1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Questioning everything now

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by instantkarma, Jul 24, 2017.

  1. instantkarma

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2017
    Messages:
    15
    Likes Received:
    10
    Location:
    Delaware
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Questioning
    Out Status:
    Not out at all
    Since I've come out (to myself), I've started to see my past in a different way. Decisions I made as a faux straight person have created a butterfly effect to where and who I am today... With my job, my friends, where I live etc. I'm looking at my life and am feeling disappointed or unfulfilled knowing now that I was blindly going through the motions of living and never really stretched myself.

    Now things at work are getting to a point that I want to start looking for a new job. The question is, do I really want to continue in this mediocre career that I fell into because I needed a job 22 years ago to help pay for my wedding? Or do I want to finally stretch my wings and take the risk and do.... What? I don't know. I feel my brain close on me every time I try to think outside the box. The same way it used to close when I asked myself if I was gay.

    So...how do I break through. How do I make sense of my life now? How do I go about taking steps to be happy in all aspects without burning down that which is already built?

    I know I'm rambling. If anyone makes sense if this, please give me guidance. Ty.
     
    Imjustjulien likes this.
  2. Silverbirch

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2017
    Messages:
    119
    Likes Received:
    97
    Location:
    UK
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    They
    Sexual Orientation:
    Lesbian
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I absolutely know where you're coming from with the realisations about the faux life you were leading and how each realisation opens up more and more. It can be overwhelming at times.

    I think if you're calling it a mediocre career that you fell into then, yes, you do want to do something different. You say you've been going through the motions and not stretching yourself, too.

    I'm taking small steps in my life, which I'm finding not too scary. So maybe if you want to do something different career wise, you could look at a class in something that takes your fancy and see how it goes. Just try and find out a little bit more about yourself a little bit at a time. These little steps will then add up and you'll find yourself in a new place where perhaps making a bigger decision about what to do will be possible.
     
    instantkarma likes this.
  3. instantkarma

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2017
    Messages:
    15
    Likes Received:
    10
    Location:
    Delaware
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Questioning
    Out Status:
    Not out at all
    I mean, I'm doing decently in my career. I've worked my way up from secretary to director. But again, it's only because I got a secretarial job in a company I could commute to and me money for my wedding. I've made it work, obviously, but when I look at classifieds I just groan. Just because I'm decent at it doesn't mean I have a passion for it. Plus I need to be very fake and political, and I'm tired of pretending. Now I'm just complaining, aren't I? Maybe it's not a true gay /straight issue. But I think my desire to fly under the radar in all things (after being accused of being a lesbian throughout high school and college) led to me taking the no passive, under achievers route. Sigh. I don't know. I am getting ahead of myself, aren't I?
     
  4. Sonata

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2014
    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    54
    Location:
    Earth
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Lesbian
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Oh that is interesting! It had never occurred to me that hiding my sexuality for a long time could have shaped other parts of my personality. But now l can relate to what you say. I have become very timid, fake and annoyingly political. I always spend so much time on calculating the optimal move, and as a rule, a part of this “optimization” is to remove any possibility of being judged by the others. Why should their judgement have been so important to me? Because l have always had a secret that l needed to carefully hide. This has become my second nature, and now it is really hard to break free of it.
     
  5. instantkarma

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2017
    Messages:
    15
    Likes Received:
    10
    Location:
    Delaware
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Questioning
    Out Status:
    Not out at all
    Exactly! And now I feel fake breaking free or thinking about breaking free. Like I don't have the right to since I've never tried to do it before.
     
    #5 instantkarma, Jul 24, 2017
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2017
  6. Really

    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2014
    Messages:
    2,579
    Likes Received:
    753
    Location:
    BC
    Hey there instantkarma,

    You probably know all the ins and outs of looking for and applying for jobs but I wrote the post a while ago and there's a link to a podcast that might help you. It talks about figuring out what what kind of things are fulfilling to you in a job rather than the specifics of the job. I can't really explain it very well. Maybe just have a look. ;}
    https://forum.emptyclosets.com/index.php?posts/6356079/
     
    instantkarma likes this.
  7. instantkarma

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2017
    Messages:
    15
    Likes Received:
    10
    Location:
    Delaware
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Questioning
    Out Status:
    Not out at all
    Thank you. I'll definitely take a look!
     
  8. Imjustjulien

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2017
    Messages:
    290
    Likes Received:
    184
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Hi InstantKamma,

    Great to read your journey to date and your next step challenges and questions.

    The thing to take hold off (from my own experience only)(and for each of us) and not too tightly, is we are each the commander, crew and passenger of our own ship... we can steer it where ever we want, paint it whatever coloured rainbows we like, and get on and get off whenever we like....its ours, yours, thats to me the wonder and the magic.

    Coming out is (to me) like that...feeling like Peter Pan, Pixie and I Dream of Jeanie all rolled into one... (excuse the fairytale and sitcom analogies...its my era)

    We have this idea somehow what we think now is fixed, or what we have built up is somehow concrete and unmoveable, or that we're spot welded onto some idea of what or who we are, but I have found the reality is different. If it were the case, we would remain as a child...all our life, and its not so. Learning the piano takes lots of lessons, til we get from playing chopsticks to Beethoven and along the way it impacts our whoke life....

    Though deep down knowing I've been gay my whole life, holding it inside has affected my whole life I'm sure. But only now as I am truly unbundling it, and yes it, the process, the self exploration, is informing like switching lights on, from new floor to new floor, every area of my life..in such profound ways...and yes its scary but in a very cathartic and new found wonderful way.

    Even as I write these words, it comes to mind that 'coming out' is also just a label, life is after all a process, and we are our just in time designers engineers and livers rolled into one. You.

    Have fun with it.

    Julien
     
  9. instantkarma

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2017
    Messages:
    15
    Likes Received:
    10
    Location:
    Delaware
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Questioning
    Out Status:
    Not out at all
    Thank you for taking the time to write that. It was beautiful and puts to words how I've been feeling. :slight_smile:
     
  10. zumbaqueen

    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2017
    Messages:
    305
    Likes Received:
    357
    Location:
    New York
    Those words, wow that's how's I feel. That's what I have been doing my whole life.
     
    LostInDaydreams and instantkarma like this.
  11. Sonata

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2014
    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    54
    Location:
    Earth
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Lesbian
    Out Status:
    A few people
    We have to come out of a few different closets, or a closet that has multiple locks on its door.
    I have started to take some bolder actions in different domains, even if they don't seem to be relevant, but anything that l used to do in a very calculated way, l do it somewhat more thoughtlessly. Like for the first time in my life, l broke the speed limit yesterday (just a little bit). In your case, Instantkarma, perhaps, changing job would be like breaking one more lock of the closet.
     
    instantkarma likes this.
  12. slowmo

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2017
    Messages:
    33
    Likes Received:
    51
    Location:
    West Coast
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Not out at all
    Hi ... so I'm probably not as far along as you are in coming out, but I'm also a bit older -- late 50s. I was married for 30 years with kids before I divorced. Only later did I begin trying to come to terms with being gay. What I do know -- in retrospect -- is that during a time when you're feeling uneasy and unmoored in the very core of your personal life, it definitely helps to have a job/career that you like. It's simply too overwhelming to do all of the sole searching and what-iffing all of the time, so it reaaly helps to have a job that you find fulfilling and are good at. We have to make sure we have things in our lives that make us feel good about ourselves as we struggle to work through the things from our past that don't always make us feel so great about how we got here. Good luck!
     
    Imjustjulien and instantkarma like this.
  13. Imjustjulien

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2017
    Messages:
    290
    Likes Received:
    184
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Practical, sensible and beneficial advice....
     
    instantkarma likes this.