All I wanted was to live a fantasy every weekend: to believe that some man wanted me. That he loved me just so I could take my mind off all the negative things I felt about myself. After 29 years of living that life and never once finding happiness or love, God in His own way brought me back to Him and the church. However, I also started experiencing added health issues.

I had dinner with a friend one day, and out of nowhere he mentioned something about Your Other Brothers. We had never discussed issues of sexuality together, and regardless of his intention, God was working. He suggested I check out YOB's podcast on the way home, and I did, and I got hooked.

I board my first plane with another YOBBER, North Carolina-bound from Houston. I know exactly where I’m going, yet it is a new adventure all the same. Perhaps I should say, "I know what to expect where I’m going." Memories of the previous year’s YOB camp retreat replay in my head -- more static around the details than there used to be, though the feelings surrounding them remain unchanged. Chaotic. Flabbergasted. Humbled. Healed. I have to pull myself back to the present and prepare my heart for what may be a whole new set of feelings this year. I have to prepare my heart for growth.

"New growth" was the theme of this, my first YOB retreat; slightly ironic as fall was slowly putting the world to sleep. The sun felt defiantly hot that first day, beating down on tall trees that simultaneously clung to summer green while shedding autumn red and gold. I was exhausted from a stressful week and travel delays. Now I faced a weekend of interacting with virtual strangers. Literally. Aside from a handful whom I had met in person, my fellow YOBBERS were tiny faces on a screen. I had discovered YOB some months prior. I was desperate, starving for some kind of connection with other men who understood my journey.

Leaving for the YOBBERS retreat late on a Thursday night was an escape. I wanted to get away from the chaos and stress that had defined my life. I wanted to find rest, but not the kind that satisfies in the moment. No, it was much more than that. I wanted to find the rest that God provides, such that defies all logic and understanding. If it took flying all the way across the country to seek where the Lord would teach me about that kind of rest, I would gladly do it again in a heartbeat.

When you are 60, you'd think that you no longer experience growth spurts. It's more recognizing life's process of devolution and slow decay, at least on the outside. This year’s YOBBERS retreat was not about expecting profound change, or gaining insights into myself and God that I would carry home; rather, it was seizing an opportunity to meet a group of men with whom I had dialogued, listened to, and only seen in postage stamp-sized pictures on Zoom – men of faith who share a common struggle to live the sexual ethic of the Gospels as they understand it.

It was surreal meeting brothers who I know better than many of my closest friends. We went from Zoom calls and private messages to meeting and communicating in person for the first time. I've been on many Christian retreats, and I have to say this one was spent with the kindest men. We shared a common experience as gay/SSA men, along with a real sense that each of us wanted to give all the other men a respite from the daily trials of life, if even for two days.

I guess we're really doing this again, I thought, this whole retreat thing. Is this officially an annual event now? Can I handle that? Goodness, can I really put on a retreat every year for the rest of my life? Or need I only focus on this year's retreat, letting tomorrow's retreat worry for itself?

I'd love all straight people – straight Christians – to watch "Love, Simon" because it will show them how gut-wrenching (and also beautiful) the coming out process is for a gay person: of finally letting another human into the biggest secret of one's life.

How many of us have decided not to come out to our fathers because we knew it wouldn't go well? How many have been wrestling with the idea of telling our fathers for fear of the unknown? And how many of us have already come out to our fathers, a topic never again spoken about?

Although the teasing continued for the rest of the school year, I honestly learned to ignore it. I became a recluse at a very young age. This reclusiveness made the other kids – especially the other boys – a bit of a mystery to me. Particularly physically. Looking back, I realize I was in a bit of a paradox: I didn't want the other boys to see any of my body, but I also had somewhat of an interest in theirs.

All the other gay films I'd watched were nice, but this was the first gay film I watched and thought: I wish I knew what it was like to be in a relationship. All the other men I've ended up with were only about sex. I didn't care about them or their feelings, much like the son at the beginning of this film. This film brought up feelings I never knew I even had or wanted, for that matter.

Fours are emotional creatures. We feel things. We feel things deeply and often. A leaky faucet doesn't do the metaphor justice; my heart feels more like a fire hydrant turned loose on a city street. Handling the hydrant has challenged me my whole life, but especially these last few years. I've seen some success. And I also recognize how much room I have yet to grow.

We never really talked about sex in any capacity, as in which girls we liked, or how our disabilities intertwined with our sexuality. The topic was a moot one, sometimes uncomfortably so. Eventually, I had the dreaded conversation with my friend. You know the one: "I'm gay but acting on such feelings goes against what I believe as a follower of Jesus." My friend then came out to me as well! He also didn't want to act on such feelings.

How do I deal with unmet sexual desire? It's a question which led me to ask, what is my sexual desire? Of course, "sexual desire" is a category with a lot of things in it. "There's a lot of different fish in that bucket," I told myself. But let's not call it a bucket. Let's call it an aquarium so all the fish have plenty of room to swim around, and so we can get a good look at them.

My mom didn't start saying she loved me until she became a Christian in the early 80's. Now she says it almost every day, and I feel like she's doing it to make up for all those lost years. As far as I'm concerned, those "I love you's" are empty because she's been saying it to the straight Michael she's always preferred instead of the Michael actually in front of her. And because of that, I've learned to tolerate her acknowledged denial of my life.

Here's one vocabulary term I've taken away from therapy: euphoric recall. I'd never heard that phrase until last year, and it gives language to this nebulous internal struggle I've faced since my first bout with pornography at 19.

Another Pride Month gone; another year I didn't participate. I've never been one for any kind of parade, but part of me believes participating in Pride means I have accepted the part of myself that remained hidden for so long.

For so many years I thought I was just dirty, lustful, and awful for thinking all these terrible sexual thoughts. I was filled with constant shame because the sexually intrusive thoughts kept coming. The realization that I can actually, with practice, redirect my own thoughts, is more freeing than I can write.

It was the first song I'd ever heard that touched upon my most simple yet desperate longing; buried beneath the pangs of my sexuality, a clear yet unattainable desire – to have a best buddy, someone who tells me he wants to be with me, someone to goof off with, someone to sit beside in a country field. Someone by my side when I'm hurting.