I have an apartment now.
A rather nice one at that.
My roommates are great, but one hits his girlfriend, who used to be mine.
My father told me he thought my sister's "lifestyle" (lesbianism, I wanted to freak and tell him its no life different than any other) is an affront to God, and a sin.
I didn't have the heart to tell him I have lain with other men, and it felt right to me too.
But then I told him what we witnessed last night. An outbreak of domestic violence. Only there was a locked door between us and them. It took everything I had not to break it down.
And I confided in my bigoted father:
"Only five times in my life have i felt completely powerless.
The first when I said goodbye to my mother the first time.
The second when you left my mother.
The third when I fell in love.
The fourth last night, when I witnessed that ordeal.
Through drugs, alcohol, poverty, homelessness, hunger, clinical insanity (I've been hospitalized many times) and incarceration, I never doubted my resolve.
When friend and family alike cast me out or betrayed me, I stood tall.
But the fifth time was now, when I realized you were so lost, and I could not guide you.
Every time my heart was so deeply wrapped in the situation I could not fathom my next action.
I couldn't act because of love.
I failed you.
I'm sorry."
We parted ways.
That's the only time my father has ever seen me shed a tear, since the day his father died, when I first saw him cry in front of me.
But me, I'm doing well.
He is disappointed in me, and that's fine, I haven't done much with myself, but really I feel I've done a great deal.
But to be disappointed in my sister for who she loves, that's truly a man I have failed in my life.
TL;DR I'm doing good but my dads a bigot, and that makes me sad.
A quick update