Keely and Melisa celebrate Pride Month by getting a little vulnerable and sharing their personal coming in and out stories. Plus, some tips on what it means to come out, and what it means to come in to yourself and your community. Hear it all on this episode of the Queer Joy Podcast; where two relationship therapists explore what it looks like to see joy in queer relationships.
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TRANSCRIPT
Keely: It reminded me when straight people ask "well, why do you need a queer space?" "Or why do you need to have these pieces?" And when I go into a queer space or a situation where I know that there's other queer people, or when I'm with my queer friends, that's when I feel like I can breathe and I forget that I'm like, slightly holding my breath with anxiety and tension in my shoulders, just walking around the world most days. And when I walk into that space, walking into pride, walking to the waterfront and being surrounded by queer people, it's like, I'm able to breathe. It's the same feeling I get when I go to the ocean and feel like I can take this full, deep breath. Pride is like the, the yearly reset. I can breathe. Look at all these humans that exist. I'm okay. Hey, everyone. Melisa: Welcome to Queer Relationships, Queer Joy. Keely: So it's been a minute, Melisa. We haven't really had a pause in actual releases, but when I haven't seen you for a week or so, it's- Melisa: it's been a minute. I've been on another planet. Keely: I feel like there's some catching up to do. And I'm just so curious. You are you comfortable talking about what's going on with your relationship dynamics? Melisa: Totally, totally. Well, it's a mix. In the spirit of authenticity, I've been out with COVID, unfortunately. I am well now. Negative. All that good stuff, but it coincided with me planning to take some time off for like self care reasons. so I'm very efficient. I planned to get COVID essentially I got infected two days before my time off. So I've been quite literally down and out for a while. I think it just means that I'm a little bit disoriented from like humaning right now. I've been back in a lot of isolation. Keely: But you're healthy just in time for pride. Melisa: Thank god. Just in time for pride. Yeah, if I had to get it, I guess that was a good time. Question mark. Needless to say, I'm healed now I'm reconnecting with people who, you know, are, are meaningful and close to me. I'm definitely in an interesting spot relationship-wise. I would say three established connections now and I'm laughing just because anyone who's listened to our episodes, especially consecutively, like it's been a long drought for me. That was very much self-imposed. I was really not interested in dating at all. Yeah. So it has shifted. I feel like I'm currently kind of poly saturated. I feel like this is a good amount for me, of course, one of my partners lives out of town so it makes it a little bit easier in terms of time expectations or commitments. Yeah. But yeah, I'm finding out how do I still have the time for my