The Courage to Live Authentically
Hey Everyone!
This month, I wanted to continue the direction of my last couple of posts and talk about something that has become a foundation of my writing, but more importantly, a foundation of my own life.
As I sit here proofreading the final story in my upcoming short-story collection (more on that in just a moment), I can’t help but reflect on how my own life brought me to this point.
Nearly thirty years ago, I was living as a different version of myself. I suppressed my true feelings and hid an important part of who I was. For a long time, I just went with the flow. I lived according to expectations and, without fully realizing it at the time, denied myself the opportunity to experience the kind of happiness and love I truly wanted.
Along the way, I came to understand that sexual attraction was only one part of my identity. As a young man, of course I longed for intimacy with another man, but I realized fairly early that physical attraction alone wasn’t enough for me. Without an emotional connection, even physical intimacy could leave me feeling as though something was missing.
What I really wanted was everything I saw committed couples sharing with one another. I wanted to fall in love openly. I wanted my best friend in the world to also be my partner, my lover, and my emotional anchor. I wanted to love someone without feeling that I had to hide that love just because it didn’t fit the expectations I had grown up with. Most of all, I wanted to love the person who felt right to me and allow all the other pieces of life to fall into place around that.
Eventually, I had to acknowledge something I had spent years avoiding: I couldn’t create those feeling simply because they were expected of me. Once I finally allowed myself to accept that truth, I began the journey toward living authentically.
For me, coming out was liberation. It was freedom. More than anything, it was finally allowing the person I was on the inside to become the person I was willing to show the rest of the world.
Looking back, I can remember so vividly what it felt like to be unfulfilled. Things could be going wonderfully in my life, and I could convince myself that I was happy, yet there was always this quiet void I couldn’t quite explain. Interestingly, I don’t think I fully understood what that emptiness was until years later, when it was no longer there.
And that brings me back to my writing.
As I finish proofreading this latest collection, I find myself smiling at how often this same theme has found its way into my stories. Several of the characters, in very different circumstances, struggle with suppressed feelings, expectations, or the fear of living honestly. I didn’t intentionally set out to build the collection around that common theme. It just emerged, and perhaps that says something about how deeply the idea of authenticity continues to influence me as a writer.
The same has been true throughout much of my work. I’m drawn to characters searching for their place in the world, people trying to reconcile who they truly are with who they’ve been told they’re supposed to be. Perhaps I keep returning to those stories because I understand that struggle so personally.
Living authentically doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing for everyone, and everyone’s circumstances and journey are different. But if there’s one thing my own experience has taught me, it’s how meaningful life can become when we’re able to stop fighting against who we are.
Maybe that’s why, nearly thirty years later, I’m still writing about it.
And maybe I always will.
Until next time, take care, be happy, and always be true to yourself.
— Chris
