We all waited a while to share this part of ourselves with each other and our loved ones. For myself, it took lots of mulling to let go of tradition and the singular lifestyle with which I was presented. I am so surprised when I meet people here who came out at age 15 or 16 and told their parents and friends and religious communities with little or no friction. On top of that comparison, I’m very young as a gay
man—just over two years old. So I feel far behind most others here, and with the gay community being an affluent one—I apologize for the generalization—I worry if my standards of success are being too influenced by my peers having Fire Island timeshares or bottomless brunch budgets or Equinox memberships. This city keeps its people moving forward so quickly that I feel like I am simultaneously growing
up and falling behind.

I think I did myself a favor by coming out while training for a marathon. I had a lot of time to myself, to ruminate and strategize and to be alone with my thoughts and fully love the space between my ears. And, as any runner knows, when you’re racing long distances, you aren’t racing against other people. You do not know if the person beside you is overcoming injury, running her tenth marathon or her first, if he started fifteen minutes before or after you, or whether he is meeting or falling short of his expectations. What you do know are your own expectations, your own circumstances, your own parameters for success. You are competing against past versions of yourself, past standards of excellence, and that is how you measure your achievements. By progress.

That’s how I measure my own success as a proud gay man: steady, controlled progress. Everyone in the LGBTQ community has had a personal, internal reflection on his or her identity. My three best friends and I, having started our lives together, are each benchmarking them individually, at our respective paces, in our respective places. We are making personal progress and supporting one another through it all.