How could I have thought that the days of youthful innocence were the worst of it? Looking back now, it was easy. Life was full of the simple pleasures of childhood freedom: the smell of fresh-cut grass, the lingering haze that followed a midday shower before us kids took to the streets again, running amok with sun-licked shoulders, torn denim, and imaginations still in overdrive. Then Sundays would roll around, and my mother would force me to put on the freshly ironed clothes draped over the side of my bed for church. The image of my family was very important to her. Those little stints of angelic performance taught me how to wear different masks. I would present one way while feeling entirely different within. Much like the Gemini, June stood beneath the sun with two heads, one looking forward and one looking back. This was the month I was born.

Maybe that is why memory has always felt split to me. A collection of Polaroids carried around in my pocket like souvenirs: tangible reminders of moments I survived and experiences I would eventually grow from. But with enough time, like anything, those pictures fade. The edges blur. Eventually, even the person staring back at me became hard to recognize.

It can take a lot of courage to break free from certain parts of our lives. After constantly being labelled and dismissed as too sensitive and too emotional, I gravitated toward the other side of the spectrum: avoidance. Cramming my pain and fears into every nook and cranny. I easily confused escapism and the outward appearance of independence with genuine freedom.

My hometown was a small suburban community saturated in white privilege. With no visible examples of queer love, I never felt safe to express myself. I was a lanky kid who would cower in masculine, heteronormative settings. I wanted to peel off my skin and disappear like a shadow beneath a streetlight, barely present, wandering aimlessly.

It was only a matter of time before I found ways to cope. I am human, after all, inherently wired for survival. By the age of fourteen, I had built up walls, brick by brick, with every drink and every drug. My secret life became one of isolation and self-hatred. I was a master of disguise, portraying a life of fearless adventure when deep down, I was just running away from the queer kid I never wanted to be. I denied that kid love and connection, not just from others, but more importantly, from myself.

For nearly two decades, my addiction ebbed and flowed between multiple lives, geographical cures, absolute chaos, and blissful self-loathing. I risked it all in search of oblivion. Staggering through the alleys of the DTES, chasing the moonlight in meth-infested slums of the Philippines, or bruising my fists on a prison wall in Australia. I had found something that felt like a solution: comfort wrapped in the delicate lie of temporary relief. In reality, there was a consequence waiting on either side of that next drink or drug.

Convinced I was unworthy of love and unable to give it, I kept running. With every unfamiliar country, I hoped that maybe this time I could become myself and begin again. By the last few years of my addiction, I had ended up in a place I never want to return to. I had given up, completely defeated, carrying around a note in my wallet bearing the words “I’m sorry, I love you” scribbled in black Sharpie. I couldn’t find anything else to write.

I was exhausted; the weight of the guilt and shame had become unmanageable. Leaving me to believe that death was my only way out.

Just when I thought I was at the end of my rope, something washed through me. A flash flood of hope coursed through my veins, short-lived, yet it was still a feeling I hadn’t experienced in years. Seeing my sisters get married, start families, and build homes filled with Love and kindness made a part of me want to know what my life could be like. Could I face the pain from which I had been running? Did I have the strength to work through the guilt and shame? Did I deserve to have a life full of love? Could I accept my true, authentic self? These questions ruminated in my head for many sleepless nights, strung together like the beads of a
cursed rosary.

Thanks to the gift of desperation, surrender finally became possible. The prison I had created was one I longed to break free from. Starting with my older sister, whose relationship I cherish deeply, I began to tell my family and close friends that I was going to seek help. Three months in a treatment centre gave me the safe space to address the demons I’d been dragging across the globe. I learned healthy coping skills, laid the stones for a new foundation, and grew by shedding my old skin.

Here we are back in June, where the story started. I recently celebrated my fortieth birthday. Since getting sober, I have been living my life openly as a queer man, reaching a place of self-love and acceptance. Navigating new experiences, I have been able to let others in, form intimate relationships, build trust, and show up as my caring, vulnerable self.

Over the last eight years, life has handed me some of my most challenging lessons and led me down paths I never could have imagined. Facing one of my greatest fears, I went back to finish high school so I could get into college. In a month, I will graduate from psychiatric nursing. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this is where my life would end up or that my past would become one of my greatest strengths. It has given me the ability to relate to those who are struggling and to offer them a safe, empathetic, and compassionate space.

That imagination I abandoned in my youth has also returned in the role I now get to play with my nieces and nephew. I feel incredibly fortunate to be their gay uncle, someone who can show up honestly and help answer their questions about addiction, identity, and the queer community.

Every version of myself I tried to outrun has become part of me. They are what allow me to sit beside someone in their darkness and remind them they are not alone. Maybe this is what the two-headed June was trying to teach me all along, how to look back without turning away and how to move forward without leaving myself behind. My life feels like it is just beginning, and let me tell you, I have already lived many lives.