strength For on its shoulders I will Carry you through every storm I train my senses For with their sharpness I will Guide you on your way I train my hands For with their art I will Weave you a dream I train my heart For in its love I will Always be with you I train my gifts For with their skill I will Help you build your world
So that was it. I hope you enjoyed my story. Maybe it wasn't what you expected, but to be fair I may consider to get into writing a fictional story that has more the touch of usual "Nifty stories". That would depend on the reactions that I get from this story though. So please email me your opinion, nice greetings or constructive criticism at Nathan_tigger@yahoo.de (I really LOVE to get emails, so I even promise to answer, really J)
I also want to take that opportuniy to express my gratitude to some people.
A BIG Thank You to:
My Mum and Dad, my elder brother (who is the straightest guy I ever met, I was just soo close to come out to him, just to enjoy the look on his face, `evil grin'), my girlfriend and my best buddy Mike. All of them will hopefully never read this, but if they do: Guys I love you more than my life!!!
Joshua (not the one in my story), but the author of Joshua's story on Nifty, who happens (coincidentally???) to have the same name as the deepest love of my life. Joshua's story has inspired me to write this, and if only half of the stuff he writes is non-fiction, he is one of the coolest guys I ever read of...
Joshua, my heart and soul. Everyday I pray to meet you again. Maybe we will, maybe it is our destiny to go separate ways. Only fate can tell. But I am grateful for the time we could share, even if it was so short. I will always love you, and all my thoughts, my heart and my soul will always be with you on your way.
Nathan
"Everyone wants to be different. I want to be just normal. It's not my fault that my vision of being normal is stranger than their version of being different."