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Gay Peoples Chronicle

September 1986

THE THOUGHT CONNECTION

"THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH"

By CHRISTINE BURTON

on the it, we advan-

Youth is wasted young. While we had were unaware of its tages because our sights were set on adulthood and the freedom we imagined it would bring. Without rejoicing in the unique vitality that is characteristic of youth, without using its season to discover who and what we are, we played the sports our culture taught us and learned the social mores required of us. We moved through the ritualistic rules of the games, glad only when we avoided the shame of defeat and/or the tragedy of rejection. While young, we were so busy getting on with life that our youth slipped by without our noticing it.

Perhaps this is true because growing years are perceived by our culture as a time in which to manufacture adults who will function

smoothly in an artificial world. If a college graduate comes off the assembly line with all the accouterments for material success and professional achievement, the system has proved its superiority. And since nothing succeeds like success, think it is essential we that we maintain the status keep things simple and quo, close our eyes to the possibility that we don't know all the answers. Nor are we ready to admit that the ones we do know might be wrong.

Without being aware of its transcience, our youth vanished. Born old, we became older while we remained underdeveloped. This is against the nature of life itself.

In order to understand the nature of life we might consider the radish. If it is to thrive, its seed must be planted not too deeply in soil of moderate fertility and preferably at a time when the soil is not too warm. The soil must be neither too dry nor too wet.. Sunlight must be plentiful. Like all growing things, the radish is a unique life form with Own individual needs. want to

its

If

You

he

successful with a radish you requirehave to know its ments and respect its lifestyle.

The same is true of every life form on Planet Earth. The seeds of Pearly Everlasting, one of the most beautiful of wild flowers, will not germinate if the soil is rich or too moist. Some plants require saline soil, others must have acid or alkali soil and you a better believe it that plants vary in their light and temperature preferences or Pearly Everlasting will not grow, pepper plants will not bear and a tree will not get large enough to provide shade.

All of us know that no two dogs are exactly alike in

romanticize tha twisted time: Oh, to be young again and in love. Those whose hearts have been drained of romance, as well as the sexually unsatisfied, pine for the fountain of youth as though fewer years could bring us all we ever yearned for. We dream of an elixir capable of returning us to the infatuations of a bygone time.

The fact is that we cannot appreciate something until we have lost it or at least have come to realize that we never had it. With maturity comes the knowledge that the youth that was ours was used for purposes not its own. With that sense of loss, for the first time in our lives we can, if we will,

peel

watch most of my lesbian sisters and

gay brothers living I in fear.

back

the layers of programing to learn that each of us is unique and of irreplaceable value.

appearance or in temperament, nor are cats. Yet we expect all our sons to flesh out the image of what we think it is to be manly, and each of our daughters to add to the ease and happiness of some man and both sexes to marry each other and produce babies. For these results, we mutilate our own children. We respect their individualities less than we respect the nature of a radish. Instead of if allowing our children the freedom to discover that which is theirs, we rob them of their birthright to be their own per-

son. It is not until middle age, when life's more important decisions have long

our

been made and most of us the have little left but residue of boredom, that we begin to think about lost youth. By the time affluence of a sort has rethe indigence of our placed years, we begin to younger

ANDREW PETER BEEBE, PH.D.

PSYCHOLOGIST

(216) 642-2287

Realizing that, we are able to perceive that others have their individualities also, and we can, if we will, see the differences between cats and dogs, radishes and pine trees. We can, if we will, allow each one we encounter to be her/his own person. And we can, we will, see the difference between infatuation and love.

it

is human

Although nature to love, lesbian women and gay men are not supposed to love. Heterosexism in its arrogance, mands total imitation of itself although any thinking person can see that imposed heterosexual behavior violates the innate diversity in all of life.

paradigm tells me I must at

and the Catholic

church

least abstain from all sexual expression of my love for a person of my own gender. Both of them would deny me the requirements of my nature. They allow more dignity to a radish.

With their hatred they have poisoned the milieu in which I must live. I watch most sisters of my lesbian and gay brothers living in fear that employers will dismiss them that their families will begin to loathe them and that many of their friends will abandon them. They are forced to live by lies and subterfuges in order to survive. I behold them living less than a human life in closets they hope are protecting them.

However as mutilated as organized religions prefer that I be, I will not attempt to change the nature I was born with. To allow them that power over me would destroy not only me. By their own oppression, op pressors are defeated, although later than those they

oppress.

Human nature's imperative is to love someone who returns that love. Denying it, one is imprisoned, shut away from the needs of one's own nature. For too many years I have lived a desiccated life, a life with too little joy one less creative and productive than it could have been. Now that I have lifted my face from the darkness of my own isolation to feel the light and warmth of the woman who loves me and who needs my love, I cannot will not, turn away from that life-giving joy. Does a Pearly Everlasting turn away from the sunlight? Does a tree shrivel from the udiu it needs? Dues a bird refuse to fly? Does the ocean still its waters? Does the sun die and become cold? Every living organism reaches out to fulfill its needs for Why growth. shouldn't it? Am I, with my talents, my abilities, my intelligence, my energy, my potential for service, of less importance than everything else that exists?

I will not deny myself that which is natural to me, that which deI must have to survive. I will not succumb to the demands of a perverted society that would deny me my right to myself. The love of my woman is my fountain of youth. Young again, I have come into my birthright be like None of happiness. shall take it from me. admirable Copyright 1986, by Christine Burton:

Falwell tells me I must change myself to him, hardly an

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