Born This Way

Hey everyone, hope everyone is enjoying their weekend, as always.

I didn't think about writing today, but watching Glee brought me to write another post tonight.

Have to admit that I watch the show, and I like mostly the musical parts of it, anyone else a regular watcher?

Anyway, I watched Tuesday's episode and I have to admit that I'm a Lady Gaga fan and I liked the whole idea of the last episode. It also hit close to home, the last part when they were singing "Born This Way" was hard for me.

It's a song that has lyrics that really have meaning and really make me think sometimes. The main issue is that I was really born this way; no one asked me if I wanted to be gay and no one gave me a choice.

That's the cards that life dealt me and dealt most of us and we have to manage, I don't care what anyone says, being gay means you have it harder in life, It doesn't mean you can't succeed or be amazing, it just says that in this society you don't get anything easy.

The main thing for me is that I'm more accepting towards other gays than towards myself. When I use my brain and my rationale thinking I know I'm ok and that's just life, but when I get to my heart and deep inside I feel bad.

I know that I don't give any legitimacy to the gay part in me, I mean, I believe that we all have a couple of personalities in us, for me for example it's a basketball player as one personality and being gay as another.

I believe that it don't give enough legitimacy to the gay part, that I have my basketball cap on and I'm also homophobic towards myself and my gay part.

It's hard for me to say it, but sometimes what my teammates say in the locker room is what I think about myself, In a sense I feel much better about other gay men than about myself.
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Now I know there is a big improvement in the way I treat my gay part and the way I accept things as compared to the way I used to a couple years back, it's still not enough, but it's getting better.

The hardest thing to accept is that in a sense I can't really control it, I can see it and feel it, but since it's more an emotional thing it's hard to change.

I just need to accept that I'm this way and maybe that way I could improve the way I think and "treat" the gay personality in me, but easier said than done.

After all he also has a hard life, he never does anything, he only gets around one vacation a year, think about yourself, I'm sure you would also feel bad living a lie almost all year every year.

Again, I'm just saying at as I see and feel it, I know I was born this way, now I just need to accept it, but it's a process and it takes time..

And I think the Glee episode and Gaga's song really hit home on that.

Enjoy your

Injuries

Hey everyone, hope you are enjoying the playoffs, I sure am, at least the games that come on at normal hours of the day for me.

Today I wanted to write a little about something that has to do with me as an athlete, and doesn't have a big connection to me being gay.

Without going in to dates, a while back I suffered a serious knee injury that had me out for a real long time and required me to have an operation.
It happened to me during the season and I had to be sidelined and i went in to an operating room not long after.

After that came a month almost of barely doing anything, besides eating on having crutches to walk on, at least I get to be back in the U.S.A for a couple of weeks and had a chance to clear my head.

Through all this there is rehab, it's so hard and frustrating sometimes. I had to do the same thing almost every day and you barely improve, it's such a long process that sometimes you don't know what's ahead of you.

The worst thing through everything was not playing basketball, and not being a part of a team. I can honestly say that I didn't want my team to win sometimes, I didn't want to be left behind or forgotten and I wanted people and my team to remember that i'm in important part and they need me.

It came to the point that I couldn't watch games, I felt so bad, I wanted them to lose, but I was also completely bored. I think that In a sense I put basketball on the side for all that time. It was too painful and just showed me how strong my feelings for the game are.

I did more reading, more websites checking, more talking anonymously with people, but mostly doing everything or anything that doesn't have a touch to basketball.

I think it was the worst time I had since I became a basketball player. I worked so hard, everyday and sometimes twice a day, physiotherapy, weight room, running, lifting , shooting, anything you could think of, I did it, even got the chance to have sex once in all that time, but I won't tell if you don't, lol.

After the surgery and while sitting out, I hoped everything will go well, but you can never know after an operation, and sometimes you have to think about the worse, mostly I had a supportive family and friends, but some had to talk to me about reality.

I had to take into consideration that maybe something will go wrong, and then what's next? I didn't really want to think or talk about it, and I was also very positive that things will work out.

After a lot of hard work, I was back in practice, I was having so much fun and feeling great, when everything was said and done I can tell you that I came back healthy, my knee was strong and stable and I have been feeling well since. It was a dark time, a time that I think I connected to my gay side and left the basketball side on the sidelines.

After coming back, it took me sometime to get back to business, both psychically and mentally, cause I was already in a different place all during rehab, but gladly this story does have a good end to it, and so far so good.

Wanted to share this personal thing with you, even though it's mainly about basketball, but it also reminded me that some things in life are worth treasuring while we have them, cause we can lose them in a second.

Lonely

Hey, Two posts in three days, look at me go :).

Anyways I have a couple of minutes before leaving for practice so just wanted to share what's on my mind.

Like everyone I have better days than others, when I'm feeling happy and content and don't really feel like anything is bothering me or in my way.
However there are days and times when being lonely hits me. The last couple of days its been like this.

This is the best place for me to share it, since you "know" my story, anyway I have those times when I feel really alone and I start thinking of others things besides basketball, or better yet, only things outside of basketball.

Like every year I'm waiting for my vacation that is around the corner, around two months more or less before I can go have fun again.

The last week, I have just been feeling empty, not doing anything the whole day, just going to the gym twice a day, do my routine, work out hard, enjoy practice and go back to my four walls and my lonely home.

This is the time that I really want someone with me, badly, not talking about sex of course, but something more meaningful than that, someone to live with, to laugh with, someone to have a family with when the time comes. Even now that It's still too early for kids, I find myself thinking about kids a lot, about a family and about a different life.

I'm sharing this because you are my friends, even if not friends that know how I look or who I am on the outside all of you more or less already know me on the inside. I'm really not looking for people to tell me that maybe I should rethink my choices in life, because i'm not going to be leaving basketball any time soon, but just to share a little bit.

I hope somehow to meet someone while playing, this is difficult, but I'm still hoping maybe a miracle can happen. It's funny, I have so many friends on facebook, most of them of course are basketball fans, whom I don't really know, some of them also really hot, but you know, I can't really go up to them on facebook and ask them out on a date.

First of all I don't know if they are gay, secondly, well you already know what's the second problem. I also see on facebook a lot of gay guys from the states, people I would really like to try to talk to, but I can't really do that, and if I try opening a fake account.

I mean no picture or anything, I cant exactly open a conversation or make new friends without them knowing how I look like, I mean it's the starting point to a friendship or anything usually, not fun to hear, but that's the truth.

Guess that's more or less what I wanted to say and was on my heart, enjoy Sunday and enjoy your family :)

Kobe's Slur

First of all, sorry for not writing for the last two weeks, just been busy times, a lot of games as we head to the last part of the season.

Before I start writing about Kobe, just want to talk about a couple of things that people commented on from my last post. As Cash wrote, I do believe that some of the players will talk differently when in a one on one situation, rather than being together with the rest of the team in the locker room.

Some of them are intelligent guys who I guess don't want to feel like they are not part of the group or not joining the bandwagon. Having said that there are also some players, just like some people, that are just homophobic and scared of the thought or the idea that they might know anyone who is gay.

When we talked, some players also said that they would look differently at their friends of they knew they were gay, even if they were lifelong friends.

I enjoyed reading and hearing what Sr. Charles (Barkley) said ( thanks to Robert), that was really nice to read about him supporting gay marriage and having a lot of gay friends, it was surprising and heartwarming at the same time, guess there was a reason I always respected him.

As for "Joe in Philly", If all the people that said things like that wouldn't be able to reproduce, we won't have many kids around, unfortunately I feel like making gay slurs or comments is a thing of society, and while on the one hand people are more cautious, a lot feel like it's a trendy thing and feel like "one of the guys" when they make comments like that.

Now for Kobe, I have no doubt that he is one of the greatest that ever played the game and I think everyone would agree with me, as for his comment, I think it's not in place and I know it bothers a lot of people, but I think that sometimes not everything has to be made into an issue.

I'm sure that in the heat of the game a lot of things are being said, not all of them caught by the camera. I know from my experience that a lot of times players curse, ,most of the times those curses don't have anything to do with the gay community, but just other peoples mom or sister or so on and so on.

I guess everyone is much more sensitive when this issue comes up, of course the fine he got was more to show what the N.B.A thinks about what he said, because as we all know this is not something that will affect his bank account.

I don't think that making a big deal of every small thing that happens and is "directed" towards the gay community is a good idea, life a lot of time holds bad things in it, and players and people curse a lot and do it in different ways. No one would jump up if he would say mother fucker to the referee or something like that (pardon my language)

We have to be sensitive of course, but sometimes been over sensitive gets the wrong result and maybe shows a sign of weakens in a way, I understand where it comes from, since there are people with an agenda against the gay community. Guess what I’m saying is that we need to find the balance between what's really important and what is just part of life.

Before I wrap up, on a different note, there is the show White Collar, don't know if you watch it, but the star actor on there is called Matthew Bomer, and I must admit, he is just hot, the rumor is that he is gay, I can just say that it's another accomplishment for us the gays :). I started watching the show and just wanted to share.

Enjoy the N.B.A playoffs.