Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
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dly64:
--- Quote from: ekeby on July 24, 2006, 07:43:45 pm ---I'm a single GWM in Wisconsin. In 1966, I had an Ennis. We had a relationship in university, in a foreign country. We were 19 when it started. He was from Texas. After the second year, he went home for summer, met a girl and got her pregnant. He got married and I got a Dear John letter. I never saw him again.
"I'm not like you. I can't make it..." I fell apart. Had what used to be called a nervous breakdown. I was a big, strong 6'4" 190 lb guy. I dropped to 155 lbs, couldn't eat, only wanted to die. I didn't think I would survive it. I didn't want to. Now, when I watch that last "Jack I can't stand this no more scene", it's like getting hit with a sense-memory tsunami. Been there, big time.
After years of therapy I finally came out in my late 20s. Over the years I had a couple of long-term relationships with wonderful guys, but it was never the same. Not by a mile.
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Welcome to BetterMost! What a story! OMG! I am so sorry. I can hardly imagine.
You have a wonderful writing style and I hope you join in to all of the forums here. Make yourself at home!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: ekeby on July 24, 2006, 07:43:45 pm ---Forty years later, I still wonder "what if?" I've trawled the BBM boards half hoping I'd find a post that I could identify as his. And, just in case he's looking too, I'm here posting our story.
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Best wishes, ekeby. And I mean that whether you find him or not. Welcome to BetterMost. :)
David In Indy:
Welcome To Bettermost Richard, Andrew and Ekeby!
I hope you enjoy it here! :D
Samrim:
Hello ekeby,
Welcome to bettermost-brokeback,
I get the distinct impression that we're nearly all refugees here from IMDb, where the 'trolls' roam and attempt to spoil what should be a good experience.
Reading your first rate (and very moving) introduction, it sounds as though you and I might be of almost an identical generation. ;D I went through that stormy emotional phase at about the same time, when things were't easy for gays here either,in the English East Midlands. 'Gay' wasn't coined, and we had some far more unpleasant names to live with. My'nervous breakdown' was at the pressure point caused by recognising my true nature and not knowing how to deal with it (just as big a shameful secret as Ennis had to face).
Ennis's philosophy is mine, 'If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it', and I do, life is very good, better,happier, and more contented now than it has ever been, and I hope it is for you too. I just wish I hadn't spent so long agonising over the 'might have been': Never enough time,never enough time' ;D.
Oh, and thank G*d for Brokeback Mountain, a jewel of a film, to treasure.
Best Wishes, Ekeby, and all :)
Sam
ekeby:
--- Quote from: Samrim on July 25, 2006, 04:02:28 am ---Hello ekeby,
it sounds as though you and I might be of almost an identical generation. .... 'If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it', and I do, life is very good, better,happier, and more contented now than it has ever been, and I hope it is for you too. I just wish I hadn't spent so long agonising over the 'might have been': Never enough time,never enough time' ;D.
Sam
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Thanks for the kind thoughts, Sam and all who responded. Much appreciated. Strangely, writing that intro was cathartic. I've never put it so matter-of-factly, or talked about it like that. In later years I always shorthanded it.
Only one other person knew the whole story, a straight friend at university. As damage control I had told him about "Ennis" and myself. I assumed he'd figured it out when he saw us asleep in the same bed. Wrong. He was floored. Thankfully, he was also supportive, discrete, and amused. In those days, in my circle, if queer was seen at all in a postive light, it was as a lefty, revolutionary trait, and that's how he saw us. The times were-a-changin', if you remember, albeit at a crawl....
Yes, Sam, I'm contented now, and it's definitely more of the you-gotta-stand-it variety. Considering what we've been through, epoch-wise, we're lucky to be here at all. For me, it's easier to stand things if love is taken out of the equation. ("once burned...") About fifteen years ago I began to agree with what Andy Warhol said: "Sex is too much work."
Yeah, a lot of time was wasted agonizing over situations, people, what might have been, etc. But if we hadn't, we'd be somebody else, maybe somebody not as "complete." And then too, things might have been worse, right? --N
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