I can’t point to one specific source for why, and in truth I feel there’s many, but I’ve often been accused of being emotionally stunted. Growing up, I had the singular vision of getting out and nothing else mattered. That vision and the trauma of my childhood led to me closing myself off to my own emotions and those of others, so the few friends I had would say that I had a very robotic approach to life. Even though I’ve been to some therapy and have made it, I’ve carried some of that distance into my adult life and still get told I’m cold by close friends and exes. I do feel things, as everyone does, but I struggle to express them in any way other than text. In person, I am at times far too controlled and calculating to be myself, authentically. 

This has helped tremendously, at least so far, in my career. I entered an industry that rewards a lack of emotional passion and favors calculated expression. Thus, left alone, these antisocial tendencies will continue to grow as I’m rewarded for them in my professional life. That gets at the point of this blog, which is to let my hair down and learn how to more freely express myself as a queer man and as someone who has struggled but has now made it. I have to acknowledge how stable my position is now, so that I can learn to take risks and live.    

Rather than living out the rest of my life as an unhappy little cog in the machine, I’m challenging myself to let go of my heteronormative baggage and queer up my life, to finish the journey I started when, as a young man, I realized I was different and began to own that. 

So, if you’ve found this, I appreciate you taking the time to click around and read some of my writing. I’m trying to work on a specific novel, which I’m filing under the tag “Ricardo,” since using my own name felt too autobiographical. It isn’t that after all, although I’m pulling from my own history. Other stuff is uploaded as just blog posts and tagged as appropriate when it’s more than just me sending this out into the void.