Tag: mental health

Celebration!: C.’s Story

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You know how they say big things always come in threes? On March 31st this year I had three big things to celebrate, which is a nice change of pace from last year’s three big things, which were decidedly less fun. 

March 31st 2026 marked my four-year Van-iversary. 

Four years since my husband and I quit the grown-up jobs that were slowly killing us and invested our theoretical house deposit in two one-way tickets and six months’ worth of rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world. 

Four years since we filled our folks’ sheds with a decade’s worth of hand-me-down furniture, expensive kitchenware, second-hand books and records, and a couple of pricey-but-priceless artworks—all the trappings of a couple in their late twenties who finally graduated from undergrad sharehouses to cosplaying as adults. 

Four years since we farewelled our family and friends at what will likely be the only “retirement party” we’ll ever have, and flew across the world to a city we’d never been to and where we knew one person. Vaguely. 

Four years since we rented the first (and only) place we looked at, a basement suite advertised on Facebook marketplace by a new account with no profile picture. Turned out fine, they were a lovely family, and I’m pretty sure I sealed the deal by complimenting their ugly dog. 

Four years in our 500sq foot flat with two windows and a resident mouse called Jonathan. Four years is the longest I’ve lived in one place since I was a child. 

And each day of those four years, I’ve woken up feeling a bone-deep sense of gratitude. I can walk out my front gate, head four blocks north down our magnolia-lined street to the park with the pollinator meadow and beach access, where you get a flawless view across the inlet to the mountains, where it snowed on our first Christmas, and where I saw the northern lights. Twice! 

Four years that I’ve been able to say I get to live here!

It’s been four years since I looked in the mirror and saw myself buried deep beneath a lifetime of trying. 

Four years of gently prying that moldering heteronormative mask out of fingers stiffened with the effort of clutching it like a lifeline. 

Four years of deep exhales, of space and safety and community and sliding scale counselling. Four years of freedom and finding a happiness I didn’t think was possible for me. 

And that’s just the first big thing to celebrate! 

March 31st is also Trans Day of Visibility, which feels fitting as it’s really only since moving to Vancouver that I’ve been able to become visible to myself, let alone others. It’s a day that highlights Trans JOY, so it’s kinda nice to celebrate the joy I’ve found here.  

The joy of visibility is so much more than being seen, though. 

It’s being asked my pronouns when meeting someone new, or even better, when the other person introduces themself with their pronouns first. 

The joy of visibility is hearing a grownup customer tell their kid “go ask that person, they look like they work here.” It’s working in such an accidentally queer workplace that they/them has become the default until otherwise corrected. 

The joy of visibility is making the conscious effort to “be the me I want to see”, and finding out it’s actually working. It’s being told that you actually are the visible queer person (Cool Gay Elder™) in someone’s life that makes them feel like they, too, are possible. 

But the biggest joy is feeling known and seen by people who just get it. So that means that I get to build my friends’ flatpacks and lift their heavy boxes, and then they call me strong and handsome, and it goes straight to my head. 

It’s dancing at the birdhouse and being hit on so respectfully that you forget for a second that you should probably tell them you’re married… and when you do, they’re so nice about it and say “well, what a lucky person” and they wish you well, and somehow that whole experience is one of the hottest things that’s ever happened to you. 

This year I went all out: maximum visibility, maximum joy. 

On March 31st, I submitted my very trans, intensely personal thesis about nonbinary intelligibility and identity in middle-grade fiction, thereby ensuring that I will remain visibly trans in one pocket of cyberspace for the rest of the internet’s existence. How’s that for something to celebrate!

I am trying to get more comfortable with the idea of celebrating myself. It’s something that doesn’t come naturally, perhaps the result of growing up in Australia, terrified of being the poppy that grows too tall, only to be eviscerated by the same people in charge of doling out the fertiliser.

 After a lifetime of moderating myself to be just enough, never too much, believing that any sort of self-recognition is boastful, I’m re-learning what achievements actually look like, to me. 

So, aside from the big things, like acknowledging the fact that I’m graduating from my second master’s degree tomorrow (entirely paid for by a federal scholarship, which inherently values the importance of my gay little research!), I’ve been celebrating myself in less obvious, more honest ways…

Like the fact that I allow myself space to be bad at (some) things and give myself room to grow.

Despite gaslighting myself for the past three years, I actually can drive in Vancouver.

I can do nearly 2 push-ups. My goal is five—and has been for the past three years—but this time I think I’ll get there. 

I have no idea how much I weigh anymore, and that thought doesn’t panic me. I’m just letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves.

I’m learning to trust my own opinion more instead of being swayed by whoever is talking the loudest at the time, and sometimes I can even sit in the discomfort of holding two different ideas at once.

Sometimes I ask for help when I need it.

Sometimes I am even capable of being deeply honest in therapy. 

My grey hairs are really starting to come in and I’m genuinely thrilled about it because it’s proof that I’m getting older

I am healthy 

I am happy 

I am still here

And I reckon that’s something to celebrate

Celebration!: Nicholas’ Story

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I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you
– Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Note from the Author:
The following is an old piece I submitted to The Globe and Mail around Mother’s Day last year. It’s a letter to my departed Mother, who died in 2010 after a battle with cancer.

***

The thought of losing you was so staggering and overwhelming that, in tears, I proclaimed that I would make you proud of me. Your last words to me, although in truth I seldom think of them, were that you already were.

I was fifteen when you said that to me. And as this year is the fifteenth since your death, it seems appropriate to reflect. I don’t need to ruminate on whether or not you are proud—you have already said so—but rather, I want to reflect on whether or not I am truly proud of myself; and, by extension, if I bathe in the warmth, light, and love that a mother wants for her child.

When I was thirteen, surly like all teenagers, we often butted heads. You felt I was wasting my life away on the internet, and I thought you should back off and leave me alone. Despite changing logins, hiding keyboards, and unplugging modems, I would always find a way back online. You didn’t know that the internet was the only place I felt comfortable expressing myself, and that I found other nerdy teenagers who loved spending time with me. All I wanted to do was hang out with my friends. Just like any other kid.

Of course, as an adult I can expand my perspective and see myself as a confused parent worrying about their child, not understanding what would attract them about spending their entire day in front of a computer, worrying about the long-term damage it could cause. But I also know that I was miserably depressed and anxious even before you left us, and I wish you could’ve trusted me more.

People often say that mothers know their children better than themselves. For me, you knew I was gay before I was willing to admit it. Remember the day you called me a cocksucker while driving me to my shift at the radio station? That didn’t help things. Did you know I would become a man who, despite choosing to live with no regrets, would always wish that he came out to you before you died? That losing you would unlock a torrential floodgate, give me the courage to come out shortly after when I was sixteen? Probably not, but I’m sure you aren’t surprised.

When I turned eighteen, my loneliness was so turbulent, and the loss of you still so raw that it propelled me with a feverish desire to to be independent and become a grown man. I moved from BC to Nova Scotia, spent a summer in Scotland proper; spent nights upon drunken nights away from home, beer-taps flowing, cajoling with strange men I couldn’t understand, finding myself in their arms, trying to find my place in the world.

I eventually found myself where you were born, Toronto, finishing up the eighth year of a hellish undergraduate experience. I was twenty-five, dealing with COVID lockdowns, and my therapist called me out for never acknowledging your passing. She was right, and the solution was clear: I’d do a shot of tequila on the upcoming anniversary of your death. That was what the family did at the first memorial after all. It was a no-brainer.

I then chose to share that tradition with another family—my rugby family. A group of gay men (and their supporters) who gave me structure and community, allowed me the space to channel my emotions, helped me become the man I am today. One day after practice I gathered everyone together, gave them dingy plastic shot glasses, and poured the tequila. Told them that my mother was watching us and would help us win our upcoming tournament, silently promising that I would pull this off somehow.

My team took the shot for you; shut out a team from Perth, Australia in the finals after they said they’d kick our ass; I won forward of the tournament for leading my pack; your warrior’s spirit shone within me; I fulfilled a promise to myself; we achieved this together.

Winning that championship at twenty-seven is my finest accomplishment so far. It was with profound emotion that I moved back to BC shortly after the tournament, a type of bittersweet that comes from knowing you’re making a responsible decision. It was time to stop running away from you and move back home where I belong.

I’m now thirty years old, and it’s funny how the goals for my life are intersecting more with the goals you had for me. I don’t want to spend time online anymore; I want to engage in the offline world with my friends. But above all, I am a damn proud little cocksucker who’s living authentically in an increasingly challenging world.

Mom, I am happy to say that I am proud of myself. I’m a man who’s confident enough to part the clouds with my bare hands, bathe in the warm rays of the sun as it shines upon me, embrace myself in my entirety, and feel the love of the world as I walk on Wreck Beach with my friends, baring everything for all to see, as the world made me.

Beauty: Luis’ Story

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Watch this video of Luis telling his story!

When I was young, I went through a collage phase. I probably looked all around my house for whatever magazine I could get my grubby hands on. I specially recall the damage to a beautiful special edition magazine of Princess Diana.

I know this because my mum told me after asking her about this botched magazine she, to this day, still keeps around. I can only imagine how my mum felt after I destroyed it. Our relationship has had its ups and downs, but in my mind, my mother is deeply associated with the image of Princess Diana and their admirable capacity to be graceful to those who need it most.

I grew up as a pretty happy child up until late middle school when I became depressed, as many other gay men have at some point in their lives. Again, my history with mental health has its ups and downs. I’ve banked my share of hours with therapists but recently I’d plateaued in my progress. Last year, I made a breakthrough. I honor my story by highlighting the importance of taking yourself to therapy. 

The DIANA Magazine in Question
The DIANA Magazine in Question

One symptom I keep a look out when gauging my state of mind is my capacity to find beauty in life. I believe a sense of beauty is a psychological skill we can train or lose. To see it, notice it, name it, replicate it. At my worst, I stop watching TV shows, I stop eating sweets, and I isolate myself. Inversely, I write more poetry when I am processing negative emotions, this skill has allowed me to tap into my sense of beauty and pull myself out of a downward spiral. I’d like to share a spoken word poem about what I think psychological beauty is:

I’m on my knees. The congregation says Grace.
I look up towards high ceilings, the tainted glass,
Dramatic imagery in art, stone, oil, wood, brass.
Engulfed in what they say is beauty, yet I don’t see your face.

My favourite part of going to mass is leaving.
Outside, street vendors sell all types of food.
Outside, what is actually a religious experience
Tastes like fried, steamed home cooked goods.
Outside, I eat sugar just to help boost my mood.
My sister and I resist the Sunday public shaming,
My parents show us grace, your beautiful face.
I’m not asked to go with them again, embraced,
and still picked up for a meal, my soul’s soothed.
Coming out decades later, I still seek sanctuary.
The figures I look up to had a wardrobe change:
tiny underwear, leather jockstraps, tails, fangs.
I’ll say it again, out of one patriarchy and into another.
Penis penance. Men moan confessions to each other,
Some carry a cross, others prefer to be tied to it,
Time’s still spent on my knees doing other things
Giving or receiving Gay Communion. I don’t sing,
But what comes out my choir has a similar ring,
The sound of falling icons and featherless wings,
The premium and peace speech therapy brings.

Confess.
Humbling, paying alms to sort unclaimed shit out
Going to counseling cause someone else did not,
What’s that about? Tinted glass bias, guilty eyes
Projecting self esteem into simple average guys.
Confess…
People can be “nice” but very unkind in thoughts
Because that’s how people pleasing comes across.
Truth is I’m scared of a drag queen’s entourage,
Cunty vibes encouraged, community sabotage.
Confess!
I don’t trust men to be a secure emotional space
I’m afraid that’s a reflection of what I do, am too,
If I use authenticity to camouflage my true face,
Interpersonally challenged with a deep lack of self awareness.
At least that’s my impression.
Doctor it’s been two weeks since my last session
Our last convo has become my confession, I pray:

Grace. For lack of a better word, I ask you for air.
Begrudgingly, as a child you brought me despair,
Betrayed at how empty your brand made me feel
If your love depended on God, others to be real.
I prayed the gay away for years. I couldn’t dare,
Be associated with such a strong feminine name.
And still you’ve forgiven me, as is in your nature,
To mold me as a kid, teen, adult, with true nurture:
Not idealized under judgment but understanding
Of my delicate features, my edges, how I feel injured.

Dented by your many falls from grace. Disgrace
Means facing that which lives in the dark, fowl,
Scowl, I crawl and brawl and embrace them all.
My beasts take a breath as I feed them a meal,
My demons are cordial if I listen and let them be
My hells are manageable, if I show myself ways
To renounce a saint’s life, see myself face to face.

The point was never to climb back up to Grace,
But to hold you as we go down and into the ground.
I found, we can find sanctuary in this hellscape,
Through a loving, poised, graceful, headspace.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and depression has a way of placing a gray filter in front of those who battle it, which makes asking for help a bleak task. As a gay man in therapy, I’d say most of my work depended on unlearning behaviours, overcoming trauma and learning to embrace love, uncertainty and the freedom to be my best queer self. It’s messy, trying to figure ourselves out; I know I struggled with not knowing who I could be. I documented my journey of self discovery using social media, each post made me value the beauty of being able to find beauty in a life lived. Each post’s a puzzle piece with rough edges and contradictions, each attempt gave me clarity about who I was not, diversifying my self image whilst unifying my confidence. I welcomed the New Year with the following poem:

One choice makes me larger
Another makes me small. Decide: do or do not. 
Two parties playing tug of war on a dance floor.
What would secure men do in this circumstance?

Get down, boogie, focus on the tempos for once, 
Be the baddie that gets low, create my own flow.
Try to understand men’s body language: a glance.
Eye contact. Hello. After that you’re on your own.

Quick turn to see if you’re still looking. You know, 
I wrote a spoken word poem about this moment,
But there was dialogue, actions, scripted truths.
The countdown starts, fumble, miss my queue.

I’m putting pressure on myself to not perpetuate
That which was done to me. I hesitate and wait,
For impulse to shake the electrodes off my head.
Regress to make progress, act before I overthink.

If it’s still within me. I’m sure. I’ve gotten this far, 
276 [281] posts later yapping of the glory and gore
Of being gay in 2026. Now for a new resolution:
To give myself the grace I’ve always needed, evermore.

Despite synonyms, I was conflicted with resonating to the word “grace”, I knew of her but talking to her, through therapy and poetry, made me feel like I was being reacquainted with an old, healing, friend who knew I could be my worst qualities, and still saw me as a person worthy of love. If I try, if I succumb to my fear and bail, if I get depressed again, grace can be a colorful filter to feel aesthetic, confident, even regal. And that feels sourced from within, feels like me. Like an inverted vision board, my life regained value because I prioritized this feeling whilst posting about travelling, cooking, existential, surviving or in the words of another incredible graceful figure, Catherine O’Hara:

“[Taking] a thousand naked pictures of [myself] now. You may currently think, “Oh, I’m too spooky.”, or, “Nobody wants to see these tiny boobies.” But believe me, one day you will look at those photos, with much kinder eyes and say, “Dear God, I was a beautiful thing!” Oh, and make sure you submit those photos to the Internet. Otherwise, your own children will go looking for them one day and tragically, they won’t be there.”

What groundbreaking conclusion psychological help has bestowed upon me is realizing that I find the capacity to look past “the cringe” with the love and kindness my mum, Princess Diana or even Catherine O’Hara would have given a loved one quite beautiful. Counseling, speaking, writing, sharing my thoughts, gives me a space where I can see beauty, notice it, name it, and replicate it by being more graceful to myself and hoping it’ll make me more graceful to others. Changing my point of view so that the world might seem changed, too.

Beauty: Lou’s Story

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It’s been an exhausting day of travel and emotional upheaval to make it to the musky back seat of a stranger’s used minivan in the parking lot of the massive hub that is the Cleveland Airport. It’s 2013, I’m 19 years old, going into my third year of college, and I just completed my first solo flight. Well, technically, first two solo flights, if you include the short little jaunt to my neighbouring Province and then the connecting international flight to the States. I’ve been preparing for months and months for this day.

Every early morning shift at the pool, every denied invite to go out, every bring-your-own-lunch-to-school dollar has been saved to get me here. Here, now rolling along Ohio’s highways, letting the bare landscape whizz on by. The sky is bright and expansive, the emotional forecast… not so much. In the time that it took for me to sprint from my first flight to my connecting flight, the terrifying turbulence that had even my phased-by-nothing seat mate gasping, and now this backseat’s “eau de B.O.” sitting with 4 other strangers who have come from God knows where, has me convinced me I do not want to be here. I want to be the opposite of here. I want to be home. I want home. I am so far from home.

The barren rolling hills start to turn green as we drive through forests that look nothing like the dense and mighty cedars of the Northwest Coast. Sunlight streams through the branches with ease and everything within looks aglow. Somehow this is both mesmerizing and multiplying my aching homesickness. The roads wind as the minutes tick on by. Small talk has arisen amongst us strangers as we share where we are coming from and how we first heard about this retreat. People seem nice. Polite.
Typical church personalities. I know this type well. I am this type. My Christian resume is thorough. Take a look at my contributions to its contents from the last week: I have five scribbled prayers in my notebook from the two boarding lines I have waited in today. I have checked off my communication responsibilities to schedule someone back home to cover my spot on the church Praise Team for the Sunday services. I am fully backed by the leadership of my Presbyterian roots after seeking the blessing of my pastor, his wife, a Christian mentor, and a member of session… just to cover my basis. And I have whole-heartedly believed that this, this one-week International Prayer Retreat, this is the path that God himself has made for me. And if it wasn’t for this divine calling, this clear conviction, that tenacious little flame of faith I have been fanning for the last 6 years, I would have already been on my third flight of the day, my flight home.
These strangers are my people, and I know how to “people” well. I know how to present myself and hide myself at the same time. I am so good at it, that I genuinely can enjoy the connection despite the storm I keep at bay inside. But today, these whiffs of a middle-aged man’s unwashed workout gear resting in the confines of a tightly packed automobile, these foreign roads with their foreign colours of green in their foreign sunlit forests, and the choppiest of internal waters, the crashing waves start to pool at the corners of my. smiling eyes and I am not sure how long that smile of mine will convince these strangers that I belong here.
In actuality, this minivan commute is just under an hour, a fraction of time amongst my travel day, but within those 57minutes I have entertained the fear that drives almost all that I do; I DO NOT belong here. But if I don’t belong here, if I don’t hear from God, if I don’t get answers and nothing changes, if I don’t change, if I leave just as broken as I have arrived… I won’t belong back home either. Not in my church, not in my family, not in my circles, not in myself. And if I don’t belong at home, I do not have a place of belonging. The truth will become loud and clear… I DO NOT belong.

I’ve only let a few silent tears leak down my cheeks. Subtle enough to wipe them away like the sweat I see the elderly man named Everett in the first row of seats attempts to wipe from his brow. I have observed his leaning posture and shaky hands. His voice deep but raspy as if it held strength before his muscles atrophied. My guess is Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy, old age? His wife, sitting beside him, fanning her also flushed face, sees his fable attempt, pulls a tissue from her bag and wipes his brow for him. God, that is all I crave and yearn for. To sit in the discomfort of it all, in any state, in all circumstances and turn to look into the eyes of my love. My person. And see my belonging. Please God, let this bravery of coming here lead me one step closer. Not one more step closer to the man I grew up thinking I was going to marry, I have prayed in the depths of this closet far too long for me to believe in this Pray the Gay Away scheme anymore. No, I desire something far more reasonable. This is my last-ditch effort to get close enough to God for him to give me the grace to not desire what I am not supposed to desire. Celibacy, a current coffin of a closet, I need desperately transformed into something I do not mourn. Please God, please won’t you do this for me. Or maybe, just maybe, could there even be a fragment of a hint of a hope that this retreat could get me one step closer to finding her?

The minivan rolls to a stop at the far end of a pull-through driveway. Through the tinted windows, amongst the towering maple trees, lay a small lodge with a trail of cabins off to the right-hand side. The main building, larger than the rest, is framed by dozens of windows, which allow me to see through to the other side, where the wrap-around deck borders the rushing river beyond it. It is stunning… and yet, its beauty does nothing to calm me. How many tears can I pass as sweat? The sliding door of the van is rolled open and we pile on out, gathering at the top of the gravel pathway that leads down to the lodge. My mind is busy. I bet that the lodge has the phone I will need to call my parents. I bet that the lodge will have the computer that I will use to search for flights home. I bet that the visa in my orange Velcro wallet will be able to cover the expenses of making my way back to my precarious belonging. Once I am home, then I can figure out some way to pay off the bill of this mistake and figure out a new way to earn God’s favour.
As we unload the trunk of all our luggage, I’ve run through my exit plan 18 times; it’s foolproof. We are instructed to meet in the lodge to meet our mentors and other fellow retreat goers, so down the path I go. I am certain I will not be meeting anyone who doesn’t have practicality in my purposed plan to skip introductions and make my leave. Before making it down the tiered steps directly in front of the lodge, my mental preparations are interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. I look up to see a mammoth of a man walking up the steps. Blue denim overalls and a buttercup yellow golf shirt that encompasses his big, round belly and wide shoulders. When I look up to see his face, I see sweet blue eyes hiding behind half-rimmed glasses and a trimmed white beard circling his beaming smile. Undenounced to me, Santa apparently lives in Ohio during the summer months.
In the smallest of moments between my observations and festive judgements, this jolly man meets my gaze, raises both arms above his head, joy radiating from his face and exclaims…

“LISA!!! YOU MADE IT!!! I AM SO HAPPY YOU ARE HERE!!!”

If ever there was a single moment that has defined who I want to be in this world, it would be the welcome I received from who I now know as my beloved friend John, endearingly known to many as Papa John. In all the wonder and awe I have found in this world, who knew a big old white guy with a certified twang from the South would become my definition of beauty. I did not call home that day. I did not book an emergency flight home. Instead, I spent a week in the bright green forests of Ohio redefining the God I thought I knew. Those seven days of prayer planted the seed of my belonging. Not to religion, not to church, not to celibacy, not within or outside the guise of rights and wrongs, my understanding of sin or the work of earning and deserving love. I began the work of believing in my own inherent belovedness, learning and leaning into the wisdom held within my body, the power of my imagination, my creativity, my goodness. I started to find belonging in myself.

Beauty came to me. Beauty showed up when bravery said, “There is a different way.” Beauty befriended me, not because my eyes were open or my heart was less hard, but because of the softness of the heart who was willing to see me. Papa John saw me. Freeing himself from expectation and norm, he chose to love with arms high above his head.
I’m 32 now. I graduated college. Moved out. Became a teacher.
Branched out with my bravery. Found queer community. Found more of me. Loved more of me. I spend my days living in the beauty of belonging to myself. I fell in love with the woman of dreams I never allowed myself to have. And our love, this love that found me, is an arms-high-above-the-head kind of love.
Beauty came to me, became part of me.

And I belong to me. To her. To a love I now endearingly know as beauty.

Beauty: Drew’s Story

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Beauty is mercurial and elusive.
It’s subjective. It changes and evolves. As does your perception, as you evolve with it. And apparently, it fades with age — unless you’re Brad Pitt.

Beauty has almost gotten me into trouble.
When I was a kid, I wasn’t into hockey sticks, jumping off trees onto the sidewalk head first, or whatever else boys were supposed to like doing.
I was sensitive. Not in a dramatic way — just… attentive. I didn’t want to wear my mom’s high heels or makeup, but I was fascinated by the pretty things in nature.
Flowers. Plants. Bugs. Furry animals. Mostly rabbits and skunks, because that’s what we had around. And lots of garter snakes.
While other boys were trying to shoot the rabbits with BB guns or pull the wings off insects, I was firmly in the catch-and-release camp. An early environmentalist without knowing it. Because I was admiring what I thought was beautiful.

My father did not see this as charming.
He was traditional. Grumpy. And convinced that boys were supposed to like cars, and fighting, smoking cigarettes, and whatever passed for manliness in the 1970s. He didn’t complain when I would bake a chocolate cake after school for dessert, which I am sure was on the not-so-masculine list.

Thankfully, my mother let me like what I liked. Now, she wouldn’t have been thrilled if I’d shown up in her best church shoes — and as a deeply religious woman, she would have prayed hard about that. Til her eyes bled. You don’t want to upset the Virgin Mary with drag too early in life.

By the time I hit my teens in the 80s, I thought I had beauty figured out. I had a modified Flock of Seagulls haircut and some truly committed eyeliner. You know the haircut — you can hear it before you see it.
I wore clothes that, in retrospect, should probably have been illegal. The 80s were a dark time: cheap asymmetry, massive shoulder pads, poor judgment, apparently a lot of cocaine.

As a kid, beauty was something outside of me. As a teenager — suddenly social, suddenly sexual, and wildly clumsy at both — beauty became about me. Or at least the shell I was walking around in. When you realize how much belonging matters, you start dressing for your tribe. We thought we looked incredible. Completely badass.
That is, until the real badass kids showed up — mullets, Mötley Crüe t-shirts — and we immediately ran away. If they threw anything at us, the thick coating of hairspray probably would have softened the blow to our young brains.

This was also the moment I realized something else:
I thought the guys around me were pretty too. Not in a competitive way. In a way that made my stomach drop. That realization opened an entirely different can of worms — one that would take decades to sort out.
Beauty, it turned out, wasn’t fixed. It kept moving. Expanding.

Fast forward about 25 years. Two University degrees. Many pints of beer. A series of very short-lived almost-relationships. Not because I didn’t want one — I did — just not with the wrong guys.

I found myself living on Pender Island in a van, pretending to be Jewel, having exhausted the entire gay male population of the island. All one of them.
So, I joined Manline. Also known as Lavalife. Pre-smartphone, Grindr, and Scruff. You use what you’ve got.
Every day, as the dial-up screamed and squealed, I waited. Hoping someone — anyone — had flamed me, or woofed me, or whatever it was called back then. As the page loaded, painfully, line by line, I saw his smile. My future husband. And I could feel it: oxytocin flooding my body — that ridiculous, euphoric high of being in love. I remember thinking, “I need to lock this beauty down.”
So I did. I put a ring on that. We built a life together.
Then we adopted — which was many things: complicated, exhausting, worth it. But not especially beautiful. That’s a story for a different day. Maybe a Vancouver Queer Stories entitled “Queer Parents Who Survived Parenthood”.

Around the same time, I finished my nursing degree at UBC. I worked in medicine, psychiatry, emergency, community mental health — and eventually landed in the Downtown Eastside, leading an outreach team working with people the system had failed over and over again.
I was intimidated. I had barely been there before. I was walking into single-room-occupancy buildings no one should have to live in. Truly. Shame on the city and the province for that.
I listened to stories of trauma so severe I couldn’t understand how anyone survived it. I remember thinking, there is no beauty here. This is a war zone.

But slowly — walking down Hastings, visiting clients, sitting in meetings with other service providers — something shifted. I started to see it.
Beauty was in the relationships. In the community. In the way people looked out for each other. In their resilience. In the small kindnesses — and in the gratitude they showed me, just for showing up as the nurse.

Was it always beautiful? Absolutely not. I ran from people who didn’t want me there. And if you’ve ever seen me play softball with WESA, you know I’m built more like a tortoise than a hare. The adrenaline helped.
But the thread that ran through everything was connection. Shared trauma bonds people deeply.
You would be amazed how far a little respect goes. These are the people our society treats as disposable — the reason NIMBY exists — and being treated like a human, even briefly, restores something vital.

That work forced me to face my own prejudices. It stretched my understanding of beauty in ways I didn’t expect.
Like a lot of things, when I was twenty and thought I knew everything, it turned out I knew very little.

And honestly?

I’m still learning what beauty really looks like. And I am very grateful for what it has taught me so far.