Devon Hunter

I don’t really know why I’m doing this, or why my first impulse is to come here and write it. I don’t know if it’s symptomatic of living in a Twitter/Facebook world, or if it’s because I think of my blog as a safe space where I can just get everything out of my head. Either way, it’s a mix of shame and shock I’m feeling for doing this here; however, I don’t know where or how else to contend with this.

I am one of the luckiest people on the planet: I knew all four of my grandparents. I didn’t lose my Grampa K until I was 12. I’ve had the other three ever since, and I’m 34. I’ve had them all with me my whole life. And it’s too fucking weird to understand how someone who is such a constant is now not. My Grampa V was a staggering genius. You have know idea. He was one of the top five engineers in the world in his field while he was working. He wrote the program to prevent a nuclear meltdown in GA/SC like the one that happened at Three Mile Island – the script for that program was given to President Carter as a present. He supported his wife and six kids, and he paid for my college education. He was one of the quietest, kindest men I have ever known. And I love him so much that I think my head is going to cave in now that he’s gone.

I was very calm with Mom just now. She’s already under enough pressure, and doesn’t need my crying. But the more I type the more I don’t feel good. I’m going to stop now. I just needed to get that out of my head. I don’t know anything about the way this is going to be arranged, so I don’t know if I will be going to Atlanta this weekend or not.

At any rate, Grampa V is not suffering anymore. Although I will miss him, I know that for the rest of my life I will have a firm memory of him as one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever known. He didn’t believe in any particular afterlife, given that his math and science were all he felt he needed to explain what he needed to know (and he was very satisfied in that, and expressed no fear); however, I know that… oh, shit. I don’t know what I know. I’m just glad he’s not sick anymore.

OH MY GOD!!

I don’t remember how much I’ve talked directly about it, but I used to be an educator for six years. I was a high school teacher and a college professor. I left, not because of students (who can definitely be challenging), but because of administrators and their bullshit politics. I am not the one to berate in front of parents/students/staff, I can tell you that much… I was so miserable within the institution that I ended up on medication. It was a rough time. Bad.

Anyway, from time to time a former student will find me on Facebook, and it is so overwhelmingly gratifying to see how well they’re doing! I remember them as teenagers or undergrads, so when I see these beautiful women completing degrees in law or nursing, or who are going to graduate school, and who tell me that it was ME who helped them get there??? OH MY GOD… you have no idea how much I wish I’d gotten that while I was still teaching… But, better late than never.

I loved my girls. I really did. I was in love with them, and they were constantly breaking my heart. The day I wrote my resignation letter for the high school was when I realized that I’d given all I could, and it would never be enough to fix the hurt and abuse many of them suffered. But today I got friend requests from over ten of my girls… TEN… And they’re all alive. They’re not only alive, they’re surviving. Better yet: They’re thriving! And it almost rips my heart out that they’ve become the incredible women they are. ME! ME! I inspired them to leave the neighborhoods that sought to clutch them and hold them; to break out of systemic abuse; to aspire to successes that no one else dreamed for them. ME!

If I’d had a little more of this nourishment as an educator I can tell you I would have never left it. But no. Our system is set up to blame every short coming on teachers, rather than on parents who don’t raise their children. Rather than on kids who have decided to refuse to learn. On political structures like No Child Left Behind that leave almost every child behind… And now they want to tie teacher pay to student achievement??? You must have lost your damn mind…

But, better late than never… I never regretted being an educator, but now I can look back, and much of the bitterness about those six years has evaporated. And this shines a bright light on a simple fact: People will extend beyond themselves time and again for only so long; however, a little simple recognition is sometimes enough to completely revitalize a drained battery. So, if you are in a position of power; or if you are someone who is guided by someone doing his/her best to help you learn; or if you see someone who is threadbear in his/her soul… THANK HIM/HER FOR THE GOOD WORK BEING DONE! You may have no idea how valuable that actually is.

Hearing from Whitney, Megan, Kelli, Kim, Xenia, Tiesha, Leslie, Melissa, Jessica, Byrd, Robyn, and all my other dance babies is a gift I never expected, and one I wish now I’d gotten sooner. Knowing that they respected me (even if, as teenagers, they didn’t know how to express it), and that they have remembered me gives me something precious, and brings levity to the memory of a very dark time.

ME! It’s because of me…

PS

Don’t forget to place your vote for Best Escort Blog for the 2010 Hookies by visiting my ad on Rentboy! The check boxes are at the bottom of the righthand sidebar.

Okay, I gave it a good college try, but Matt’s just not that into me. Part 1 to this scenario is here, and part 2 is here. My career isn’t the issue. His career is the issue. He would make time to hook up with me for those first 6 weeks, but he (for two weeks now since I told him about my work) can’t make the time to talk to me with any consistency or maturity. He’s always “at work.” The day that I told him about my profession I went to see him after he left the restaurant he manages (at his request), but he was drunk when I got there and dropped the “L-bomb” on me. He is acting like he doesn’t remember it, but everything changed, not when I told him I’m an escort, but when he was talking through the alcohol. He evidently embarrassed himself beyond his comfort zone. And I have to be honest about that. He’s not coming back. And that fucking sucks, because I’m willing to shrug it off and continue on. But sometimes it’s hard to take my own advice, and I have to hear it from someone else:

Just a few days ago I blogged about a worry concerning telling someone about my career, and how that might completely end our friendship/budding relationship. I ate, Sunday (the day before yesterday), at the restaurant he manages. I had a glass of wine. I told him everything.

And he didn’t run away.

“I’m not a judgmental person,” is all he said.

In fact, he’d already figured it out. I just gogged at him a bit. This was completely unexpected, given the conversations we’d had about monogamy. “I kinda put it together on my own a while back. I’m not stupid.” I was worried over nothing. He had pieced it together two weeks before I told him. In the time since he understood why I had avoided his questions I’d already seen him a few more times. And then I spent the evening with him after I told him as well! We haven’t watched “Dangerous Beauty” yet, but he wants to see it.

I really do get rewarded from time to time for retaining my belief in hope.

See part 3 of this story…

I have been blogging consistently now for almost two years – next month will be my “cotton” anniversary… Somehow that seems a bit underwhelming, but what can you do? But third years are evidently celebrated with leather, so here’s hoping I get that far with this site.

In all this time I have been very open about the challenges, pleasures, obstacles, advantages, and other facets of doing what I do. And I don’t have any regrets about that at all. I wouldn’t change any of it (and I don’t, even when I write something that I later feel embarrassed about on some level). It’s all right here. That is part and parcel with the whole reason I blog.

I have generally embraced wholeheartedly the scenario that is being single. I love it. I do. Tremendously! I even plan to marry myself on my birthday in 2012. I have the ring from Tiffany’s picked out, I will have a tux tailor made, and I will have a ceremony with friends and family present. I truly enjoy singledom. In all of 2008 I think my only lapse was Kenny. In 2009 I met Allen and Steve. But I have grown to appreciate them as people, even though they weren’t what I thought they were supposed to be. They are their own men, and they have to be accepted as they are (just as I ask people to do of me). But both of them were easy to discount as potential partners, because they live far from me.

But what to do… There’s the potential to know someone better right here where I live. This is a first in three years. Since I left my last boyfriend I have not run into the possibility of a partner right in my own back yard. He has very reasonable expectations about a standard relationship. He desires monogamy, and doesn’t understand how a person cheats if he’s in love.

Sigh.

But that template works in a world that doesn’t exist!! I would just leave him as a fuckbuddy who could’ve been more, but I get the distinct impression that this is a scenario that won’t stay as it is (because he won’t let it). In the interest of preserving friendship if the potential romance sours, of defining boundaries in case a relationship develops despite my career, and of being upfront about the various pitfalls that may be waiting… I have to tell him what I do.

I’m not ashamed of my life or of my career. I do fear that he won’t understand. And there is some nervousness on my part that he will reject me out of hand (but then that won’t be a bad situation if I get out of a relationship with someone who won’t accept all of me). However, he will eventually find out, and I would much prefer to be the one to tell him. I think I will watch “Dangerous Beauty” with him, and then ask him his thoughts about this achingly beautiful movie.

I just want to be left in peace with my cat, my blog, and my short-lived trysts. Oh hell… I’m actually hoping he can handle the truth. People say they want honesty, but it seems that relationships last based on what you DON’T tell people.

EDIT: See part 2 of this story… See part 3 of this story…