"Do you have a boyfriend?", one of several questions I get almost everyday at the facility, along with "How do you make your money?" and "do you give private yoga lessons where you put your leg behind your head?" To all of which I reply I can't answer that question. It's a challenge, a real challenge to keep your personal life separate with these guys for many reasons but the first is that they put them self out there. They share so much of them self, which helps them heal, and it almost seems unfair to not be able to show them the same courtesy, but I have to maintain those boundaries.
The other day one kid said to me "I bet you used to date rich and famous guys, and now you're into gangsters, huh?" I laughed and shook my head, but realized in that moment he wasn't too far off. I thought about my real hero's Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and I realized they all have done time...and I see that many of these young men posses those same qualities. Fearless to face the unknown and to put themselves on the line for a truth that is bigger then the confines of society. Not doing everything in order to maintain looking good, or avoid looking bad to other people. Really battling their demons (and we all have them) be it addictions, angers, or fears. And, an emergence of a honest and real self that is not built on a lifestyle or network cushion, but a soul that can't be beat.
I wanted to thank you, for you to be the first one that I thank. I don't want to say that I couldn't have done it without you, this whole becoming a better person thing, but I couldn't have done it without you.
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