I am officially the world's worst blogger.
I have no excuse really except that this year has definitely been a year of big changes for me and so I guess life has always found a way to get in the way. Still no excuse and I'm sorry. I thought I would at least finish the year off with a post though to look back at the year that was and try make some sense of all my thoughts on what went wrong and what worked. I think it's always a good idea to finish off a year with some sort of self-review so that you can (hopefully) learn from your past mistakes and refine your future goals.
Firstly, it's only right that I update you on what has been happening since I last wrote...
I'm still going out with Z (we're nearly at 7 months!) and things are going well. We have our moments when we argue and get annoyed with each other but I think that can actually be quite healthy and shows that we care about each other. I think the most amazing thing about our relationship is just how comfortable we are with each other and how much we view the world in the same way (despite our 16 year age gap!) The age gap does still bring with it complications that may well derail us in future but for now things are good and I'm just taking things one step at a time.
Unfortunately I can't say such good things about work, as sadly I'm absolutely hating it! I won't bore you with why I'm not enjoying it but basically I'm just finding it incredibly boring and uninspiring. I look at my managers and don't find myself wanting their jobs and so I just can't see myself staying in this field. It's so frustrating that two years since graduating from university I still haven't found something that sparks something inside of me. Everyone tells me I'm being too hard on myself and I can't expect to find the perfect job so soon into my career but it would be nice to at least feel like I'm on some sort of path. At the moment I'm doubting whether I even want to work in marketing (which is what I studied) or even be in a traditional corporate culture. I seem to spend so much time just going round and round in circles feeling like i'm doing the wrong thing for me. I guess I am learning more about myself as I go along and am figuring out what I like and don't like and how I like to work but it's a slow process and I could really do with a revelation right about now!
Work aside, it has been a pretty monumental year for me and I'm aware of how much I've actually achieved since leaving university two years ago. I've travelled around the world on my own, come out of the closet to those closest to me in my life, been on my first date, had my first gay kiss, lost my virginity and had my first relationship! I still can't quite believe how far I've come on the gay front this year and what's even more unbelievable is just how normal it all feels.
In my first post of the year I listed some new year's resolutions so I thought I'd review them now and see how I did.
- SEX! I wanted to lose my virginity and get more comfortable with my body and myself. This has been a resounding success - I lost my virginity in one of the best possible ways and I now feel more than comfortable having sex with my boyfriend. I do still worry about having sex with others though so I guess my confidence is not quite up there yet but I'm pretty happy with my progress so far.
- Gay friends: I wanted to make more gay friends and I definitely did. I've met lots of amazing guys through my boyfriend. One concern of mine is that they are all older than me (some 8 years, some 24 years!) so I worry that if my boyfriend and I were to break up we might not stay friends. Time will tell but I do like hanging out with older guys anyway - I've always felt a bit old for my age!
- Straight friends: I also wanted to make some new straight friends, which I haven't done as well at partly because I've mainly been hanging around with gay people but I think I have done well at consolidating my previous straight friendships.
- Work: I wanted to figure this out which I clearly haven't done. I guess I have gone some way to learn more about myself and what I want but I've still got a long way to go so this is a work in progress.
- Positive mind: I wanted to have a positive outlook on life, which I have definitely failed at many times this year. I find it really easy to get overwhelmed by things and feel like the whole world is against me.
- All the usual: I wanted to look after myself, which I have more or less done and carry on learning more about myself and what makes me tick, which I have tried hard to do but is a continuous process.
So I guess my biggest failures this year have been my not finding work that I love and that could become a successful career and my not maintaining a positive outlook on life (maybe the latter has exacerbated the former? Probably). Another big failure was my experience with N. I still can't believe how that all turned out and how I reacted to it. He was definitely in the wrong but I feel a bit embarrassed by how crazy I went. On the plus side I did learn a lot of lessons from that time and have come out stronger for it.
My biggest successes for the year have definitely revolved around my progression into gay life: my first gay kiss, my first gay sex and my relationship with Z.
2012 is another new beginning and I'm hoping to make right some of the mistakes I made this year. Most importantly I want to have a positive attitude because I think it's true that positivity begets positivity. Hopefully that will rub off on my career and I'll finally get closer to finding something that is for me. Otherwise I just want to continue growing in my gay life. Now that I'm out of the closet there is no way I want to go anywhere close to it again!
I'm not sure if I will continue writing in this blog. Maybe I'll resurrect it in a different format. But I hope that whatever I have written has helped other people going through the same issues as me. I guess that if there was to be one take out I would want people to take from my coming out experience it would be that it really is worth just going for it. Don't wait any longer than you really have to because the longer you leave it the harder it will be and the longer it will take you to feel like you've found some form of normality. Have confidence in yourself and find comfort in the fact that there definitely are people out there who are like you and a life that you will fit well into.
Good luck!
X
