I used to be so confident and carefree. I remember feeling so happy that everyone wanted to be around me all the time. I had lots of friends to choose from when I wanted to go out and have fun. I could date anyone I wanted because they all flocked to me. I was carefree and flying on air.
Then I got married. I thought getting married meant I had to be something different. I thought it meant that I was supposed to capitulate to my spouse. If he didn’t want to go out, then I was supposed to stay home. If he didn’t want to have friends over, then I was supposed to stay home alone with him. I lost my zest for life and over time, I lost track of the carefree person I used to be. Then in the middle of my life, I realized I was living a life that wasn’t right for me and came out as gay, choosing to divorce the husband I no longer loved and barely cared for.
The choices I made chased a few people away and some I chose to leave behind. I have very few friends now and although they are amazingly supportive, none are in the gay community, nor do they know anyone who is (besides rookie me). I have lived in a hetero world where the rules are totally different and I have been pushing people away for so long to keep them from having to deal with my unhappy life, that I have no idea how to make new friends or how to accept this new version of me – this person I’ve become. I want to be free to explore this new world but without a basic understanding of the rules or what’s expected, I feel lost. I am desperate to feel comfortable because it is clear the tolerance and acceptance of others is profoundly simpler than the world I was in. I want to feel that love that the gay community seems to embrace.
I am afraid to fail. Making such a big change this late in life, it feels like my last chance to change my stripes and I’m afraid that no one will like me and I will forever be trapped in a life where I will never become who I want to be.
All I want is for someone to take me by the hand and bring me into this new world with full acceptance of who I am including my faults and show me how to live a life free from the fear of rejection.
I want a champion who will fight for me to show me who I can be (particularly within the gay community), not fight with me over who I once was and the residual affects of my past. I want to be able to go to a party and not worry what everyone thinks of me or wonder if after I leave will anyone ask me to come back or even care that I’m gone. I want to laugh and have fun without worry. I want people to like me and since I’m afraid of being unlikable, I am afraid to be me. I find it difficult at best to recognize when people aren’t just patronizing me with banality because I’m in the same room. When I am invited to any kind of event, it feels like such a privilege that I’m afraid I’m going to blow it and end the night without securing a single new friend and because of my own insecurities, I usually end up living out the exact scenario that I feared.
If someone could just be my champion and provide a little bit of reassurance that I’m doing this right, I know I would build the confidence I need in short order. I want friends. I want to love someone who loves me in return. That’s it. It’s really that simple. I want to feel like I belong. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. I don’t want to keep hearing about what I’ve done wrong today, I want to hear what I did right. I want to be accepted. Unconditionally accepted. I want to be attractive to someone who can see past my insecurities and loves me anyway for who I really am. I just want to feel loved and accepted. Is that too much to ask?
