Growing up we’re taught to find happiness and success through multiple milestones as we grow into adulthood. For the most part, they might look a little something like this:

Graduate college: check.

Come out of the closet: check.

Land a great job: check.

Find Mr. Right: check.

Settle down with Mr. Right: check.

Accomplish these feats by Age 25? CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve hit the jackpot and understood the assignment, clearly.

So why is it now, nearly 15 years later, everything to me feels so out of control and frankly, just wrong? I checked the boxes and did exactly what was expected of anyone navigating life – yet why does it feel like I did it all wrong, I messed up, I flat out failed?

(that wasn’t exactly a rhetorical question, so if you’ve got the answer, I’m all ears) but in all seriousness, how is it that we can go through life doing what’s expected of us, what’s recognized as adulting successfully, and at some point down the road: years, decades even, do we only then realize that maybe we’d gotten it wrong this whole time?

The makings of an existential crisis.

Countless humans experience this phenomenon. Power through life going after and achieving life’s important milestones (job, spouse, kids, house, picket fence, etc) only to reach a point YEARS later, in some cases when it feels too late, to recognize the hugely obvious errors that led you to this point of questioning your entire existence; your entire sense of purpose.

THIS is where my story begins.

Let’s set the stage:

Small-town boy from the Pacific Northwest. Gay since practically birth but spent childhood playing it straight (or poorly trying) and learning to normalize for the sake of acceptance.

Took the first chance I could to break free of the small-town vibes by moving to Seattle for college, the first taste of life beyond Carhartt’s and Pickups.

Came to grips with the queerness inside me. Came out of the closet (or you could say I tiptoed, rather), landed a great job after graduation, and with incredibly minimal effort, found me Mr. Right. Suddenly any of those dark dark days I’d had in the past had been wiped clean because I’d cracked the code on life, right?

Ha.

Fast forward from those young nubile days, I feel much more rode hard and put up wet than I did back in the day. Years of focusing on my career (money = success, right?), focusing on my career (power = success, right?), and focusing on my career (successful career = successful life, no?), combined with coming to grips as a gay man and learning/unlearning so much about life through the lens of homosexuality, all while trying to be the best partner a man could ever ask for. You know, the gay knight in shining armor.

Can’t be that hard, can it?

Ha. Again.

Here I sit, looking back on my life and wondering ‘what the actual f**k – where did I go wrong? When did this happen? How did I not see any earlier signs?’

Currently I’m: jobless (don’t fret, that’s actually okay right now), in a strained relationship (hey now, no relationship is all rainbows and butterflies), semi-friendless, and unsure of my purpose or reason for being. Super vulnerable moment: you could even say I’m lonely and depressed (but she’s working through that. thanks therapy!)

This wasn’t part of the plan . I checked the boxes, and did what was expected, so what gives?

That’s why I’m here; why itsjohnchristopher has been born. Through airing (much of my own) dirty laundry I hope to explore these moments, these experiences, and try to both understand and get a grasp on the batsh*t curveballs we’re thrown in this so called game of life. I know full well I’m not the first person to suddenly be ‘enlightened’ by this idea and this quest for intentional understanding and I most certainly wont be the last, but here I am: itsjohnchristopher.

Welcome.