Living the Good Life

This is a heady topic. A topic easily misstated and misunderstood. It is an issue that is easily overthought and manipulated as well. I’ll try to avoid those pitfalls.

Defining the good life is a good place to start. A simple statement may do, such as: the good life is one lived openly and honestly in relation to other people near and far. This should be simple enough to not need any declarative comments explaining what it means.

Unfortunately, living openly and honestly is extremely difficult to do sometimes. I offer this very personal experience: I am gay. I did not want to be gay. I wanted a normal life with family, purposeful career and house. In the 1940’s and 50’s, gay was not spoken. Kids confronting puberty and what it means did not have printed material or counselors available familiar with gay matters. Any ‘decision’ made pertinent on what to do about gay feelings were made in a vacuum and mostly ignored and pushed far away.

Those ‘decisions’ often led to problems that affected that person and anyone they built a life with. Failed marriages were often the result. A world of hurt feelings and angry misunderstandings also were present. What’s open and honest about any of this? Ignore a problem and face the consequences later. They almost always occur.

In my case I fell in love with a wonderful woman, had kids, built a great home life and assumed all would be wonderful forever. But gender orientation is not placed on hold forever. At some time, its presence exerts itself. The result is awful for the two people caught in the lie. That happened to me. After 26 years of marriage, a divorce was arranged and a very awkward life began. Both husband and wife started over and not with a clear idea how to do so.

Bottom line here is open and honest living is commonly very difficult to manage.

Finding a purposeful life and career is something more manageable. For me that saved me from certain extinction. I had something worthwhile to focus time and energy on. It took the place of the lost marriage and restructured family life.

It took me seven years, but I did find a wonderful guy to share the rest of my life with. His name was Rocky. Unfortunately, the rest of my life wasn’t in the cards; his was when he died after being together with me for 23 years. In that time, we did manage to build a good homelife, and comfortable life together. We found the good life after struggles with the real world surrounding us. It was not automatic. It took patience, research, and openness to find the working parts containing happiness. And purpose.

I know our experience was not unique. Very little is commonly shared by others going through these same challenges, but we were open with our kids, co-workers, neighbors and community friends and organizations. We made the best of it taking one step at a time. And we had a lot of help from friends and family that loved us. Their support was vital to us.

In the long run, I have lived a good life, just not all the time. Twists and turns on life’s journey caused challenges to overcome. They were met and survived. Some with tears. Some with smiles.

Given the variable circumstances, it worked. As best as it could have.

October 31, 2025

 

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