A Work in Progress

  Ever since I was young, I’ve been a bit of a worrywart. I worried about what other people were doing or saying, being included, my grades, my future, what I wanted for lunch, which TV channel to watch . . . you know, the usual. It has been the bane of my existence, that strong need to constantly know what was going to unfold. It stressed me out to think that every single decision could dramatically alter my life in a good or bad way—or nothing could happen. I found myself listing the endless “what-ifs” in my head, attempting to determine every outcome.

  As an adult, I find myself worrying about similar things, but now I also have much bigger—and more important—things to worry about. I worry if I’m doing my taxes right, if I paid that bill, if I should have insurance for this or that, if my career doesn’t work out. Real people things. Very scary real people things.

  Thankfully, I’m now better at managing all this ruminating, understanding that my past is simply a memory, replaced day by day by the present. By living in the now, I’m creating a bright future ahead. “Live now, worry later” is my new mantra.

  I often hear people say things like, “Take me back to when I was younger. It was better then!” or, “I just want this point in my life to be over. Things will be so much better later on!” The underlying theme is being BACK THEN or LATER ON, to which I say, “What about right freaking now, huh?”

  You can’t change the past. It’s done. Finished. Unless time travel becomes real, you best deal with what you have now. The future is both unknown and unseen—you’re trying to control the invisible. How pointless is that?! We waste so much time, energy, and emotion on the uncontrollable. No wonder worry can be so exhausting.

  Instead, we should think about how incredible it is that each of us has a gloriously uncertain future ahead. Destination unknown. It’s like being in a movie where you don’t know the end. Think of it that way.

  Take it from someone who has changed his mind-set: you can make “now” the place you want to be. Rub your eyes, focus, and see what’s right in front of you: the gift of life. What you do with that gift is up to you. If you want to sit around all day tweeting about how much you hate your life and can’t wait until you’re older, I wish you well. But why wait!! You could ACT NOW. What’s holding you back? (If you’re a teenager, don’t you dare say “school.” You can work around that to build toward the future, so no excuses.)

  None of us wants our existence to be based on what-ifs. So in the spirit of our collective interest, I suggest that you too shift your focus. Stop looking over your shoulder. Stop looking off into the distance. Stop dwelling on expectations. Simply take stock and concentrate on how you feel and what you need right now. Then do it! Every decision you take today is a building block for the future that awaits you. As Joseph Campbell once said, “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

  So what are you waiting for? Let go, my friend.

  Respect for My Elders

  I was at a family’s party recently and decided to spend the evening talking with the host’s grandmother. Well dressed, with white hair, she had a spitfire personality, and as we sat in a corner, we discussed her life: where she’s lived, what memories she treasures, what she’s learned. We even talked about how she cooked a delicious casserole—and who I should kill in order to get the recipe! Throughout the entire conversation, I was fascinated by her story of a life well lived.

  This is something you need to know about me: eleven times out of ten, I would rather talk to an eighty-seven-year-old than an eighteen-year-old. I gravitate toward wisdom. And the elderly are just so freaking cute, I can’t resist! People of age have been through it all and have a rich collection of stories to share. And if we take the time, pull up a chair, let them talk, and really listen, we can learn a thing or two. Respect those who have been here before us. They’ve walked the path. They know the way.

  The Long Road to Me

  YOU MIGHT THINK FINDING YOURSELF is tough and ends in high school. I wish that were true. Finding yourself is a lifelong journey. Just when you think you know who you are, life has this way of throwing a curveball and landing you back in the town of confusion; population: a vast majority of the human race.

  Everyone’s path to self-discovery is bound to be different. Whatever decisions and directions we take, big and small, they all combine to help us figure out who we are. But at many crossroads, the confusion or indecision most of us will feel is part and parcel of the mystery of life. At times, you’re going to wish you were someone else. On occasion, you’re going to be tempted to look back. But until you find your way, all I can recommend is that you keep moving forward, even when the fog has descended and the destination is unknown.

  I don’t speak as some wise old wizard on the hill. I speak as someone who has experienced the utter, head-spinning confusion surrounding the core of my identity. The needle on my personal compass was always doing a 360, spinning out on the determination of my sexuality. For much of my twenty-two years, I struggled quietly with that part of myself.

  What follows is my story.

  * * *

  From a young age, I always felt something was different about me, without being able to put my finger on it. I’m not saying I had this sixth sense as a toddler, but my individuality was on display 24/7. Adults constantly told my parents how “energetic, talkative, and dramatic” I was, or they commented on my “big personality for someone so young.” Of course, I never thought anything about these traits because, well, I was a fetus. Why would people gawking over me provide anything but a feel-good factor? Who doesn’t love that kind of attention?! (This was long before my homecoming king days.)

  It wasn’t until I turned twelve that my perspective changed. I began to see differences between me and other boys. I noticed that they weren’t as animated. As I got older, a lot of kids mentioned that gay people acted the way I did, which was bewildering and scary to hear because of the negative connotation associated with being gay. I began to check myself, holding back my personality to put distance between me and the stereotype. I censored my actions and words out of fear of what I could be.

  But then I started to think about it.

  The question that popped into my head during seventh grade was, “What if I’m gay?” I don’t know what sparked that random thought, that nudge from the inside. Maybe it was something I had seen on the Internet. Maybe it was a conversation with friends that triggered something deep. Maybe it was just a little boy questioning the world around him as puberty dawned. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure: I thought about it. I mean, I REALLY thought about it. That one, terrifying self-inquiry quickly engulfed my mind. Terror was the overriding emotion—fear that I was something I knew nothing about; scared that I was somehow a freak for even thinking such a thing. I tried to push the thought away, desperate to think of something—anything—else, but my mind clung to it like a magnet, unable to separate from its force. Sleepless nights became frequent, and would carry on for years. I cast all my confusion up to the ceiling, staring, wide awake. Worse than that, the self-judgment and self-hatred kicked in for daring to think such taboo things.

  As a kid from a small town in the Midwest, being gay wasn’t common in my experience; at least, no one openly talked about it. I didn’t know anyone who was gay, and I’d never had a conversation with another person, or my family, about gay people. All I sensed was that it wasn’t seen as a good thing. My parents had never mentioned the subject, so I didn’t know what their opinion would be either. What if they hated it too?

  That was why I decided not to say anything. I never told a soul, preferring to bottle everything up and not give voice to this instinct screaming inside me. No one could know. If someone knew, then those thoughts could become something real, something I had to deal with. As a result, I became sad and felt very alone, that way most of us do when we have convinced ourselves that we’re the odd one out. This silent misery continued until I moved into my high school years, and
that was when I decided the only solution—the only way to be “normal”—was not to be gay. Simple, right?

  I tried what most teenage boys do: date girls. This pretense wasn’t too difficult to adopt. “Yes, she’s pretty,” I’d say if someone asked me about a certain girl I had been hanging out with. “So are you a ‘thing’?” they’d ask, intrigued to know more. “Well, she’s nice, we have fun so, um, maybe we will be?” I would say, caving in to the pressure.

  That was how it often played out. I went along with the lie—the lie to myself, my friends, the girls—and kept dating. When things got a little serious, I made up some bogus reason to back out. “I don’t have enough time” and “I’m really trying to focus on athletics” were excuses I used to end two relationships. Truth is, I felt nothing. The girls were nice and all, but they were into it and I wasn’t, so I had to find an exit strategy. And then, in my last two years of high school, I told everyone, “I’m done dating for now. It’s too much work—maybe later in life.”

  Years passed, and at college, I found myself interested in another girl. Maybe she’ll be the one who’ll get these incessant “Am I gay?” thoughts out of my head, I thought. But one night, when said girlfriend and I were making out, I remember my mind drifting. Are we done yet? I’m so bored. How do people enjoy this??

  As you probably assumed, that relationship didn’t work out. Even with the benefit of time, I couldn’t like girls in that way—a realization that left me feeling the lowest I had ever felt. A sense of hopelessness was heaped onto all the confusion, and I began to accept that I was going to be the guy who’ll never have relationships or get married, that bachelor guy who lives alone forever and dies. That, I convinced myself, was my bleak and lonely future, so I better get used to it.

  At this point, I even went as far as posting a video to my YouTube channel, titled “I’m Not Gay.” I had been receiving so many rude comments about my sexuality that I figured an outright denial would put an end to it all. By posting something online, I could once and for all tell people that this is who I am, so quit asking. That public denial remained up there as a permanent shield to all the curiosity.

  Now fast-forward two years, when I moved to Los Angeles.

  The vast majority of people I met in Southern California were dreamers—ambitious, creative, and driven. Nothing could beat the year-round amazing weather, and my career was flourishing. Life couldn’t have been going any better. From any outsider’s perspective, I appeared to be the happiest I’d ever been. But in reality, it was the most miserable period of my life. That was because the thoughts in my head had somehow found a megaphone, screaming at me every minute of every day: “YOU LIKE BOYS! YOU ARE GAY! JUST SAY IT! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!” And yet I still admitted nothing and kept it all in. Just another person maintaining a happy facade in Hollywood.

  And then on the evening of January 3, 2014, I actually said it. Well, I said it to myself, but that self-admission felt like the biggest leap of my twenty-two-year existence. I don’t know what sparked it in my mind, but I happened to be staring at myself, dead in the eyes, in the bathroom mirror. I held my own stare, watching the tears well and feeling my body start to quiver, and then shake, with both rage and terror. “I’m gay,” I told my reflection, whispering it. “I am gay,” I repeated, a little louder.

  What happened next surprised even me: I smiled. Through all the pain, I actually smiled, feeling a sudden rush of relief, as if being freed from a choking grip. As if I had released my own hands from around my neck. I looked at myself in the mirror again and a smile turned into a grin, the kind that greets an old friend. I was happy with the image reflected back at me.

  I knew this was just the beginning of a breakthrough. Next, I needed to tell someone. I spent the next seven days trying to summon that courage. Then, on January 11, 2014, at 5:00 a.m., after keeping one of my friends up because I wanted to “just hang out,” I said outright, to another person, for the first time: “I am gay.”

  His reaction was nothing short of great. Initially he seemed a bit shocked, but that almost instantaneously melted away and he switched into comforting mode. “You’re okay and it will all be okay,” he said, reassuringly. That was the day—the dawn—when I felt my life had truly begun. My friend’s acceptance was liberating. I was free. I was the real me. And I was no longer afraid—at least, not as afraid as I had been.

  From that point on, it was a case of finding the courage, and the right time, to tell more and more people. First, a few more friends; then my mom and dad, followed by more friends, siblings, and even more friends, until there was barely anyone left to tell. Mom conveniently came to visit California in the spring, and I knew I had to tell her. I had to tell her everything, although that didn’t lessen the enormity of the task at hand. I waited until the last night when I was dropping her off at her hotel, all the time rehearsing the words in my head and feeling so incredibly nervous.

  We pulled up outside the hotel, said goodnight, and she got out. But just before she could close the door, I said, “Mom, wait a sec!”

  I hurriedly got out of the car and told her what I felt she needed to know. “Oh honey, it’s okay,” she said. “It doesn’t matter to me. Are you seeing anyone?”

  That part surprised me the most. She went past all the little details and was genuinely interested in knowing about the big picture. From that day on, we’ve been closer than we ever had been before.

  As I dropped her off at the airport early the next morning, she asked if she could tell my dad because “I can’t lie to your father.” Within hours of getting home, I received a call from Mom and she said, “Hey, here’s your dad.”

  Great, I thought. I didn’t expect this so soon!

  My dad had the same warm, accepting reaction, except he cried. And so did I. And then my mom. There were a lot of tears on that call, but once again, I felt better than ever. I proceeded to tell my sister over the phone, my older brother on Skype, and my little brother in person when I returned home for a summer visit. Each of them said the same thing: “It’s okay, Con. I still love you.”

  They were all so great that I wished I’d told them earlier. Love trumps fear every time.

  Once family and friends had all been checked off, I had only one more hurdle to clear: confessing it in public to my followers and fans on YouTube. My nerves are evident in that video, posted on December 8, 2014.

  A lot of people wondered if I “really needed to post a video about it,” and others asked, “Why does the world have to know? Isn’t anything personal for you anymore?”

  But that video was bigger than me. Okay, it was going to make me feel as “me” as I could be, but its wider purpose was to help others in a similar position. With a large audience, I often feel a certain sense of responsibility to guide, inform, and nurture whenever possible. I had been thinking about that video for a good month or two, waiting until it felt right to post.

  I had actually filmed my coming-out video two days earlier but initially thought it was absolute shit. The lighting kept changing, leaf blowers could be heard in the background, and, overall, I felt like a nervous wreck. But I sat down, edited it, watched it again, and realized I was just being hard on myself. It was, in fact, exactly what I wanted it to be: raw, real, unscripted—and me. After two panic-filled days, I uploaded the video at 10:06 a.m. and watched with one hand over my eye as all the support flowed in. The feedback was truly overwhelming. The result was bigger than I ever thought it would be. I had needlessly worried about this whole thing for nothing and doubted the reactions of the people in my life.

  My journey, and the evolving process of staying true to myself, won’t stop there. I am, like everyone else, still figuring myself out on a daily basis. I surprise myself all the time by doing and accomplishing things I had never thought possible. But this path I’ve been walking is clearer than it has ever been. The fog has lifted, and the possibilities are endless. With nothing holding me back and by staying true to myself, I honestly feel
there is nothing I can’t do.

  I know this story may not resonate with everyone on the surface of things, but this story isn’t about sexuality. It’s about overcoming our biggest fears. It’s about seriously examining whatever it is that may be holding us back. I cleared a barrier that at one point felt insurmountable. In fact, for far too long, I allowed myself to believe the self-defeating thought that I’d never overcome it.

  All of us have barriers in the way. What’s yours? What do you want to do, be, or say, but feel you can’t or shouldn’t, based on the limitations or expectations within you or those around you? Remember this: your thoughts, wants, needs, and desires are valid. If you keep coming back to a lane in your life that you’re too afraid to take, perhaps accept that life is leading you there; maybe one day, try taking it. Get past the fear of the what-if and just do it. Then, and only then, can you know the truth about yourself.

  It has taken me a long time to accept who I am and be happy with that person. I regret not doing it sooner. Regret is ignoring a path you should have taken. Don’t entertain it. Don’t hesitate. I’m gay. I’m living in tune with my best self. And that’s what I wish for you: to start living today, not tomorrow.

  It Gets Better. Really.

  “LIFE’S NOT FAIR! WHY CAN’T things be easy?!”

  We’ve probably all been guilty of thinking, saying, and believing that. But the hardest thing to accept about growing up is this: life, with all its ups and downs, is never going to be a smooth ride, for anyone, of any age.