Progress Looks Quiet Sometimes
When I spent two weeks in Montana earlier this year, I didn’t expect to feel as lonely as I did.
We weren’t going out. Not to dinner. Not even to the grocery store. I found myself spending most days inside, watching life happen through windows instead of being part of it. As someone who has spent a lot of his life working to be open, visible, and unapologetically himself, it stirred something I didn’t expect. It felt isolating. It felt small. And if I’m being honest, it felt like I was slowly being pushed back into the closet without anyone saying the words out loud.
I wrestled with that feeling quietly. I questioned whether my needs were too much. I wondered if I should just be more patient, more understanding, more flexible. Old patterns are sneaky like that. They convince you that asking for basic things like being seen or included is somehow unreasonable.
Fast forward to this recent trip. It was short and unplanned. I didn’t expect much from it. I assumed we would stay in, keep things low-key, and that would be that. But the very first night, he asked if I wanted to go out to eat. No hesitation. No anxiety spiral. Just a simple ask. The same night, we went grocery shopping together. Something so normal, so mundane, yet it meant everything to me.
What struck me most wasn’t the activities themselves. It was the effort. The listening. The fact that I had shared how I felt before, and instead of getting defensive or dismissive, he took it in and did something with it. That kind of growth doesn’t come from pressure. It comes from care.
I’m proud of him. And I’m proud of us.
Progress doesn’t always look like grand gestures or dramatic conversations. Sometimes it looks like a dinner out. A grocery run. A quiet shift that says, “I hear you, and you matter.” And after everything I’ve been through, that kind of intentional change feels incredibly refreshing.
It reminds me that healthy relationships don’t require you to disappear to keep the peace. They make space for you to exist fully, openly, and together.
