AUTHENTIC LIFE TO LIVE? DO IT

An Authentic Life is:

A. What your friends think is genuine?

B: What you think is undisputed?

C. A mash-up of everything you feel second by second and you write a blog about it?

Wait a minute. What?

I’ve seen an ad more than once that mentions ‘Living Your Authentic Life.’

If my memory serves correctly it encourages the LGBTQIA+ community to embrace their feelings of being ‘different,’ of not being the person they felt forced to portray to the real world.

My Gay Uncle Johnny, his self-named title, didn’t have a problem living his authentic life.

He was the gay man’s gay man beginning in high school in the mid-60’s.

His parents had standing in their small town community when he announced he was gay to them.

Parents: Then you’ll have to move. We have standing in our small town. You can’t be gay.

GUJ: Fine. If you ever want to see me again I’ll be in San Francisco. Good-bye.

He graduated and left his small town for the gay capitol of America.

In short time his mom and dad missed him too much, changed their attitudes, and began regular visits to San Francisco.

A short time later they became activists in their own community with PFLAG.

Gay Uncle Johnny’s Authentic Life

Uncle John walked the walk and talked the talk, always on brand.

After a visit my Mom asked, “Why does he have to walk like that and talk like that?”

Because he was part of the gay community, Ma? Just a guess though.

In all fairness he did have a prance in his walk and a lisp in his talk.

This was a manly man of 6’5″, 210 lbs with a prance and a lisp that no one had more fun with than him.

Did I mention he looked like the young Tom Selleck? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

He had an active social life that included a stint in re-hab where he met his future husband, a man who’d been married twenty years with grown children.

They got married and moved to the other Gay Capitol.

They were happy, then they weren’t.

It was something about his husband wanting to party like it was still the 70’s.

I don’t remember if they were still together when he died of an OD.

2

After that Uncle John moved to Portland and we met his friends.

He had somehow survived the San Francisco AIDS epidemic of the 80’s.

Then his Portland friends began getting sick and dying.

After his boyfriend, who he said was not his boyfriend but a roommate, got sick and died he moved to Europe.

Through out it all Gay Uncle Johnny was one of the best men I’ve ever known.

His is the best example of living an Authentic Life there ever was.

Detecting Authentic Life

Who ever you are and where ever you may be, take a look around.

Take a look. Just turn your head this way, then that, tilted up from the angle you use to read your screen.

Did you do it?

What you just looked at and catalogued in your mind is your authentic life.

It’s you. Just you.

Now comes the tricky part. Did what you see give you an ‘Alright’ or an ‘Aw fuck’ feeling?

Take a refresher:

Try and find common ground with others.

Be aware of your surroundings and the company you are in.

The authentic life is consistent, dependable.

Some would call it boring. Is it boring to be consistent and dependable?

I hear this, “But Big Dave, how can I tell if someone is consistent and dependable?”

Here’s one way: someone living an authentic life hears shit talk and takes it for what it is, shit talk, and leaves it where they heard it instead of spreading it.

Break the shit talk seal and there goes authenticity.

After that you’ve got an oral hygiene problem: STB, or shit talk breath.

So be your best self. Anything less is simply not acceptable or healthy.

And brush your teeth with a new tooth brush.