Hello, my friends.
For maybe a year now I’ve been wrestling over a couple of things:
Whether I wanted to return to writing publicly a little bit, and…
… if so, HOW to accomplish this - both on a practical level (Start a blog? Facebook posts only? Email newsletter?), and on more of an interior level (How do I return to the degree of peace and confidence that I once experienced when laying myself “out there” like I used to do.
And now that I’ve stumbled into this website plan via Squarespace that allows me to have a blog if I so choose, I figured I’d blog a little bit here, with the goal of essentially re-learning how to write. I’m only a little bit exaggerating when I talk about having to learn how again, because as I mentioned when I first “launched” my artist website on my socials, I have been mostly in hiding for the last couple of years.
In 2024, I came out as queer, and my former husband (still an excellent parenting partner and friend) and I came to the decision to end our 17-year marriage. Making these kinds of life choices when one has an extensive background in evangelicalism can lead to significant relational fallout, and this has certainly been the case for me.
Stan (my now-ex-husband) and my kids have continued to be an invaluable support system to me, in addition to Kimberly, my fiancee, without whose love and care I don’t know where I’d be. A handful of friends, along with my church family, have remained supportive as well.
However - and I haven’t publicly shared this yet - my entire family and extended family of origin (with the exception of some infrequent contact with one dear aunt, uncle, and cousin) have essentially cut me off.
I really don’t love talking about it because it feels… I don’t know… like it could be perceived as dramatic or attention-seeking? And I didn’t say this aloud to more than just a very few close people for a long time because for the first year or two, I held some level of hope that a few of my family members might come around.
But the truth is that it has been - continues to be - a mindblowing, gut-wrenching, multifaceted loss, both for me and for my children… and those descriptors don’t remotely do it justice. The grief and sense of abandonment lurk just below the surface most days, and they still occasionally take completely over and leave me in borderline panic attacks. Kim has spent many an evening holding me or just listening (over the phone) while I cried.
The thing is, if you asked them, my family would almost certainly not agree that they’ve cut me off. They would tell you I made that choice for myself when I came out and Stan and I ended our marriage. And I understand their line of thinking, though I’ll just say it most certainly hasn’t been my decision to effectively sever my relationships with them.
I used to think the way they do, used to interpret and apply certain biblical passages very literally - the only way I was taught to approach them - with no thought for historical or cultural context or the reality of translation errors perpetuated over decades and centuries. Ten or 12 years ago, I truly believed the best way to “love” someone was to virtually excommunicate them if I deemed they were living in sexual immorality.
It’s heartbreaking to me that I ever thought that way, heartbreaking that such a large sector of Christianity sees things that way, heartbreaking how many precious, vulnerable humans, especially young people, are rejected and abandoned by parents, loved ones, and entire support systems when they courageously decide to live more fully into the way they were made. It hurts my heart that I contributed for years to that cultural pattern by perpetuating that inaccurate understanding of Scripture.
But we can only apologize, express regret when needed, and then move forward with whatever new info we have and live into the ways it’s changed us. Know better - do better… ya know? (Credit to M. Angelou for that quote.)
Eventually, I’ll share more here. I’ll tell you about my journey toward deciding to come out, tell you how these life changes have drawn me deeper into God’s heart, how I’m learning to find my senses of identity and home in God when it’s hard to find them concretely at all, anyplace on Planet Earth.
For now, though, I wanted to give you just a quick glimpse into my life of late. A glimpse into the grief and the gratitude that I continually hold in tension. I don’t know how often I’ll be able to write or what it’ll feel like to share myself vulnerably, publicly, again after so long. But my hope is that saying some of this “out loud” to you will serve as a stake in the ground; hopefully it’ll be another early step on a journey of re-learning how to show up in the world as my fullest, bravest, most alive self. Re-learning how to live my life fully awake, and wide open. How to live as an offering.
So, I’ll say g’bye for now, and… please just feel my gratitude to you. Thanks for being here to receive my heart - your presence means more to me than you know.
