Landmark Ahoy!?

This weekend marks yet another adventure of Landmark Education. This time it’s me – Dragon Rider (aka Calen). As with my predecessors, I’ll hope to provide insightful commentary pre and post my encounter, as well as give a complete and honest opinion of the program and my issues that I know I don’t know. I’m excited – not yet nervous – but I can tell as Friday approaches that I’m starting to feel the butterflies of anxiety.

I assume that no significant change will be marked within myself (more like pockets of the unknown exposed), though there is a considerable part of me that hopes there will be – like a revelation or some overwhelming epiphany that catapults me into a more confident and comfortable lifestyle… meanwhile, still living each day to it’s fullest (or at least I plan to). For each of us that complete the course from here on out, we definitely have a slight advantage – I know what to expect before, during and after the course… I’ve seen it with my friends. Though, even with this comforting notion, I’m going in blind… similar to my housemate Gina and her recent birthday celebrations. Sometimes it’s better to forget what you know, or expect, and take it all in one second at a time like you’re doing it for the first time.

In addition to this weekend, I’ve recently made some major breakthroughs (thanks to signing up for Landmark) with fellow friends and an ex-girlfriend. I exposed myself for the faggot I am… I laugh openly. I’ve become more comfortable with the idea of being gay and have begun to inform those individuals of my past – a major step for me and one that I would continue to avoid if I had complete control of the situation. The fraternity brothers find out this weekend on the annual frat retreat… I chose not to go as I felt my telling them in person would put a strange vibe in the air all weekend. Instead I sent them a 5 page letter and thrust myself into Landmark… I await their response.

So until this weekend…

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet