“I think a lot of queer people understand that kind of loneliness. The kind where you’re grieving a life you haven’t even allowed yourself to live yet.”View Entire Post ›
Five years ago, I came out at 31.
Five years of being out. Five years of learning what Pride actually means. Five years of slowly becoming the person I spent so much of my life trying not to be. For years, I believed that being gay was something that had to be managed, hidden, negotiated around, and apologized for.
I grew up deeply religious. The version of Christianity I was raised around taught me that homosexuality was a choice. Something sinful. Something broken. Even as a kid, before I had words for it, I knew that if I ever admitted who I really was, it would cost me something. Maybe everything. So I learned how to survive instead.
I became very good at performing versions of myself that made other people comfortable. From the outside, my life probably looked exciting, confident, even glamorous at times. But internally, I was carrying around the constant fear that if people saw the full truth about me, they would leave.
Eventually, I met someone who came from a background very similar to mine. We started dating privately, agreeing that no one could ever know. At first, it felt comforting to finally be understood by someone who shared the same fears I did. But secrecy changes relationships. It changes you.
Very early on, I realized he was cheating on me constantly. And yet, I stayed.
Not because I didn't know I deserved better, but because I genuinely believed the alternative was being completely alone. When you’ve spent your entire life being taught that your love is wrong, you start accepting conditions you would never tolerate otherwise. You confuse survival with intimacy. You confuse anxiety with passion. You convince yourself that crumbs are enough because at least there's something.
I think a lot of queer people understand that kind of loneliness. The kind where you’re grieving a life you haven’t even allowed yourself to live yet.
For years, I stayed quiet because I thought silence would protect me. But silence has a cost. Hiding slowly disconnects you from yourself. It teaches you to shrink, to hold back your joy, to speak carefully, to never fully exhale.
Coming out at 31 wasn’t one brave moment. It was a thousand terrifying ones stacked on top of each other. I was afraid of losing my family. Afraid people would see me differently. Afraid everything I had built would collapse the second I stopped pretending.
Some of those fears came true. My relationship with my parents changed permanently. There are still limitations, discomfort, and reminders that acceptance can arrive slowly and incompletely. But something else happened, too. I finally met myself.
Not the version designed to survive. Not the version trying to earn love. Just me. And for the first time in my life, love stopped feeling like fear. That doesn’t mean everything became easy overnight. There’s still grief in realizing how much time was spent hiding. There’s anger sometimes, too. But there’s also freedom. There’s softness. There’s the incredible experience of being loved without having to fragment yourself first.
Pride means something very different to me now than it did at 31. It’s not just a celebration. It’s reclamation. It’s looking at the younger version of yourself, the scared kid trying so hard to be “good enough,” and finally telling him: you were never broken. You were just never given permission to exist fully
And now you do.
Sometimes I think about the version of me who spent so many years terrified that being gay would ruin my life. The version who carefully edited himself in conversation, stayed quiet, and believed love was something other people got to experience honestly. If you had told that version of me that one day I’d be part of a show called Gay & Trying, creating something so personal alongside a creative partner who understands the weight and the humor of this experience, openly sharing my life, my relationship, my fears, my humor, and my story on a platform where countless people could see it, he never would have believed you.
And honestly, there are still moments where I can’t fully believe it either.
Stepping into this role scared me more than I expected. There’s something deeply vulnerable about being seen, especially after spending so much of your life trying not to be. But I’ve realized that every meaningful thing in my life has existed on the other side of that fear.
Coming out didn't magically solve everything. It didn't erase insecurity, shame, or grief for the years I spent hiding. But it gave me something I never had before… The chance to actually become myself.
That's why telling these stories matters to me now. Because I know what it feels like to think your life is over before it's even begun. I know what it feels like to believe you'll lose everything if people truly know you.
And if someone out there sees even a small part of themselves in my story, I hope they know this: the life waiting for you on the other side of fear might be bigger, fuller, and more beautiful than anything you're currently able to imagine for yourself.
I know it was for me.
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