My Name Is Geoff and I Have A Story

Written by on 17th December 2010, 2 Comments »

This post was submitted on Tell a Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?

I carry the hallmarks of a creative person. I’m an Enneagram type 4: the individualist. I’m an ENFP: plenty of ideas, strengths to apply and real challenges around focus and follow-through. I write these things to help you understand my journey. I don’t feel like these elements fully define me as a person, but they’re guideposts to who I am. I also write them because I have a confession:

They’re the very things that I’ve fought against for a very long time in my life.

See, I thought that normalcy and a sense of balance meant suppressing these parts of who I am. I grew up in a family that placed a premium on the three Rs of freedom: Respect, Responsibility and Reason. And so for years, I made the responsible choices. I Plan B’d my creativity into advertising. Not a bad thing. But inside? I was smoldering like Jack White in a Trappist Monastery.

Married at 22, I felt the pull of deeper and deeper responsibility and I had to respect that. I reasoned that if I could just work in the underbelly of my industry then eventually I’d find a way to reconcile these issues I had.

Until I found that my issues were my assets – my gifts, my jewel.

It took 25 years.

Let me give you my stories. It’s surreal:

• Childhood: Jerusalem (Swedish film; worth your time; Netflix it)
• High School: Breakfast Club as experienced by Andrew Clark
• College: Terry Gilliam’s Brazil
• Quarterlife: How to Get a Head in Advertising
• At 30: Kramer vs. Kramer minus the kid

Now understand, for 20 of those years I’ve been working implicitly on transcending these stories to write the new one. But a lot of those years I was doing it on my own. Gotta say, the transformation began when I made the conscious choice to move from self-reflective story changer to overt, out of the closet pursuer of my story. When I did this, it began to click and I made the move. To what?

Story teller. Interpreter of beauty. Writer. Filmmaker. My creative sensibility that has driven my career in the telling of brand stories has myriad applications. My artistic, idea-driven self holds the key. You know what else? What with the Three Rs of freedom and three decades of producing in a suppressive mode I can actually redeem that side of my experience too: I know how to get s**t done.

So I’m doing it. I have my own and new stories I’m going to write and film. You’ll read and watch them. Why? ENFPs have really finely honed delusions of grandeur. I wouldn’t trade mine for the world.

  • Author Name: Geoff
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Posted in Tell A Story | 2 Comments »

Setting Expectations

Written by on 6th December 2010, No Comments »

My initial resistance to blogging was as mundane and commonplace as a European’s fear of eating tomatoes was in the first half of the second millennium AD. While I wasn’t afraid of being poisoned, I was afraid that what I had to say would not be useful to those who might read it. This resistance came to light during a conversation with Christine Gallagher, for which I’m very grateful. Seeing it enabled me to reason with it. And then get over it. Obviously.

I was invited to go to the next level of blogging earlier this year when I hired Dennis Baker to help me with search engine optimization. He stressed the importance of blogging regularly, not just for SEO, but because readers come to expect it and readers are important. And if you don’t continue providing valuable content for them, you fall off their radar and the connection breaks. Not meeting expectations is not good for relationships, in other words.

Which is what I heard reflected back to me on a brief phone call with my dad today when he gently ribbed me for not having posted for nearly two weeks. Good call, Dad.

I think it all boils down to that key word: expectations. The simple act of blogging roughly once per week for the last year, sometimes more, indicates that people can expect me to continue to do so, regardless of whether or not I tell them I will. Together, writer and reader establish a habit of connection. This is, for me, something I want, even if I don’t always maintain my end of the bargain.

But unlike my blogging life, we don’t always want to keep the expectations we’ve set. Sometimes, we get ourselves into relationship habits and work projects and ways of being that don’t really work for us. What then? We’ll here are some questions to think about that might help you begin to sort that very conundrum out.

  • Are there any relationships – business or personal – where you’ve established expectations (either explicitly or implicitly) that no longer work for you?
  • How do you continue to operate in a way that indicates others can hold those expectations of you?
  • What would be the cost of changing those expectations?
  • What would be the benefit?



December is a perfect month to be looking at expectations because they surface left and right in our personal lives due to the heightened sensitivity around family and holidays. We tend to expect so much from one another and feel the weight of others’ expectations of us, never stopping to figure out our role in crafting such scenarios.

Have you set the right expectations?

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Posted in commitment | No Comments »

Lice cause suffering. Let us give thanks.

Written by on 24th November 2010, 4 Comments »

There are a few adages I am loathe to utter but which nonetheless communicate commonly accepted truths and come forth from the mouths of people I greatly respect. They are also generally expected from people in my profession. Here’s my least favorite:

Everything happens for a reason.

There are myriad reasons why this particular expression gets under my skin. Primarily, it has to do with the how and when of its usage. You’re most apt to have this offered to you as a viewpoint you *should* adopt when something really crappy happens and you haven’t yet begun the healing process. The folks who utter it during such times are well meaning, I’m sure, but it’s always struck me as insensitive at best and abusive at worst.

The adage is also a little too linear for me. I’m not sure I can get behind such a simplistic causation formula for our experience as humans. Take death. In the grand scheme, sure, there may be a simple spiritual, universal reason for dying. But when applied to the timing and manner of individual deaths or the endless “little” deaths we encounter, “everything happens for a reason” strikes me as trite. Perhaps my thoughts about this are similar in form to those of the atheist who believes that humans have simply constructed God to make themselves feel better.

Part of it is that I tend to be less of a “silver lining” kind of gal and more of a “call a spade a spade” kind of gal. But the truth is, a spade isn’t a spade unless I call it spade. See? That is the nature of reality, of language, of story.

In all of this, and on the day before the Thanksgiving holiday, I am reminded of the author Corrie ten Boom‘s recounting of her experience in a Nazi concentration camp. Her sister, imprisoned with her, insisted they give thanks for the wretched lice that had infected their barracks. Corrie balked at such an idea, knowing how much suffering the lice brought all the women living together. But thanks they gave. And it was only later that they realized the lice had been the sole factor preventing the guards from remaining present 24/7 in their barracks. Without guards, they were able to tend freely to one another’s deep spiritual, emotional and mental needs, gathering for meetings of prayer and discussion.

I’ve spent some time today exploring the relationship between being grateful and a resistance to silver linings and everything happening for a reason. There’s no arguing that the act and experience of being grateful is a useful, necessary and healing one and I’ve wondered if you’re more apt to be grateful if you consider that something seemingly crappy or tragic or painful happened for a reason. Or if you’re more likely to give thanks if you believe there’s always a silver lining waiting to be found.

Did the lice appear in order to remove the guards, thereby creating a more deeply nourishing environment for the prisoners? Was the ability to meet for prayer and discussion a silver lining?

Perhaps those questions are irrelevant. Perhaps gratitude is less correlative to a belief that everything happens for a reason or the dogged pursuit of silver linings. Perhaps identifying something as a spade can provide its own pathway to gratitude. Something more along the lines of Corrie ten Boom’s sister’s approach: Lice cause suffering. Let us give thanks.

I have much to be thankful for this year, as I do every year. Much that easily sides into the abundance column and makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. But our human experience is one of yin and yang and so there are also injuries and struggles that I’ve faced. I am going to practice being grateful for them, too. I am going to practice being grateful for them because I am aware that gratitude transforms – ourselves and that for which we are grateful. I am going to practice being grateful for them because I know I cannot see the future. I am going to practice being grateful for them because they are part of the complete experience of my life, a life I cherish with abandon.

May you experience the fullness of your own day of thanksgiving!

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Posted in gratitude | 4 Comments »

Will I Be Pretty?

Written by on 19th November 2010, 1 Comment »

You might laugh. You might cry. You are likely to cringe. And if, like most of us, in your search to “find fulfillment” and learn “to wear joy” you get hung up the superficial, on the external pressures of our culture, on being pretty, I invite you to watch this video by poet Katie Makkai.




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Posted in authenticity | 1 Comment »

What’s Stopping You?

Written by on 11th November 2010, 2 Comments »

This post was submitted on Tell a Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?

A few months ago I got serious about creative work. I pulled a book off my shelf that had been sitting there unread for 8 years: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I told my business partner that I was looking for other work that will be less time-consuming and will allow me to pursue creative work. I followed the guidance of a fortune cookie that led me to the right person to give me creative wisdom at exactly the right time in the right way. I wrote a spec script for a TV show because I have nothing to lose—and I am meeting people in the industry who can help me with it. I went to Burning Man. I met someone on the bus (the bus!) who led me to a screenwriting mentor. I am saying yes to the creative path by forcing myself to make a conscious decision—as often as possible—to get out of my own way.

I finally realized that I am the only one stopping me and I am the only one who has the power to change the course of my life and follow the path that is my “personal legend.” I started resenting movies and books that gave me the impression that if only I had chosen a different spouse or a different college or grown up in a different family, things would be better.The message that my whole life hinges on one decision is a lie. Sometimes you can change those things for the better and sometimes you need to just kiss them and thank them for making you who you are. I can start to live the life I want right now, in this instant, without doing any fixing of the past or replaying what could have been different.

The freedom I have is powerful when I remember what’s stopping me from living—really living—that unlived life I dream about. The one where I’m the person who gets to do what I want to do. Where I get paid to do something I love. Where I decide how I want to spend my time. Where I create things that I care about and want to share. Where I’m vulnerable and invite people to share my life and my struggles and in return, I feel less lonely and afraid that I’m the only one who feels the way I do.Where I feel less alienated and more human—alive. I have the chance to express myself and feel embraced and understood.

I was stopping myself from living the life I want to live and it’s a daily, hourly, moment by moment struggle to tell myself to get the hell out of my way. When I do, it’s worth it. And that makes it much easier to choose as time goes on.

Burning Man proved to be the best place to test my new self. There, it was easy to be the self I want to be all the time because I was around a community of people seeking their true selves too. It was so easy that I walked around the streets with a smile on my face and a garland of toilet paper rolls flowing from my cowboy hat. Even at Burning Man—a place where I was offered some lemonade from a man on stilts who invented a lemonade dispenser out of a body part—even at Burning Man—that was enough to get people to stop and take notice.

I loved it. The purpose I had in wearing my toilet paper head dress was to ask a simple question of people: “What’s stopping you?” I asked them to write it on a roll and promised it would be placed in the Temple of Flux to burn. I couldn’t do much for them but tell them I hoped it would be released. In that simple act, some of them told me it was. That was amazing.

As the mediator for these unwanted barriers, the experience was not only a symbolic shedding of the shadow of my own insecure, fearful self but a chance to offer that same hope to others. I loved that too. I also realized that a lot of my insecurities and hang-ups are shared by people who really look like they have it all together (which tends to be my assessment of most of the people I talk to—that they’ve got things together more than I do). But they are plagued by the same things that nag me—fear of success, fear of failure, self-loathing. I’m not alone.

As I walked around the block carrying these written and unspoken burdens on my head, the sun started to burn my shoulders and I also started to think about bearing the burden of everyone else’s barriers. When I thought about it, I realized that they weren’t my burdens to bear and that made me smile. I repeated it to myself over and over in my head: “these aren’t your burdens to bear”—and that made me cry.

I worry a lot, and too much about other people’s well-being. Until this point, I have literally made a career out of it. For me, it’s time to stop worrying about other people’s burdens, stop carrying them as my own, and release them along with my own. The ideal of selflessness has been one of my excuses to stop myself from living the life that I believe is waiting for me. Probably the most dangerous and selfish one.

When I dropped off the fears and barriers at the Temple, knowing they would be burned in a beautiful ritual, I serendipitously hung them across from a message that said “Let it all go.” In that moment, I did. I know that doesn’t mean that I won’t try to go back into my mind, gather up the pieces again and collect them in my arms—overflowing, holding on to my own fears and worrying about everyone else’s, indulging in self-pity once in awhile and always longer than I should.

What’s stopping you? Let it all go. And let it all go again when it creeps back in.

  • Author Name: Kerri Feazell
  • Author Webpage:
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Posted in Tell A Story | 2 Comments »

Nothing You Say Can Shock Me, Honey

Written by on 9th November 2010, 2 Comments »

Above my office desk sits this image by Anne Taintor:

I love the image for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that I am rarely shocked and when I am, the issue at hand typically falls into one of three categories:

  1. Archaic beliefs and practices residing at the intersection of women and religion
  2. People’s willingness to put their worst selves forward on “reality” TV
  3. The resurgence of harem pants

Just like everyone else, I am so inundated with information and Law & Order episodes that hardly anything is beyond the pale. And when something is shocking, I fancy it has more to do with a misfiring of neurons or a stubborn refusal to adapt than something inherently striking about its content.

This can be tricky business, however, because the experience of “being shocked” is very often what prompts us to reach out and connect to others. As in when someone shares of an unexpected death or divorce or a sudden, out-of-the-blue success. Or, in my case, when a friend speaks to me about attending a church service in which the male pastor preached against women in positions of power while wearing harem pants and being filmed for a new reality TV series.

In other words, our rising tolerance can impede our ability to connect and listen deeply. Far too often, if there’s no shock, there’s no empathy. And we all need a whole lotta empathy.

This became especially clear to me while recently speaking with a prospective client. I mirrored back to her how challenging a recent life transition must have been for her, what a big deal it is. It’s not that what she was experiencing was shocking in and of itself (lots of people have found themselves in her shoes), but I could hear how significant it was and I wanted to be clear that I understood how shocking it must have been to her system. Suddenly, the entire energy on the call shifted. I could almost feel a sigh of relief. Finally, someone had gotten her.

I invite you to consider going through the rest of your day a little differently. When listening to others, take on a beginner’s mind, forgetting that you’ve been there, done that and have seen everything under the sun. What you hear doesn’t need to shock you. Can you be truly present to it, anyway?

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Posted in communication | 2 Comments »

Leap and the Net Will Appear

Written by Suzanne Bromberg on 5th November 2010, 12 Comments »

This post was submitted on Tell a Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?

Leap and the net will appear. That quote comes from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, a book that led me to find a coach and played a part in a series of leaps I would take in my life.

It all began with my simple desire to write. I enjoyed writing when I actually did it, which was rarely. Part of the problem was laziness, and part of it was lack of inspiration. What would I write about? And then there was the matter of my inner critic rearing its ugly head, saying why bother? Who will read it? I would occasionally try to write, but often felt blocked. Yet I still found myself buying books about writing, reading articles about writing, and listening to interviews with writers, living vicariously through their tales of creative fulfillment. Clearly, I had some desire to write.

A friend suggested The Artist’s Way, which is basically a 12-week program involving journaling and reflective exercises geared toward silencing your inner critic and discovering or reconnecting with your creative side. I immediately bought a copy, completed (and enjoyed) the first exercise, and then let the book sit around for another few weeks as I made half-hearted attempts to continue with it. I’d always been a good student, but part of the motivation in school was having to complete assignments and turn them in for a grade. I’m no longer in school, have no teachers, no assignments, no deadlines, no pressure, and therefore, no motivation. But I still wanted to complete the exercises in the book, get in touch with my creative side, and establish a regular writing practice. My husband, who had been working with a life coach through his job, suggested hiring one for my creative needs. That way I would have someone to check in with periodically, someone to motivate me and help me set goals, and someone to hold me accountable for meeting those goals.


Leap #1 – Hiring a Life Coach
This may not seem like much of a leap to some people, but please understand; I was a very private person who did not disclose a great deal of information about myself to others. The thought of discussing myself, my fears and insecurities, and my creative goals with someone I didn’t know (or even with someone I did know) was outside of my comfort zone. I also had some resistance to telling people I wanted to write because I feared they would expect me to churn out a best-selling novel or two, and I would feel like a failure if I didn’t.

I found a delightful coach whose warmth and sense of humor immediately put to rest my concerns, fears, and resistance. And as luck would have it, she also loves to write and was familiar with The Artist’s Way. We worked together for several months, during which time I completed all the exercises in the book and established a regular writing routine. I was very happy with my coaching experience and proud of my accomplishment, but I had a burning question: what now?


Leap #2 – Giving Speeches
Huh? How did I go from quietly writing for my own sense of creative fulfillment to getting up in front of a room full of people and giving a speech? Well, I felt like I needed to take things a step further. My concern was that this new writing routine would just be a fleeting thing, and that in a few weeks I would get lazy again. One thing I know about myself is that once I take action, I love to reward myself with inaction.

There was one piece of writing, a personal and somewhat humorous essay about my childhood, which I kept reading out loud. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had written a speech, and I felt like I wanted to share it. This was very out of character for me, yet I yearned to find my voice and tell my story. My husband belonged to a Toastmasters group, and the thought ‘why don’t you join?’ kept bobbing to the surface of my mind. I desperately tried to drown this thought, but it kept coming up for air and getting stronger each time. I even pictured myself getting up, giving the speech, and feeling the emotion of every word and phrase. Then I would stop myself and say, are you insane? Why would you want to put yourself through that?

I discussed the idea of public speaking with my coach. It went like this:

Me: (exasperated & dismissive) “I can’t believe I’m even thinking about this! I’m an introvert! We don’t do this stuff voluntarily!”

JGB: (calmly & rationally) “We are more than just our Myers-Briggs personality types.”

What a wise woman! She proceeded to coach around the issues I was having, and we finally negotiated an action step for me to take. I would visit the Toastmasters group, only as a guest, just to observe. A baby step. That worked out quite well, as I not only joined the group, I also delivered my first speech at the next meeting. It was very empowering, to say the least. Toastmasters also gave me the structure and deadlines I needed to motivate myself to write.

I like to think of giving speeches as my version of bungee jumping — something new and different and challenging for me, and a great way to step outside of myself and lean into my discomfort. My initial desire to write led me to public speaking, which led me to co-presenting an all-day workshop that evolved from one of my speeches. This would have been unthinkable to the pre-coaching me.


Leap #3 – Quitting my job to pursue my passion
So did I quit my job to pursue my passion for writing? No, I did not. Did I quit my job to pursue my passion for public speaking? No, I did not. I quit my job to pursue my passion for yoga.

You see, something interesting happened as a result of my journey from coaching to writing to public speaking. I not only discovered that my true passion was yoga, I also realized that it could be my dream career. Just to be clear, I love writing and public speaking, but I’ve been having a torrid love affair with yoga for many years, and only after giving speeches did I realize I had the courage (and the skills) to lead a yoga class. This realization led to getting my yoga teacher certification, which led to one teaching gig, which led to many more opportunities, and those opportunities led me to the ultimate leap of quitting my full-time job as a librarian to pursue my passion for teaching yoga.

It’s amazing to think about how my life unfolded and expanded since that very first coaching session!

Now, I’m not suggesting that you run right out to get a copy of The Artist’s Way, quit your job and the universe will immediately shower you with rainbows, puppies, and free candy. But what I am encouraging you to do is get clear on what you want and take action. Take action on whatever it is that you’ve been holding back from. Maybe it’s something as simple as getting back into a writing routine, or maybe it’s something as grand as writing a best-selling novel. Maybe it’s as simple as delivering your first speech, or as grand as becoming a motivational speaker. Whatever it is, take action, even if it’s a baby step in the right direction. Those baby steps are powerful! They lead to big, grown-up steps, and grown-up steps lead to leaps, and trust me, when you leap, the net will appear.

  • Author Name: Suzanne Bromberg
  • Author Webpage: http://www.monkeytoesyoga.com
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Posted in Tell A Story | 12 Comments »

Answering the Wrong Questions

Written by on 4th November 2010, No Comments »

I attended the funeral this morning of a distant family relative I had never met. I’ve been to many a religious funeral and, like religious weddings, there is often a portion where the pastor or priest or reverend reflects on the life of someone he or she may or may not have actually known. This part of a funeral has always struck me as tricky. I sit there, crossing my fingers, in hope that the officiant can somehow manage to pull it off without diminishing or exaggerating the life that has been lived.

Today’s priest was generally successful, in my opinion. Specifically, he was able to take a seemingly minor detail – the deceased woman’s love of Jeopardy – and correlate it to an entire way of living. Both her way of living and a call to those gathered for how they might live. Here’s what it boiled down to, in question form:

Do the answers you have correlate to the questions you, and others, are actually asking?

Not only was I impressed with the priest’s ability to draw profundity from a TV quiz show, but I was actually struck by the question. How often do we hold on to answers that have very little to do with the questions that sit deep within us or provide others with answers that have nothing to do with their own questions?

Perhaps we are so eager to be heard and to be certain and to prove ourselves right that we never stop to see what the question really is. Perhaps we are afraid that if we honestly named the questions, we would never find the answer.

To these concerns, I turn to the great poet, Ranier Maria Rilke:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books
that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers,
which cannot be given you because
you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will find them gradually,
without noticing it,
and live along some distant day into the answer.

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Three Stories

Written by on 30th October 2010, 2 Comments »

This post was submitted on Tell A Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?

I teach theater and drama at a university, where I also run a small theater program, producing and directing student plays. This year I’m on sabbatical from the university, freed from my teaching and directing responsibilities and in pursuit of experiences which will enrich my work. Among the highlights of the sabbatical so far: I’m currently designing sound for a professional theater production in New England; an article I wrote has been accepted for publication in a national journal; I have auditioned for and been cast in a professional production of a Shakespeare play in one of America’s biggest cities.

Now let me construct a set of narratives on which these facts may be hung, three stories I can tell myself to explain these facts, all of them “true.” Here’s one story: I’m pretty hot stuff. I’m at the top of my game. After all, to secure my services as designer and as actor, these theater companies are willing to shell out cash: the litmus test of professional activity. And I’m getting published, the gold standard for academic achievement. I’m very successful. Professional artist, serious scholar. You must be impressed.

Here’s another true story: I’m bogus. Getting “paid”? Get real. Sure, there’s some money in those gigs, but it’s a pittance, a stipend–a pity paycheck, really. And that New England theater company? It’s very small, and it performs in the boondocks. If I weren’t such a loser, I’d instead be designing gee-whiz sound effects for a Broadway production that gets favorably reviewed in the New York Times. Likewise with the Shakespeare: I’m cast in a very small role in a smallish production, and of course if I were truly successful I would be playing Lear on the West End, getting written up in the Times of London and courted by movie moguls. And don’t even get me started about that article! It’s not going to appear in some top-flight academic publication, after all, but rather in a little journal rooted in the faith tradition of barely a score of colleges around the country. If I were worth my academic salt, I’d be publishing a book of ground-breaking criticism or a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. But I’m not doing those things, so I must be bogus. I don’t measure up. I fall short. You must find me laughable, pathetic.

A third true story: I’m blessed. I’m learning so much about sound design that will be useful in the theater and in the classroom, and I’m working with wildly enthusiastic and surprisingly skilled people, who have enough discipline and moxie to pull this off. And I’m helping them do it–and I’m having a blast. And then I get to immerse myself in Shakespeare for THREE MONTHS! For me, a lover of his language, this is to die for. Plus I’ll learn so much about both acting and directing–and a thousand other things about theater–that I can weave into my own practice and teaching. And I’ll be doing this with people whose skill level will force me to raise my own, while collectively we enable a few thousand people to experience the work of perhaps the greatest dramatist ever. What an opportunity! And in the meantime, I’ve written something that will catch the attention of several hundred serious and thoughtful people (as opposed to the handful who read any given article in most academic journals), and generate authentic discussion about issues they find important. For a writer, what greater gift? Like I say, I’m blessed. You must think I’m . . . well, actually, it doesn’t matter what you think. I’m blessed.

Again, these stories are all true: that is, all of the claims I’ve made in each one are accurate. And each of them has its value. The first story is my marketing story: the one I’ll tell my dean, when I return from sabbatical. The second story is the one I tell myself when I start taking the first story seriously. This is my reality-check story. But the story most likely to lead in a personally productive direction is of course the third, because it focuses on the real value of my experience, to myself and to others. This is a love story. When our stories are all about our success or our failure, or about how we’re being perceived, we’re missing the point. Better to count our blessings, and marshall our facts of life into a narrative of gratitude and joy.

  • Author Name: jenzdad
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Posted in Tell A Story | 2 Comments »

Un-Telling My Coming-Out Story

Written by Kilian Kroell on 28th October 2010, 4 Comments »

This post was submitted on Tell a Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?



I came out to my mom when I was 15 and have lived more than half my life as an openly gay man. I used to have to tell my “coming out story” a lot, but today, it is only on first or second dates with men that the topic even gets broached. Voices get lowered, the tone gets serious, The Story gets told. Every openly gay person has one, and the elements are nearly universal: a deeply held secret is revealed, hearts are pounding, there’s anxiety, uncertainty, acceptance, rejection, drama, relief… So archetypal, so predictable.

I have a problem with the “coming out story,” namely with the fact that it divides a life into a “before” and an “after”. Why do the gays *have* to have this divisive story, and what if they don’t? Must identifying as queer require coming along with a struggle, and such a particular struggle at that? The problem is not even so much that the reasons for even having to “come out” as same-gender loving should be abolished (do lefties have to come out??); rather, it’s the fact that the “coming out story” is only the beginning of the “gay story,” which many gay men happily live out. This includes coming out, first same-sex kiss and sex, freedom and experimentation in college, madonna-britney-gaga, the clubs, the pride parades, the perfect body, the material possessions, the booze and the drugs, and if you live in the right state the wedding and kids. You know — one of those stories that perpetuates the commonly accepted roles for people in society.

During my junior year in college, I was very involved in two queer student organizations, organizing Out Week, Pride Week, weekly support groups, political actions, parties, the works. I was affectionately known as the “Gay Grandpa” amongst my peers. I was the embodiment of The Gay. It was after one of these events that I finally declared that I was retiring from being gay, that I was keeping my boyfriend but was otherwise done with this identity label and all the work that went along with it! My queer friends knew what I was referring to and congratulated me; my straight friends kept asking me whether I was becoming straight, to which I answered, “No way! That’s even more work!”

Living my own story has been a big theme in my life, and by now my “life story” is too complex to retell. I do use labels like “gay” and “queer” to position myself in society, and I’ve surrendered to the fact that growing up with this identity trait has constituted predictable and common struggles for me in my life. But these days I’m fond of saying that “I grew up gay” — and that my true coming out story begins in a hospital on a stormy winter night in northern Germany where my mom’s contractions are intensifying along with the snow outside…

  • Author Name: Kilian Kroell
  • Author Webpage: http://www.kiliankroell.com/
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Posted in Tell A Story | 4 Comments »

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“When I am asked for a referral to a life coach, Jennifer is on the top of my list. If you seek results, personal transformation and want to enjoy the process, Jennifer Gleeson Blue does not disappoint. I consistently hear rave reviews from all whom I have referred to her for life coaching.” – Seth Kaufman, Philadelphia, PA