I still don't know anything, and that's the greatest freedom I've found yet.

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.

...live in the question.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I've never been good at making decisions or keeping commitments.

Often, I've just followed whatever intuitive nudges I felt in my heart and done the 'next best thing' that felt 'right.' Some of that was intuition, and some of it was simply taking the easy way out.

I don't know when I became so bad at making decisions. I think a lot of it stems from my ADD and a lack of trust in my ability to make 'good' choices that yield beneficial, good-looking results on paper.

Following one's intuition always involves risk, at least for me. Maybe there's also doubt. Is it my intuition? Or am I telling myself this is the right thing to do because it's easier than the hard thing?

Maybe that's where the fear of commitment comes from, too. By not choosing, I feel I'm protecting myself from potential danger.

It's only gotten worse as I get older, too. After years and years of doing what I thought was right and somehow ending up on the wrong side of good intentions, I started to lose faith in myself and my ability to know what was right for me. I started looking for other people to answer those questions, beginning to look outside myself for what can only be found inside.

Christina Baldwin says, 'to wander without discipline traps us in immaturity,' and boy, oh boy, have I been wandering.

Even as a small child, I couldn't decide what I wanted to 'be' when I grew up. My mother kept a 'School Days Treasury' book for my brother and me. It housed photos and clippings from our elementary school days. At the end of each year, we wrote down what we wanted to be when we grew up, and every year, my section had lines scribbled through about three different occupations I was considering.

As I write this, a timer set for one hour of writing, my mind wanders to the other projects I have on the go, "Maybe I should be working on the poster idea instead?" or "Maybe my time would be better spent organizing my closet?" But here is the trouble. The commitment to writing each day for an hour even feels like a struggle because the habit of doubting that this commitment will bear any fruit is powerful. But how will I know if it will amount to anything if I don't stick with it? And what if it doesn't? Was it a waste of time?

In my heart, I know it's not a waste of time. How could it be? Everything we do, everywhere we place our attention, allows for some experience and learning, offers a glimmer of closeness with oneself, and potentially an opportunity to understand and connect with the deeper parts of our hearts. I try to relax in the focused attention, try to hold my butt in the chair, and keep my fingers moving.

Even with the ugly face of perfectionism poking out to tell me that I shouldn't bother because it's not like anyone is going to read this, and I sound dumb because I didn't finish university. My grammar is terrible, and who am I to think I have something of value to share, me the retired sex worker, the failed artist, the man who still feels like a boy?

But these thoughts are just thoughts. I've become bored with their ramblings and all too familiar with the trails they have blazed in my brain. I know exactly where they lead, precisely where they want to go, and it's right back to indecision, lack of faith in myself, and inaction.

I started reading self-help books in junior high- probably too early for someone who'd hardly even lived, but in them, I found road maps and answers to the questions I wasn't getting answered at home or church. The problem was that they also gave me a false sense of confidence.

I thought I had all the answers. I would listen to self-help gurus and follow their advice blindly, not assessing whether it genuinely felt right for me.

Every step I took and every choice I made was influenced by this self-righteous know-it-all-ness. But I didn't know anything. I can't be too upset with myself from this time; I was doing the best I could. And I needed answers. I needed to find that sense of self-confidence from somewhere.

Every choice, every step in faith, is a mini hero's journey - a commitment to an unknowable outcome. It is filled with possibility and promise but is ultimately a mystery. The only absolute security, the only thing we can count on, is that on the other side, we will have learned something and gained valuable insights about ourselves and the mysterious world we wander through.

There are no guarantees, and to remain inactive out of fear of failure, disappointment, or heartbreak is death.

We have stopped living, trying new things, and stepping beyond the cliff of possibility. Instead, we stay put, trusting that the net of experience (which is enough and rich with life-affirming lessons even if it's painful or a "failure") will catch us.

Many of the lessons I'm learning now involve understanding and feeling in my bones the seemingly trite concepts I read about in those self-help books so long ago. These were concepts that I understood to be valuable and "right" but could not fully integrate because I simply hadn't had the experiences and lived enough to let them settle into my being, finding a cozy place to land and start to influence my daily life.

Without a real sense of self-confidence, which can only be gained through trial and error, I wasn't able to embody the concepts I was learning about in my teenage mind because I tried to employ these ideas and methods so early on before I even had a chance to live genuinely, I was disappointed in myself when the results weren't favorable or desired. I felt like a failure. Like I'd failed at life. I started to lose faith in myself and my ability to make sound choices.

I also lost faith in the teachers and the potential wisdom engrained in their teachings, which came to them through their own trial and error, lived experiences, and heroes' journeys. Wrought with heartache and failure, success and triumph, their wisdom came from lived experience; they didn't just pull it out of their asses.

At 15, I didn't consider I had a life to live before I was awarded perspective, reflection, and, ultimately, the wisdom that only comes with time.

I wanted to skip the line.

I wanted to jump ahead. And I felt brazen enough to think I could and was exempt from going through the hard stuff. When I jumped that line and repeatedly came out the other side disappointed and angry, I started to doubt my ability to choose wisely and lost the ability to trust myself.

I feel like I'm just now re-learning to trust myself. I attribute a lot of that to not drinking, getting an ADD diagnosis, learning about what that means for me, and finally finding a place that feels like home and staying put for more than six months. Home, structure, clarity of thought, friends, sobriety- all these things greatly aid in my quest to make sound decisions for myself.

Letting go of the shame that so tightly knots itself around my past and my 'bad' choices, recognizing that they don't define me but have also shaped me into the man I am now, learning how to embrace that and see myself as beautifully imperfect and human, not some new age perfectly aligned being, have all helped me believe that I can start trusting in my ability to discern what is suitable for me.

I see now that that desire to be 'perfect' and make the 'right' choices stems from a fear of rejection. If I'm perfect, do it all right, and appear the way the world wants me to, I'll never be rejected. This isn't unique to queer people, but it's where many of us find a lot of trouble.

We start trying to be perfect early on to avoid the possibility of being rejected for our sexuality; some of us try to look perfect physically, others try to be as academically excellent as possible, and some of us, like myself, get lost entirely, trying to fight against the grain, trying to say fuck it all and do the most outlandish things, rebel and convince ourselves we are confident and sure, before we are, the shame and need to be loved and approved of, buried deep in a sea of bad choices, addiction and failed attempts at 'adulting.'

I don't want to be held up against the glare of what's appropriate or acceptable by society or what my family might think. I want to be loved for my identity, not for being someone else, the whole package of 'me,' this complex collection of experiences that make 'Gregory' who he is.

Discovering this new sense of self-confidence and trust is a blessing. However, I must pair that trust with a willingness to fail. Having faith doesn't guarantee a positive outcome; it simply offers a softer landing pad when things don't work out as hoped and an opportunity to rest, reflect, and try again.

The great work of my life is trying and failing and coming back with information about it all to share with others; it is the reason I'm here, my varied interests, missteps, forays into the darker aspects of life and vocations, all so I can gather wisdom to impart to the world.

But once again, wisdom and confidence are earned, not plucked from a self-help book and worn like a decorative broach that shines and tells the world, 'I'm ok! I'm loveable! I'm worthy!' They're earned through experience, those choices, and that forward-moving action, and finally, in the failures, which are the richest soil for growth.

So, dear reader, I am wobbly like a freshly hatched chick. I am still getting the hang of it all, but I feel a new sense of clarity and comfort- comfort with imperfection and failure, being messy and complicated, and not having all the answers.

It's the only way I can continue, offering myself up to that grace daily, moment by moment, choice by choice. To soar off cliffs of uncertainty into the abyss of possibility and potential, still afraid at times, but with a glow about me, a shimmering sense of self-love and trust lifting me up and onto the next great adventure.