I still find it hard to believe that 1990 was thirty years ago.
As the calendar turned over from 1989 to 1990, I was a little over a year into my thirties, a time in life that my dad often told me would be my best.
Unfortunately it wasn't.
If the specter of AIDS and friends dropping dead almost weekly weren't enough of a "prime time" buzzkill, I wasted a good portion of the decade pining over a man who would never—who could never—be the man I so desperately wanted him to be.
From the moment our eyes first locked on the outbound L-train at the Montgomery MUNI station, I knew he was going to be trouble. That did not, however, prevent me from bounding off the train after he turned and winked at me when he got off at the Civic Center station—even though it wasn't my stop and getting a seat on the next outbound train was going to be a bitch.
To this day I still don't know what lesson the Rory Hansen affair was meant to teach me. While he admitted shortly after we met to once having a problem with crystal meth, he assured me that he was clean and everything was under control. Nothing in his behavior indicated otherwise, so I took him at his word. It wasn't until a year or so later that his behavior changed, no doubt prompted in no small part by my own manic behavior in trying to get him to commit to something more than just casual dating. There was a lot going on behind the scenes (his bisexuality, his continuing deep emotional attachment to his tweeker ex) as well, and it was obvious it was not under control. When we finally split up it was not pretty.
Over the course of the next year we tried several times to reconcile, but each time it never got beyond a single dinner together. It was obvious that we were never going to find a resolution to our differences in this life, and finally we both moved on.
Shortly thereafter, and before I moved out of the building where Rory and I had separate apartments, I ended up becoming infatuated with the ex of my next door neighbor. Ron and I actually became friends. But a year later I finally confessed that I loved him and—after him all but laughing in my face by saying, "How could I fall in love with you?" We parted company.
At this point—a little more than halfway through the decade—I'd had enough of San Francisco. Additionally I'd reached the point after eight and a half years with the same architectural office I'd worked at since shortly after arriving in the City, that I'd stopped caring whether public toilets needed to be spaced at 2'-6" or 2'-8" on center—and knew I needed to make a change. After an early abortive attempt to leave The City at the start of 1995 failed, I successfully cut my ties returned to Tucson that summer.
Tucson was the wonderful change I needed. I moved back into the apartment complex I'd lived in right before relocating to San Francisco ten years earlier, and it genuinely felt good to be back. The first thunderstorm that rumbled through in August gave me chills and the smell of creosote in the air afterward was a slice of heaven.
Employment, however was a struggle, I'd hoped to get my foot in the door somewhere doing PC tech support, but it was obvious that wasn't going to happen because there was just no demand in Tucson at the time. So, after first working as an 1099 contractor creating production documents for a small, one-man builder, when the opportunity presented itself to work for one of Tucson's premier residential architects, I jumped on it. Hell, if I was going to be stuck in architecture for a while longer I might as well work somewhere interesting. But even that had issues. As I recall the pay was decent and I had full benefits, but the narcissism that went along with working for such a personality was wearing and I was summarily ignored when I offered suggestions based on my own experience on how to improve workflow or customize AutoCAD.
Along the same time another mess came knocking at my door in the form of Emmett Higgin. People warned me about Emmett, but did I listen?
Of course not.
In a nutshell, after dating for about three months, I learned Emmett was dating at least two other men on the downlow—while still living with and involved with his supposed ex. By the time this came to a head, I realized the old adage, "No matter where you go, there you are," was more truth than fiction. Even though I'd changed geographic locations, my relationship drama, the ongoing emotional fallout from Rory, had come right along with me.
I remember meeting one of the other guys Emmett was dating (a friend of my ex—for whom Emmett's behavior also came as a shock) one evening, and after comparing notes, the next time Mr. Higgin and I got together I told him I knew about everything that was going on and demanded that he get the fuck out of my life. Thankfully, he obliged.
This, combined with the ongoing narcissism of my employer, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was time to go home; to return to San Francisco and face my demons head-on.
(to be continued…)