Coming to terms, how to cope?

Well, I'm just heading down that path at 50, so I must say I envy where you are at 30! Outside of that, I don't have much to add, because I'm still new at this too.

 

I have no sense of loss. I had 15 years as a gay couple, then a couple more gay years, then I screwed up for 21 years, and now I am looking at hopefully another 30 years as an openly gay man.

Not perfect, but I have two sons in trade for the 21 years. They are worth far more than 21 years to me.

All in all no loss.

It all depends on how you measure your life.

 

Oh, and welcome to Empty Closets!

 

this is my biggest struggle right now .... accepting the life I didn't get to live.
Grieving and obsessing over the missed opportunities
It is unhealthy and unfortunately irresistible at the moment.. to the point of obsession
and causing much anxiety and depression
I am hoping with more therapy and some hard work .. I can get to accept and move on
but it is hard

at 30 you stand a better chance of succeeding and best wishes...

 

Welcome to EC!

The past, as far as reality is concerned, is another planet, and I am not equipped to travel there. I have three beautiful children, and life is changing around me to adapt to the truth of my own nature. Regrets are a useless emotion, to me what happened had to happen, and I trust in God and nature that it was for some good purpose, that is all.

Perhaps, I had to wait this long for my future lover to grow also, and to accept who he is, and to become the man of my dreams...

 

greatwhale,

Awesome thought!

Thanks, you made my day!

 

You are not the only one struggling with this. I am too. I think part of the reason is how difficult it can be to move forward and build another life. I think if I was on a college campus I would find a lot of other gays going through the same thing. But that time is passed and a path forward isn't very clear. I feel kind of alone.

 

Personally, I like to think that, while I didn't make any headway on the gay front, I didn't just sit around staring at the walls either. There were tons of things I did that I can be proud of, or have happy memories of.

Including, but not limited to, getting a diploma, finding a kickass job, meeting al kinds of friends, traveling the world, reading books, and generally building a life for myself. Sure, there's opportunities I missed, but maybe the allowed me a chance to stumble into other opportunities I did take.

So, think of the things you have right now that you like. Getting those was not in any way a mistake, or "missing something". So you didn't really throw away the time. You just prioritised slightly differently compared to other people.



Secondly... I don't think that there's something as "definitively missing the train". Don't look on everything you want as if they're things you missed the boat on. See it as things you just didn't get around to yet. And when you will, you'll be so focused on the now (and the future), that the past will seem insubstantial. I can tell you this: first time you'll be holding hands with a guy, you'll be too distracted to think about your teens and early twenties


Last, but not least: experience in life counts for something. I may not have started dating boys in the hormonal rush of puberty, but that also stopped me from making some stupid mistakes. I have a gay friend who once told me he's jealous of me for having all of my life in order before tackling being gay. He thinks he wasted too much of his teens obsessing over the wrong guys, getting trapped in bad relationships, and even in occasional AIDS scares. And that being a bit older allowed me the perspective to avoid a lot of that.
Of course, the grass is always greener on the other side, but I do think I gained a lot from biding my time, being careful and deliberate. Lost some quantity of opportunities, but I did make up for it in quality.