Essays

One of the most unsettling things about having accepted that autism is part of my story is not the label itself. If anything, that recognition has given me a sense of finally having solved part of a long-running mystery. The unsettling thing is that the new lens is having the effect of unraveling the past….

I first posted about Neurodivergence two years ago, but I had been thinking about the possibility that fit me for even longer. At some point while I was watching a lot of coming out videos and other videos about queerness, YouTube threw out a video on autism in its suggested videos and I watched it…

Both of my maternal grandparents were pack rats, which is how I came to have a lot of old family photos, many of people or places no one living can identify. Years ago, I started bringing the unknown ones to family gatherings, especially when I knew older relatives would be present. It helped put names…

I have been in the process the past year of adding some of my art to my Etsy shop, and I was recently reminded of the meaningful role that art had in my coming out story. It wasn’t that I wasn’t already teetering on the cusp of finally publicly owning that I was a part…

There’s frequently discussion about living authentic lives after coming out, but I’ve seen less discussion about how severely some of us have learned to control what others think. If done long enough, it can become a huge habit to have a curated identity. What do I selectively reveal, and to whom? I’ve heard and read…

Twenty-six years have passed since Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder, yet the event still brings tears to my eyes. Talking about this sometimes feels self-indulgent; I’ve mentioned it in past essays, notably one where feelings I’d disconnected from for years resurfaced fully last year. Until then, I had disconnected from the emotions I experienced surrounding Matthew…

Going Off The Script Most gay men seem to have a story of coming to accept their sexuality. It might be long or short especially depending on their generation and other factors, but most I’ve spoken with regardless of having come out “late” or not have definitive moments they realized they were gay and the…

Speaking as someone who came out relatively recently and late in life, one of the things I became acutely aware of in the past year is how little I knew about the current state of HIV care and prevention. I was vaguely aware it was no longer a death sentence but I will be honest…

I mentioned in my last post that it’s coming up on a year since I finally let another human being behind the curtain. My coming out experience has been textbook in some cases and probably unorthodox in others. First in the unconventional category is that when I started coming out last year I was convinced…

I’m still not at quite a year since the first friend I came out to in 2023. If I’m honest I didn’t think to write the date down so all I’m sure was it was in the last ten days of April. I may pick an arbitrary date to mark each year. I don’t know….

Watching the Oscars recently, I had one of those little flashbacks. Nothing mind-blowing just dropping into life circa 1985. This was before we had MTV but there was Nick Rocks on Saturdays when Nickelodeon aired videos. And Madonna’s Material Girl video captured my attention in multiple ways. What made me think of this during the…

For several days now my feed on the various socials I’m on has been flooded with grief for Nex Benedict, a non-binary Oklahoma teen. Their death looks to be the result of bullying which stirs up a lot of angst for the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, I’ve been surprised how many of my peers recount…

I’ve mentioned the imposter syndrome in pasing before in my post about what therapy has shown me. At the time I mentioned worrying that I hadn’t done enough. Essentially worrying that people who had openly “been gay longer” had more authority than I do. It’s like being the new guy in the workplace. I think…

I’ve mentioned before having old memories suddenly click back into view but I don’t think I’ve spoken at any length about what it’s like. It’s not like a daily occurence or anything, far from it. I can think of a handful in the entire past year. I am not sure if the most traumatic was…

I don’t lean into the spiritual side of things very much but I will admit it’s peculiar how sometimes things seem to drop into my life at the right moment. Sometimes in the form of people, books, or other resources. In this case, it’s a podcast. Some months ago I vaguely remember seeing a post…

That title is probably going to sound like a re-watch but I didn’t actually watch Queer As Folk back in the day. I don’t remember hearing that either the British or American versions existed until years after the fact. I didn’t have Showtime in 2000 so that was one barrier to knowing it even existed….

It’s taken me just over three weeks to sit down and record this event. And the headline may be a little confusing. Because surely in 50+ years I’ve encountered people being homophobic. Oh absolutely. I couldn’t even begin to peg down the first time that I heard gay, queer, or the F-slur dropped as derogatory…

During the summer I was on something of a reading binge when it came to books that discussed queer topics. I’ve mentioned some or maybe all of them in my blog before, but I read three that in particular I found meaningful. Each was beneficial in its own way helping me understand my experience in…

This might be a messy topic in that I think I’m also simply catching up on what has been going on of late but a lot of it revolves around a sense of what I think is queer grief. First in the catch-up department, I had my “big” coming out moment. Now, I should probably…

I’ve mentioned before random memories coming back. Like my memory of Matthew Shepard’s death. That was a memory that I wouldn’t call so much banished because on the anniversary each year when I saw photos of him I would feel deep sadness. But I really didn’t let myself dwell on the part that event played…

For anyone who has known me in person, my body issues have been on public display for most of my life. In fact, I remember all the way back in kindergarten that I was Santa in our Christmas play because some of my classmates suggested I fit the role because I was fat. I look…

In the past week I watched the new Wham! Documentary out on Netflix. That was an emotional trip. I’m not sure exactly when I became aware of Wham! Until recently I had all but forgotten that before MTV came to our cable line-up in my high school years, Nickelodeon had Nick Rocks which played some…

It was just about two months ago now that I sat down and wrote about my coming to terms with my queerness. Obviously, the journey reaches back much further than that. Part of it, I recently wrote about in my art blog where I shared some new work that I did for Pride Month 2023….

I had a strange revelation about being closeted the other day. Keeping in mind if you haven’t’ read the other posts in my series about accepting my own queerness, I’m only just now at 51 exiting the closet. I’ve been in there so long that it’s a way of life and honestly it’s still hard…

A theme that keeps coming up when I come out to friends has been that I feel I’ve spent my life holding space around me, probably in every sense. I’ve always been one of those people who has a strong sense of my personal space in a physical sense. Maybe a symptom, maybe who I…

This post was originally my third post on accepting my queerness. Those first two original posts are less relevant now and I just add extra complexity. This current post about my queer journey although not first chronologically is a good introduction if you want to know more. However this post does help understand some of…