In just a couple days I will have been out of the closet for five years. Five whole years. I’m sorry, but I honestly think that the NIST and the global scientific community have pulled one over on us. Obviously, what we consider to be the last five years on the calendar are actually ten years total. It’s the only obvious and logical explanation for what has happened. My life has changed dramatically (I know I keep saying that, but it bears repeating) in the last “five” years.
In many ways I feel strongly that I have two birthdays. I have my chronological birthday which counts the number of years I’ve been alive. I also have my gay birthday which counts the number of years I have been truly alive. I think there is a very, very significant difference between the two states. Before I came out I lived and grew and did a lot of faffing about. After I came out I had new eyes and built a dramatically different understanding of the world around me and began to conceptualize who it is I want to be and take action on that. I became a whole person in the days and weeks following my self-outing and I can’t begin to fathom what life would be like now without that.
A year ago I began a series of posts talking about the process of me coming out. After a very short period of time I encountered a number of difficulties which I outlined here and stopped writing. I’m at a point where I think I can pick up on this again. I am at a point where I have more solid footing and I can write more earnestly about what happened, now five years past.
I’m working on making more time for my writing as well as other hobbies such as photography. I’ve always loved photography, but haven’t had equipment or drive to do anything about it. I’ve addressed the equipment side of things. I have a lovely Canon EOS 20D and hopefully as of tomorrow a fully functional iMac from the latest range. I just have to get my ass in gear and go.
So there you have it. It’s May. It’s spring. This is my month and it’s time to get up and go.