I Heart Being Me

How I'm Trying To Stop Worrying And Just Embrace Being Queer

This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter focused on the late blooming queer experience, the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.

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Things were not great at my workplace, a school district, in early 2023. 

The prior election cycle installed conservative reactionaries as a result of local frustration with COVID mandates and pearl-clutching over the manufactured specters of Critical Race Theory and transphobia that manifested in allegations such as kids identifying as cats and needing litter boxes in restrooms. 

Elected in late 2020, the reactionaries (who formed a slim majority) managed to pass a vote on lifting the masking requirement in schools despite state health mandates requiring otherwise in early 2021. After lawsuits and two days of schools being closed by administrators to protect students and staff, they retreated but there still arose a unified effort to recall them. Every day since that time was at a fever pitch.

Also in early 2023 I began to accept my queerness after a lifetime of repressing and denying it.

I’d known for a while that the reactionaries had it out for me. Despite that, I was confident my position was secure. All my annual reviews were praiseworthy. I was never disciplined or put on an improvement plan. I was applauded for winning communications awards with my projects and helping get staff recognized at the state level via awards applications I managed. And I was given a substantial raise only months before which I had advocated for, the first time I’d ever done such a thing. It had allowed me and my wife to purchase a new (to us) home that provided more space, a better layout, a garage and more while keeping us in the same neighborhood.

“…we see a lot of people in here...who claim they want to know the ultimate truth about reality. They want to peer under the surface at the big everything...but this can be a very painful process full of surprises. It can dismantle the world as you know it. That's why most people prefer to remain on the surface of things.”

Lily Tomlin as Vivian Jaffe in “I Heart Huckabees”

I’ve written before about Alan Downs’ The Velvet Rage and how it breaks down the journey many queer men take in finding and accepting their true selves. To iterate, Downs describes three stages: being overwhelmed by shame because of your queer identity, compensating for that shame and, lastly, finding authenticity.

…the way of so many of us, is to compensate for shame by striving for validation from others, even if it is not earned authentically…

That’s how I became a people-pleaser. In my relationships with family, friends, my wife, I tended to do whatever I could to “keep the peace,” whether that was always going along with whatever my parents or siblings wanted or seeing it as my job as a husband to make sure I made my wife happy.

And obviously, that all carried over to seeking validation from my work. Always willing to take on more. Always saying “yes.” Always sacrificing my own needs for the “the team.” Always thinking about work, even off the clock. This behavior was strongly reinforced in the first half of my career as a journalist, with newsrooms being notoriously underappreciated, underfunded, understaffed and yet newspaper reporters still, on average, being overly ambitious. My profession in communications, while better paying, was no less demanding, frequently requiring me to work nights and weekends and occupying my every waking thought, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic. 

My need for validation became entwined with nearly every part of my identity. It gives me purpose, it gives me connection, it gives me security.

When I began to accept my queerness, my mind quickly realized that the validation I relied on from my family and friends was in jeopardy. My wife could reject me, my friends could abandon me, my family could disown me. Sure, I’m embracing the queer aspect of my identity, but will it be at the cost of my identity as a son, a husband, a father?

The doubts and fears about the possibility of having to start over in so much of my life ricocheted in my skull. But wait; I still had my career. I still had the thing that had won me awards, enabled the purchase of my family’s dream home, allowed me to be the provider I needed to be. 

“How come we only ask ourselves the really big questions when something bad happens?”

Mark Wahlberg as Tommy Corn in “I Heart Huckabees”

It was after an early February meeting with two of these reactionaries on the board that my boss came into my office, closed the door, and told me I had to be moved. 

“This board is just so mean,” she said. 

There were some specific tasks of mine for which the reactionaries had gone to my supervisor and not-so-subtly called for my head. Some of those tasks could have been finessed a bit better before they went out, but they also were approved by my supervisor before they did. And some of the outside partners I relied on to do my job were less-than-stellar and led to delays, which the reactionaries further used to attack me.

I was stunned; while we had discussed the precariousness of our positions in light of the Board, she had said she would protect me. What’s more, I had technically done nothing wrong. 

As my supervisor said at the time, “this isn’t evaluative.” 

Afterwards, I went home early and told my wife I was being demoted and, oh, I’m also bisexual/queer.

Within a week, I was moved out of my office to another building across town in a windowless former conference room. My responsibilities were handed off to my subordinate who I had hired only about a year-and-a-half before and did not have prior experience in our specific industry.

In my final days in my old office, none of the other administrators I had worked with (save one), not my subordinate, not the other support staff I had worked with for the past five years, would say a word to me. They acted like I was already gone. And, to me, they seemed happy at the prospect. Since joining this organization I had nagging doubts at times that folks merely tolerated me because of my role. I had shared those feelings with my supervisor from time to time but she had dismissed them, saying I was appreciated and wanted. 

I now know that was a lie.

However, they couldn’t fire me; there was no just cause. And they could only demote me in title, not in pay or benefits, because to do otherwise would appear retaliatory. They were careful to limit any potential legal recourse I might take to what was happening to me. So they hid me away and left me with virtually nothing to do, twiddling my thumbs in an isolated office.

“Motherfucking cocksucker motherfucking shit fucker what am I doing? What am I doing? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doing the best that I can. I know that's all I can ask of myself. Is that good enough? Is my work doing any good? Is anybody paying attention? Is it hopeless to try and change things?...I'm trapped! Maybe I should quit. Don't quit! Maybe I should just fucking quit. Don't fucking quit! I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do anymore! Motherfucker! Fuck shit!”

Jason Schwartzman as Albert Markovski in “I Heart Huckabees”

I sought to stay busy, look busy in the sham that was my new role at work. Part of me longed to be welcomed back, to be comforted by the same people who had been so willing to toss me aside, while the other half wanted nothing more than to cause them pain.

At the same time, I wrestled with the identity crisis that comes with coming out. I joined various online communities and support groups of men in similar circumstances and clung to the experiences and advice that I could glean from them. I sought to discern what being bi/queer meant for me. What I needed to feel valid and fulfilled. Whether those needs would be workable within my present life as a husband and father, much less whatever career I was able to salvage.

It made sense that my mental health cratered. My depression and anxiety undulated like the sea during a tempest. At my best, I figured I would find some other job that would sustain my family and that the bulk of my friends would stick by me. But on my worst days I despaired at how I had failed to be honest about who I was and to secure a stable livelihood for my wife and children. The thought that everyone would be better off without me or that I just needed to stop the voices in my own head became more persistent. 

Eventually, when it became clear that I had no long-term future at my work, I took an extended personal leave. That was one of the benefits of being a workaholic; I hardly ever took vacation. 

Those months were no less jarring. I got my first tattoo. I painted the hallway, dining room and living room of my house. I continued going to therapy, I experienced sex with a man for the first time.¹ I attended the annual conference for HOW (Husbands Out To Wives). I got my first boyfriend.² I worked out more routinely. I sat with my dog of 13 years as he drifted off to sleep for the last time. I struggled increasingly in the bedroom with my wife. I wrote a lot of cover letters and applied to lots of jobs, had a couple job interviews followed by rejections. I attended my brother’s wedding, preceded the day before by speaking at my grandmother’s memorial service. I swung between calm determination and abject panic and depression regularly, with a sprinkling of considering walking to a nearby bridge alone some night or testing the mount strength of the bannister on the top floor landing.

Just after the new year, HR called and said I was going to be out of available leave within two weeks. So I returned to the office, where there was even less pretense than before about my being a dead man walking. I continued to apply for jobs. I launched this newsletter. And then, in April, the HR director visited me and handed me the letter saying my “position” was being eliminated because of “budget issues.” I had a job until my contract expired on June 30.

“How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself?...”

Jude Law as Brad Stand in “I Heart Huckabees”

I’ve tried to write about all this for months. 

Looked for the meaning, looked for the common thread between these dismantlings of my being. 

Among the disparate references I tried to tie it all to were a high school anatomy lesson, the difference in the toleration of disorder in my house between me and the my wife and kids and, most recently, a GIF (y’all better be saying that with a hard “g”) of a dump truck with an unsecured vertically-hinged back tailgate striking and shattering a car’s back window, forcing the tailgate to close, with the accompanying caption “When God closes a door, He opens a window.”

It was after talking to my friend Mark that I finally discovered why I struggled so much. He pointed out (and I agreed) that the past year and more has brought some powerful experiences, joyful experiences. I was ditching my guilt and shame I had carried for decades and letting folks see me as I truly was.

And…people didn’t run away from me. Rather, people embraced me. My wife, my friends, strangers on the Internet who have become friends…they accepted this complete version of me despite only having known the the version I had always presented.

“Your work life exposed your imposter syndrome for bullshit because you saw that your life could be thrown into chaos no matter what. So you just became honest with yourself and embraced it all. Embracing your queerness was the middle finger to the job situation. It was not allowing yourself to be a victim of circumstances again….you were gonna be in the driver’s seat.”

“The interconnection thing is definitely for real.”
“It is! I didn't think it wasn’t! It is!”
“I know, I can't believe it, it's so fantastic!”
“It's amazing!”
“I know.”
“But it's also nothing special”
“Yeah, because it grows from the manure of human troubles.”

Jason Schwartzman and Mark Wahlberg as Albert Markovski and Tommy Corn, respectively, in “I Heart Huckabees”

By the time this newsletter is published and sent to email inboxes, I will be unemployed. While my wife and I have managed to improve our financial standing over the past year, we have virtually no savings. We cannot maintain our current living standards without me making nearly as much as I make now, which is three times what I’ll get on unemployment. 

Recently, I’ve kept my panic beneath the surface. I’m not sure how much of that is because of self control versus denial. 

I have no fucking clue what’s going to happen. But something will happen and my queer self—my whole self—will tackle it.

“Brad, it's okay. Believe me, it's okay.”
“Nothing's okay.”
“Nothing's okay, so it's okay.”

Lily Tomlin, Jude Law and Dustin Hoffman as Vivian Jaffe, Brad Stand and Bernard Jaffe in “I Heart Huckabees”

Coming in next week’s newsletter…

I share some of the songs that fed my closeted queer soul, despite them not being about queerness at all.

1. More on this later.

2. More on this later, too.