Dear Friends,

Since this is the holiday season (for most of you anyway), I want to take the opportunity to tell each and every one of you how much I appreciate being able to interact with all of you here in Oasis. Reading about all of your thoughts, feelings and experiences has been wonderfully cathartic for me. I had a truly horrible adolescence, and just knowing that others are still having the same issues that I had motivates me to do everything I can to help out, which in turn helps me to heal some wounds from that period of my life that still trouble me even now.

I hope that my responses to some of your posts have been of some help to you. I don't always have the right answers, but I want you to know that I love and care deeply about each of you. It wasn't too long ago that I was lying in a hospital bed, certain that I was not going to make it through the night. When I not only survived, but recovered, I took a whole new look at my life and decided that helping other people was going to be my highest priority from now on. Oasis is the first real chance I've had to do that. I'm extremely grateful to Jeff and Adrian for allowing me to be a part of this group, and to all of you for accepting me and making me feel welcome. Opportunities for older gay people to help younger gay people (as well as any other term you choose to apply to yourself) are rare thanks to pedophiles and others who abuse their positions of trust and power. This makes me absolutely sick, and terribly sad, because it deprives young people of all the benefits that can be derived from interaction with positive gay role models.

But I won't dwell on them. This post is about you, and how happy and thankful I am to have all of you in my life. I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday season and a very happy New Year.

Love and hugs,
Patrick