Saturday, January 26, 2013

The One Where Vic Blogs....

I have written this post about fifteen times.

Written and deleted. Written and deleted.

I have vented, cried, expressed confusion, hurt, disappointment. I have called out those who betrayed my trust, those who found me guilty without a fair trial, those who turned their backs on me, those who listened to others and drew a conclusion without talking to me first, and those who gossiped and slandered my name and reputation for whatever feeble reason they could come up with.

I have admitted my flaws, laughed about the flaws of humanity and cried over them all.

I have been the victim and I have been the villain, but I was never a martyr.

There are a lot of labels I could give myself (though I won't do that online) and there are labels that people can give me, but something that I've learned recently is that nobody's label can stick to me unless I let it. No one has power over me unless I give it to them. Nobody can hurt me, betray my trust or turn their back on me unless I let them close enough to do so.

I'm not saying that I've decided to be emotionally closed off, that accomplishes nothing and I've been that way before, it was no fun. I'm going to be 30 this year and honestly? It's seriously time for me to leave the high school bullshit at Winter Haven High School where I graduated from over 10 years ago.

So since I'm not going to go into details and lay all of that bullshit out, what is this post about?

Family.

I have learned so much about family and though I know many of you won't agree with my decision to reconcile with my bio family, I realized something about true family. Family should accept you, but they don't always do so. That doesn't mean they love you any less, it just means that there's some aspect of your life they don't agree with. The same is true for my birth family. They don't "accept" me as Vic, they probably never will, but after half a year without me, my birth mother never stopped contacting me. It freaked me out at first, big time, but I realized what my therapist had been trying to tell me for a long time, around October of last year.

My bio family loves me in their own way.

I thought they couldn't or wouldn't love me as a man. They don't really talk about it or acknowledge it unless faced with the truth of it (mail, phone calls, checks, etc.) but they have invited me back and want to help take care of me because of my being blind and my other health issues. They still talk exhaustively about religion and politics and how Obama is the anti-Christ (LOL) but I know they're not trying to attack me with it, they're being normal. They know what I believe, they know what I write, they know how I live (my bio mom found condoms in my bag today and the only thing she said was "What does a blind person need condoms for?" That's a win for me because she didn't say "a blind woman."), they know who I voted for and what I stand for and you know what? I'm still here. In spite of the horrible things that happened in October and November of 2011 and the things I suffered growing up, it wasn't all bad and in spite of it all, I know that my bio family still wants me. Not all of them (I won't even get into that), but enough of them that I no longer feel that heavy weight in my chest that used to always be there.

What a difference a year makes.

And that's what family, true family is all about. Regardless of blood or choice I now know what constitutes a real family member for me:


  1. Forgiveness
  2. Understanding
  3. Love
  4. Support
  5. Encouragement
  6. Allegiance to One Another
  7. Communication
  8. Loyalty
  9. Interest in Each Other     and
  10. Trust

So my New Year's Resolution is not to hold onto relationships that don't exist on the part of everyone involved (unless it's a celebrity crush because hello?! I'm totally supposed to be married to John Barrowman, Shemar Moore, Scott Hoying, Matt Bomer AND Charlie David), to improve myself, to focus on my writing and my classes, to make contacts and connections for Promise House and to embrace family in all its many different forms.

And I may not blog often but know that I think about you all during my day. I'm not going to blog as much as I used to or share as much of myself as I used to, but I'm still here and I'll still share and I will always, always be me, no matter what. And in honor of one of my favorite shows: "Friends," every blog post will be titled "The One Where..." and then I'll give you a clue about what's going on.

I hope everyone had a happy Inauguration Day and a happy MLK Jr Day and I so hope that everyone's new year is starting off great. Because I want that for everyone that I know, regardless.

Have a great weekend everyone!


-Vic

Monday, January 14, 2013

FAIR Girls


After listening to Jada Pinkett Smith on Katie, I just made a donation and signed up to get involved. I am imploring all of my readers and author/publisher friends to donate or volunteer as well. Sex trafficking, slave labor and sex slavery is active in the United States and all over the world. Every day young girls are kidnapped, sold, raped, beaten and killed when trying to escape their enslavers. In the year 2013 this is more than unacceptable. It was never acceptable and we have the power to get involved and put a stop to it.

Please go to the link and see how you can help: http://www.fairgirls.org/page/get-involved


FAIR Girls (formerly FAIR Fund) prevents the exploitation of girls worldwide with empowerment and education. Through prevention education, compassionate care, and survivor inclusive advocacy, FAIR Girls creates opportunities for girls to become confident, happy, healthy young women.
Founded by Andrea Powell and Caroline Tower Morris in 2003, FAIR Girls was created to empower girls in the U.S. and around the world who have been forgotten, exploited or otherwise are at-risk of not reaching their potential. FAIR stands for Free, Aware, Inspired, Restored – this is exactly what we hope the girls we work with will become. It is a name that reflects our ongoing commitment to providing girls around the world the chance to live happy, healthy, empowered lives.
FAIR Girls currently operates programs in Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Russia, Uganda, and the United States. The FAIR Girls home office in Washington, D.C. offers compassionate care to prevent the exploitation of all girls, with a special emphasis on girls who have experienced homelessness, life inside the foster care system, sexual abuse, and trafficking.


One way you can get involved:



Note: Gift cards to CVS, Target, Old Navy, Safeway, Chipotle, Harris Teeter, etc. are highly welcome because they empower girls to shop for themselves. D.C. Metro cards are also greatly appreciated to facilitate girls' attendance at workshops.

List of in-kind donations here

To send donations: Contact Sarah Lu, Director of Development, at 202.609.7994 or sarah@fairgirls.org. Donations can be mailed to our UPS box (address below) or dropped off (appointment required.) Thank you for making a difference in the life of a girl!

2100 M St NW

Ste 170-254

Washington DC 20037

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Memories......

How many of you out there remember these awesome shows?

  1. California Dreams
  2. USA High
  3. Hang Time
  4. One World
  5. Salute Your Shorts
  6. My So Called Life
  7. The Secret World of Alex Mack
  8. Saved by the Bell
  9. Saved by the Bell: The New Class
  10. City Guys
  11. Clarissa Explains it All
  12. All That
  13. Kenan & Kel
  14. Hey Dude!
  15. My Two Dads
  16. The Cosby Show
  17. A Different World
  18. Living Single
  19. Step by Step
  20. Family Matters
  21. Dawson's Creek

I'm thinking about holding a contest surrounding these twenty-one shows. I don't know for what yet, but I'm definitely thinking about it. I grew up watching these shows whenever I wasn't watching musicals or reading or writing and I've been thinking about them a lot lately. Especially which shows I want to have a reunion (*cough* Dawson's Creek *cough*) and it's all because of Friends and Queer as Folk. I've been thinking about what a reunion episode/movie would look like for them and while I have the bones of a story for QaF and an idea for Friends, I haven't written them yet. But if I said something like "Who loves orange soda?" who would be able to identify the show and finish the phrase?

Hhmmmm..... it bodes thinking about.


-Vicktor Aleksandr B