The line that stayed with me was that you felt you had to become exceptional before you were permitted to live an ordinary life. That captures something much deeper than ambition. It is the exhaustion of believing love, safety, and simple belonging must first be earned.
Thank you for sharing this. There’s a gentleness and honesty to your words that really moved me. I felt myself slowing down as I read, just sitting with everything you described: the ache of wanting to simply exist, the small ordinariness that can feel so rare and precious, and the quiet strength it takes to keep showing up. I’m grateful you put this out into the world. It was exactly what I needed to read today.
Your words reflect exactly what I hoped the essay might hold: the quiet ache of wanting an ordinary life, and the courage it can take to stop treating that desire as too small.
I’m deeply grateful that it reached you at the right moment.
Thank you for such honesty. I feel honored to have read your story. I knew I was gay (even if I didn't understand everything about it) when I was in junior high and high school in 1960s Calgary Canada. I hid it all through high school (though I never though it was wrong, just not often acceptable). As soon as I got to college, everything changed, I found gay friends and boyfriends, and that has continued ever since. I told my parents pretty quickly after college and they accepted it totally. My sister turned out to be a lesbian. She has been with her Carol for coming on 50 years, and I have been with my Blake for 40 years. I definitely recognize some of how you describe your inner self in my inner self. Feeling you have to hide your true self is very hard, and it has some lasting effects. As you say.
What you describe captures something important: even when we never believe who we are is wrong, learning that it may not be accepted still teaches us to hide.
I’m deeply glad that you found your people, your family accepted you, and that you and Blake have built forty years together. Your story gives the essay an especially meaningful continuation…
I'm moved by your words, Adrien, so many emotions swirling around. I appreciate your reframing of loss — not the inability to talk about attraction, but being denied the ordinary, clumsy rehearsals of intimacy everyone else got to have. An important distinction you've put clearly. Thank you for sharing this. It puts language to a kind of loss that's hard to name, yet so many of us recognize.
I’m really glad that distinction came through. I think sometimes what we grieve isn’t simply what we couldn’t have, but the ordinary messiness we never got the chance to experience.
Being confused, making mistakes, learning intimacy badly before learning it better — those ordinary rehearsals matter more than we realize…
"Learning intimacy badly before learning it better," such a keen observation, and it underscores, for me, that intimacy is learned. It's worth exploring for ourselves the opportunities we've had to learn intimacy or not had. A sadness washes over me when I ponder what it might mean for myself and others to be denied ordinary rehearsals of intimacy.
As always, thank you, Adrien, for your deeply meaningful work.
I really love your phrase “ordinary rehearsals of intimacy.” Perhaps that is exactly what some of us miss: the small, repetitive experiences through which closeness gradually becomes something safe rather than something we have to perform or protect ourselves from.
The sadness of missing those rehearsals is real, but I like to believe we can still learn them later—awkwardly at first, and then perhaps a little more naturally…
Thank you so much, Juliet. That is exactly what I hoped the essay might offer: not a perfect answer, but a little more permission to live honestly and stop postponing ourselves…
The line that stayed with me was that you felt you had to become exceptional before you were permitted to live an ordinary life. That captures something much deeper than ambition. It is the exhaustion of believing love, safety, and simple belonging must first be earned.
Thank you for sharing this. There’s a gentleness and honesty to your words that really moved me. I felt myself slowing down as I read, just sitting with everything you described: the ache of wanting to simply exist, the small ordinariness that can feel so rare and precious, and the quiet strength it takes to keep showing up. I’m grateful you put this out into the world. It was exactly what I needed to read today.
Thank you so much…
Your words reflect exactly what I hoped the essay might hold: the quiet ache of wanting an ordinary life, and the courage it can take to stop treating that desire as too small.
I’m deeply grateful that it reached you at the right moment.
Thank you for such honesty. I feel honored to have read your story. I knew I was gay (even if I didn't understand everything about it) when I was in junior high and high school in 1960s Calgary Canada. I hid it all through high school (though I never though it was wrong, just not often acceptable). As soon as I got to college, everything changed, I found gay friends and boyfriends, and that has continued ever since. I told my parents pretty quickly after college and they accepted it totally. My sister turned out to be a lesbian. She has been with her Carol for coming on 50 years, and I have been with my Blake for 40 years. I definitely recognize some of how you describe your inner self in my inner self. Feeling you have to hide your true self is very hard, and it has some lasting effects. As you say.
Thank you for sharing this, Tim.
What you describe captures something important: even when we never believe who we are is wrong, learning that it may not be accepted still teaches us to hide.
I’m deeply glad that you found your people, your family accepted you, and that you and Blake have built forty years together. Your story gives the essay an especially meaningful continuation…
Thank you:)
I'm moved by your words, Adrien, so many emotions swirling around. I appreciate your reframing of loss — not the inability to talk about attraction, but being denied the ordinary, clumsy rehearsals of intimacy everyone else got to have. An important distinction you've put clearly. Thank you for sharing this. It puts language to a kind of loss that's hard to name, yet so many of us recognize.
Thank you, Tina.
I’m really glad that distinction came through. I think sometimes what we grieve isn’t simply what we couldn’t have, but the ordinary messiness we never got the chance to experience.
Being confused, making mistakes, learning intimacy badly before learning it better — those ordinary rehearsals matter more than we realize…
I truly appreciate your insight…
"Learning intimacy badly before learning it better," such a keen observation, and it underscores, for me, that intimacy is learned. It's worth exploring for ourselves the opportunities we've had to learn intimacy or not had. A sadness washes over me when I ponder what it might mean for myself and others to be denied ordinary rehearsals of intimacy.
As always, thank you, Adrien, for your deeply meaningful work.
Thank you so much, Tina.
I really love your phrase “ordinary rehearsals of intimacy.” Perhaps that is exactly what some of us miss: the small, repetitive experiences through which closeness gradually becomes something safe rather than something we have to perform or protect ourselves from.
The sadness of missing those rehearsals is real, but I like to believe we can still learn them later—awkwardly at first, and then perhaps a little more naturally…
Thank you for your honest openness which will inspire others to start really living their lives.
Thank you so much, Juliet. That is exactly what I hoped the essay might offer: not a perfect answer, but a little more permission to live honestly and stop postponing ourselves…