Our basement pipe is still clogged.
The gutters are… well, not “guttering.”
There are boxes in the hallway, boxes in the basement, and probably boxes in my subconscious.
The backyard? Torn up. No grass, no doggy door.
It’s a mess.

And yet: I’m home.

There was a time not long ago when a mess like this would’ve wrecked me. In fact, it did. This is the second time I’ve had a toilet overflow in a house I’d owned for less than a week. In Steamboat, the first time it happened, it flooded our basement and sent us straight into the Holiday Inn Express for weeks. We fought. We blamed. We coped with distance. I went to Denver and buried myself in seminary school while our life stayed soggy and broken.

Back then, that’s how I handled things—I ran. I shut down. I closed off the part of myself that was leaking so it wouldn’t infect the rest of the house.

But now?
Now I let it flow.

This time, when the water came, I didn’t go into shutdown mode. I didn’t blame Kelly. I didn’t isolate. I asked for help. I looked for a team. I texted my mom. I talked to Kelly. I shared it with you.
I didn’t fix it (still not fixed), but I didn’t let it own me.

The real shift? I didn’t wait for the house to be 100% repaired to come back home… to myself.

There was a time I thought if I could just fix my environment, I could finally be okay. I believed that managing, rearranging, and perfecting my external surroundings would lead me to peace, joy, presence. But when things got messier on the outside, it would poke at the already-messy parts inside—and I couldn’t tolerate it.

I thought it was the outer house that was messing up my inner home.
Nope.
It was just a mirror.

The more at home I became in myself—with being gay, with my more masculine gender expression, with saying hard things, with letting go of what wasn’t mine—the more capacity I had for the chaos.
And not just to survive it. To be in it, with it. Peacefully.

Would you believe me if I told you this all started with underwear?

For years I wore panties—lacy, scratchy, delicate. The kind you’re “supposed” to like. And I hated them. I never liked anything touching my waist. Underwear, for me, was something to endure.

And then one day I thought: why am I doing this?

I switched to women’s boxers. Soft, low-rise, comfortable. And it sounds small, but that moment was a shift. A claiming. A knowing.
This doesn’t fit me.
This irritates me.
And I’m not doing it anymore.

That change gave the rest of me permission: to say no, to say yes, to say I don’t know. Tolerating was no longer the goal. “Fine” was no longer enough.
What feels like me? That became the question.

Turns out, comfort is holy. Turns out, irritation is a signal.
I began to listen to my body like it was an instrument panel—one I’d been ignoring for decades.
Not just blinking lights and red flags. But actual information. A map. A blueprint.
Of me.
Of home.

And now, home is not just inside me. It’s here. It’s in the messy, magical, unfinished life I get to live with the people I love.

Last night I paused The Ultimatum: Queer Love (Season 2 just dropped!) and asked Kelly to come stand outside with me.
We stepped out on the porch. She came up behind me and wrapped her arms around me, and we stood there, together, looking at the pinks in the sky.

In our shared view? Dog poop bags. Weeds. Dirt piles.
But that’s not what I saw.

I saw the sunset.
I saw her.
I saw us.

I used to only see what was missing.
I used to scan my life for what was out of place, what needed fixing, what was still lacking. I was living with a constant hum of “there must be something… else.”

Now?
Now I’m learning to see what’s here.
Not to find what’s missing.

I walked into our bedroom last night after my shower and felt it so clearly:
I love this room.
I love this bed.
I love this life.
I love this woman.

I’m not waiting to be rescued or swept away anymore.
I don’t want a different life. I want this one.

Even if the pipe is still clogged.
Even if the house is falling down.
I’m not.

I’m home.