There are chapters of my life that many people have never read. Some have only heard fragments, while others have filled in the blanks with assumptions. Every now and then, I feel it’s important to clear the air.
I’m not a hateful person. I never have been. If you’ve known me long enough, you know my heart has always leaned toward building bridges instead of burning them. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been hurt. It doesn’t mean I don’t carry scars. It simply means I’ve always believed people are capable of growth, grace, and redemption.
When people have chosen to leave my life because of conflict, misunderstandings, or miscommunication, that’s their decision to make. I can’t carry responsibility for choices that belong to someone else.
One thing about me has never really changed. When life gets heavy, I isolate. That’s how I learned to cope growing up. With two older brothers who each had their own lives, I often learned to process things quietly and independently. It’s never meant as punishment toward anyone. It’s simply how I’ve survived difficult seasons.
If I have removed myself from your life directly, please understand there was most likely a reason. I don’t make those decisions lightly. More often than not, the constant noise, the drama, the rumors, or repeated disrespect became too loud for my own well-being. Sometimes protecting your peace means stepping away, even when it hurts.
As a queer individual, I also need people to understand something that shouldn’t have to be explained.
Please don’t force expectations, labels, or imagery onto me that don’t reflect who I am or what I’m comfortable with. Respecting someone’s boundaries includes allowing them to define themselves instead of asking them to fit someone else’s comfort level.
If there’s still some bitterness in parts of my healing, I acknowledge that. Healing isn’t always neat, and it rarely follows a straight line. But bitterness isn’t the same thing as hatred.
What I won’t apologize for is remaining connected to my LGBTQ+ community. It has been a source of friendship, understanding, safety, and belonging during times when I desperately needed all four. No one is going to convince me that I should distance myself from a community that has helped me survive simply because it makes someone else uncomfortable.
History reminds us why visibility can feel complicated. LGBTQ+ people have faced discrimination, violence, and even death simply for existing openly. That history doesn’t disappear because we’ve made progress. It continues to shape how many of us move through the world today. So if I seem guarded when I encounter prejudice, disrespect, or attempts to erase who I am, I hope people understand where that feeling comes from.
And if you hear something about me, I ask one thing: consider the source before you run with it. Rumors often travel much faster than the truth. My silence is usually intentional, not because I have something to hide, but because I’ve learned that not every accusation, assumption, or piece of gossip deserves my energy. Time has a remarkable way of revealing what words cannot.
The longer people choose gossip over conversation, assumptions over honesty, and spectacle over respect, the longer my heart stays on the shelf. That’s not hatred. That’s not giving up. That’s self-preservation.
I’ve always believed that love deserves privacy. Relationships deserve trust, quiet moments, mutual respect, and room to grow without becoming entertainment for the public or fuel for a rumor mill. When the day comes that I choose to share my heart with someone again, that chapter will be written by the people living it, not by outside voices trying to write it for us.
At the end of the day, I’m asking for something pretty simple: respect my boundaries, respect my identity, and allow me the same dignity that every human being deserves. We don’t all have to agree on everything, but we can choose compassion over assumptions, conversation over rumors, and respect over stereotypes.
I’ll continue building bridges where I can. I’ll continue protecting my peace where I must. And I’ll continue believing that, given enough time, truth has a way of speaking for itself.