Rudder

My last post related how posting in my own voice would require a new approach, one which accepts my sexual preference and the duality of my lifestyle. With that foundation in place, I come to the most important aspect of my life I haven’t yet mentioned: my partner, rudder. Rudder is my pup, and I am his Alpha. We met online just less than two years ago through a mutual friend who thought we should know each other simply because we are both Canadian.

I developed our relationship slowly since we met online, so that we could both sure of what we were getting into, and that it was not just lust mistaken for love. Despite the distance our mutual love only grew deeper with each passing day. Rudder and I met in person in October 2006 and over the course of the last eleven months or so, we have come to enjoy each other’s company immensely. When I finally presented the opportunity, the pup accepted my collar, a symbol in our tribe that carries the equivalence of a wedding band.

We see each other whenever we can, which is difficult since my pup lives a plane ride away. The last visit rudder managed was a week long surprise visit that started Labor Day weekend. We won’t get to see each other in person again until mid-November when he will be joining me and my family on a Royal Caribbean cruise. I miss him terribly even though we talk several times daily, by IM and phone. I miss his presence and yearn for his touch, something that may sound strange for a top to say, yet it is undeniably true.

Though I am always aware of rudder’s absence, it is something that I deal with. I am practical person, and there is no sensible alternative so I don’t think on it too much. I have always been a survivor and make the best of what I can for me and my pack – that is why I am the alpha. I know logically that the love of my life cannot be here with me as yet – there are family relationships that need to be worked and also practical considerations that need to be properly resolved before he moves. So, in the past few weeks, while it would have been great to have rudder home with me, I accept the practical the reality and have just dealt with my boredom.

However, surfing through Flickr’s bear groups and through Mike Grauer’s photos to counter that boredom, also showed me a lifestyle that was real and that existed – photos which evidenced great community of bears and lucky men who, like Mr. Grauer, live with their partners just as straight couples do – outside of the shadow of social chastisement. Thinking about what the pictures meant to me and how they compared to the life I am living, culminated in a few distilled observations of my own life.

One observation was that there are communities out there that I am a part of but there are none that I feel that I truly belong and am accepted in, as Mr. Grauer is. I want to belong to a welcoming community of like minded people, and be accepted within that community. A second observation was that Mr. Grauer’s community affords a range of reliable friends within a close geography. A third observation despite hardships through his life and day to day existence, Mr. Grauer’s narrative and photos imply a happy existence that is shared with a loving partner – something that is also missing from my life. I want to be among those men who happily partnered and together.

These desires remain unfulfilled in my life. I am a member of the pup community, but I do not feel belonging or acceptance in as palpable a form as I see from the world which Mr. Grauer inhabits. Perhaps this is because the pup community is still small and geographically diverse, and does not yet have the strength and support found in the bear community. This is also why I believe it is hard for me to have reliable friends in a close geography. And lastly, rudder cannot yet be here with me full time for many sensible, practical and logical reasons.

However, it is here where the photos made their greatest impact on me. Despite my practical side understanding rudder’s absence, and my logical side coping with it, the photos highlighted my desire to have my pup with me during these past days. My ennui stems from the absence of my life mate, and my feelings are in the realm of emotion and outside of logic or practicality. The time passed since Sunday has helped organize and crystallize my thoughts; what I originally thought was ennui or an expression of boredom and listlessness is really a bout of mild depression. My logical practical side keeps a stiff upper lip and provides the fiction that I am dealing with his absence, but my emotional needs remains overwhelmingly strong in his absence. My stay at home during these past weeks, a necessary evil to save money for my trips, has amplified it.

Looking at the photos also helped me pin down why being at home without rudder was depressing, and I believe that it comes down to how our home changes when he is here. Right now, as I type this post I am alone in the house that I have decorated and lived in alone for many years. The place truly that reflects my personality and interests, and yet it is still a machine for living – a place to organize my private life, a room to sleep in, and a desk to do some personal work at my computer. With rudder here, it becomes a home, a place where memories are made, love and experiences shared and life actually happens.

Without rudder, my home returns to what I have always wanted my house to be in the past which goes back to the descriptions of me from my last post. My introverted nature and my dual lifestyle have conditioned me to treat my home as a sanctum, like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Although I frequently have guests, there is a strong part of me that really doesn’t want guests in my home. I have guests mostly because it is a way to accommodate my geographically diverse friends who would otherwise find it hard to visit. My home is my private space where I can have time alone to for me to gather my thoughts, and also because I always fear that I will have left something about that is irrefutable evidence of my sexual preference. Yet when rudder is here, it seems so natural for him to be here sharing my life that I never think of him as a guest or intrusion into my home. Indeed, the opposite is true – not only is he not an intrusion, but more and more a he is a necessity. As my partner, he knows better than anyone of my preferences and proclivities. He calms me and helps restores my mental balance, whether it is from a gentle hug, a soft caress or even simply having his head in my lap and somehow my private restorative space is at once not invaded and yet improved by his presence. He has become the reason that my apartment is no longer a sterile environment where I sleep and work at my computer, a reason to come home.

This post begins to explore some of the themes in the previous posts and introduces some others: belonging and community, emotionally and geographically closer friends, and perhaps most importantly the desire to have my partner be an even greater part of my life, the impact he has already had, and my hopes for our life together.

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A music video for this post:


Pat Benetar, We Belong