My Story… The Quiet Years (Age 22–30)

Figuring Out Life Before the Uniform 

People like telling the exciting parts of their story. The parts that sound good when you say them out loud. Promotions. Weddings. Big life decisions that make you look like you’ve got your shit together when you summarize them in a sentence or two.

My life between 22 and 30 didn’t really have any of that.

No big career moves. No awards. No milestones worth posting about online. If someone had been watching my life from the outside, it probably would have looked like I was just drifting—working random jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing with my life.

And honestly, that’s exactly what I was doing.

But those years mattered a hell of a lot more than they looked like they did at the time. Because that’s where the foundation got built. Not the polished version people like to talk about later, but the messy, uncomfortable kind that happens when you’re just trying to survive long enough to figure yourself out.

Trauma doesn’t always show up the way people think it does. People imagine trauma as some loud, catastrophic event—sirens, screaming, the kind of shit that makes the news. Sometimes it is. But a lot of the time it’s quieter than that. Sometimes it looks like distance. Sometimes it looks like survival mode. Sometimes it looks like spending most of your twenties trying to figure out who the hell you are while realizing nobody around you is really helping you do that.

During those years I didn’t really have much of a relationship with either side of my family. There wasn’t one giant fight or dramatic falling out that caused it. It was more like a slow fade. Fewer phone calls. Fewer visits. More time passing between conversations until eventually the silence just became normal.

Most people in their twenties have some kind of safety net. Parents they can call when things go sideways. Family members who give advice about careers or relationships or life in general. I didn’t really have that. So I figured things out the same way a lot of people in that situation do—by screwing things up and learning the hard way.

Bills still have to get paid. Decisions still have to get made. Life doesn’t pause just because you feel unprepared for it. So you learn. You learn how to stretch money even when there’s barely any of it. You learn how to make decisions without asking anyone for guidance. You learn how to rely on yourself because there really isn’t another option.

People sometimes call that independence like it’s some admirable character trait. Like it’s a badge of honor. And sure, sometimes it is. But sometimes independence isn’t strength. Sometimes it’s just survival without backup.

During those years I worked a lot of jobs. The kind of jobs you take because you need the paycheck, not because you’re passionate about them. They paid the bills—most of the time—but they didn’t give me any real direction. I remember waking up some mornings wondering if this was just what adulthood was supposed to look like. Wake up, go to work, come home exhausted, repeat the same damn cycle the next day.

You keep telling yourself you’re moving forward, but most of the time it just feels like you’re stuck in place.

A lot of people go through that phase in their twenties. For me it came mixed with a bunch of other shit I hadn’t figured out yet. Identity. Old trauma that I hadn’t dealt with. Relationships that were… let’s just say not exactly healthy.

I spent some of those years trying to build relationships with people who weren’t good for me mentally or emotionally. At the time it felt like connection. It felt like what you’re supposed to be doing as an adult—dating, building a life with someone, figuring things out together.

But when you grow up around instability, your internal radar for what’s healthy can get a little fucked up.

You tolerate things you shouldn’t tolerate.You stay longer than you should stay.You convince yourself certain dynamics are normal when they absolutely aren’t.

Looking back now it’s easy to see how unresolved childhood trauma bleeds into the relationships you choose as an adult. At the time though, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was just trying not to feel alone.

Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, I also found church.

For a while it actually felt like I had found something real. A community. A group of people who showed up for each other. Structure. Purpose. Something bigger than whatever random direction my life seemed to be drifting in.

When you’ve spent a lot of time feeling disconnected from family, that kind of environment can feel powerful as hell. For a little while, it felt like belonging.

But life rarely keeps things simple.

Around the same time, I was also slowly coming to terms with something about myself that I had spent years trying to push into the background.

I’m gay.

That realization didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t some dramatic moment where everything suddenly made sense like it does in movies. It was slower than that. Messier. A lot more uncomfortable.

Years of questioning. Years of trying to force myself into boxes that didn’t actually fit. Years of pushing the thought away because acknowledging it would complicate everything.

Especially when you’re sitting in church listening to sermons about what your life is supposed to look like.

Eventually though you hit a point where ignoring the truth takes more energy than accepting it.

Accepting that I was gay came with a lot of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of losing the small sense of community I had finally found. Fear that people who mattered to me would suddenly see me differently.

But it also came with something else.

Relief.

There’s something incredibly freeing about finally acknowledging the truth about who you are after years of trying to bury it under expectations and denial.

Coming out, though, isn’t one big moment the way movies make it look. It’s not like you have a single dramatic conversation and suddenly everything changes overnight.

It’s more like a long series of smaller conversations.

One person at a time. One awkward moment at a time. One step forward followed by the occasional step back. Each conversation comes with its own little wave of anxiety because you never really know how someone is going to react.

Some people surprise you in good ways.

Some people don’t.

And church… well, church got complicated after that.

Faith communities can be incredible sources of support. They can also be places where people feel judged or rejected when their identity doesn’t line up with certain beliefs. For LGBTQ people especially, church can feel like both a refuge and a battlefield at the same time.

For me it eventually became a place that hurt more than it helped.

Realizing that took time. It’s not easy to walk away from something that once felt like home. But sometimes the places that feel safe at first eventually show you they’re not built for people like you.

When I look back at those years now, they still don’t look impressive on paper. No big accomplishments. No defining career moments. Just a lot of quiet survival.

But those years did something important.

They built independence.They forced me to figure out who I was.They started shaping the resilience I would eventually need.

Because eventually my life was going to take a turn into a world most people never see.

The jail (as a corrections officer not an inmate).