Coming Home to Yourself
About 131 days ago, I wrote a post here called From Exploration to Intention. At the time, I felt like I was standing at a crossroads. I had spent so much time trying to understand my sexuality, my relationships, and the kind of life I wanted to build that I wasn’t sure where exploration ended and intention began.
Looking back now, I realize that post wasn’t the end of a chapter. It was the beginning of one. These past few months have changed me more than I expected.
The biggest surprise is that it wasn’t my sexuality that changed it was my relationship with myself.
For a long time, I thought becoming comfortable with being bisexual meant eventually finding the “right” relationship or finally answering every question I had about attraction, intimacy, and love.
Instead, this year taught me something completely different.
It taught me that before I could truly love someone else, I had to learn how to stop abandoning myself. Looking back, I realized I had a habit of giving more than I kept. I wanted people to like me. I wanted to help everyone. I wanted to be dependable, understanding, and kind. Those aren’t bad qualities, but somewhere along the way I forgot that I deserved the same care I so freely gave to other people.
One conversation stayed with me.
Someone asked me, “Why is it so important for you to know what other people think? Are you looking for validation from them?” That question haunted me in a good way. Because the answer was yes. More than I wanted to admit. I realized how much of my peace depended on whether other people approved of me, desired me, understood me, or chose me. Slowly, that began to change.
This year also forced me to confront how fragile life really is. I lost a close friend. At the same time, I was pushing myself so hard at work that there were nights when I was surviving on one or two hours of sleep. I convinced myself that sacrificing my health was simply what ambitious people did. It wasn’t. Her passing and my own burnout reminded me that life is finite. No achievement is worth destroying yourself for.
Since then, I’ve tried to live by a simple principle:
If something is slowly killing me, I need to rethink how I’m pursuing it. That lesson didn’t just apply to work.
It applied to relationships, expectations, and even the way I treated myself.
My understanding of intimacy changed too.
When I wrote my last post, I talked a lot about sexual experiences and how they were helping me understand desire, attraction, and connection. I still believe that.
But today I’d add something else. Experience alone doesn’t make someone mature. Reflection does.
Over the past few months, I realized that chemistry isn’t enough. Neither is attraction. Neither is good sex.
As a bisexual man, I used to think my journey was about figuring out who I was attracted to.
Now I think it’s more about understanding how I want to love. I’ve learned that I value honesty more than excitement. Consistency more than intensity.
Emotional safety more than novelty. Compatibility more than chemistry. I still appreciate attraction. I still enjoy intimacy. Those things matter. But I’ve stopped treating them as the foundation of a relationship. They’re only one part of something much bigger.
Something else changed this year.
I stopped seeing my sexuality as a question I needed to solve. It’s simply part of me now. I’m a bisexual Filipino man. I’m trying to become healthier. I’m trying to become kinder. I’m trying to become wiser. Those parts of me don’t compete with one another anymore.
They belong to the same person. And for the first time in a long time, that person feels whole.
Living independently in Manila accelerated that growth.
I met people from different backgrounds. I experienced connection, disappointment, attraction, loneliness, joy, and uncertainty. Some people stayed.
Others became lessons instead of lifelong companions.
I don’t regret any of it. Every person I met reflected something back to me. Sometimes they showed me what I wanted. Sometimes they showed me what I deserved.
Sometimes they showed me what I should never settle for again.
Fitness also became more than exercise. Running my regular 5Ks. Swimming almost every day. Lifting weights.
Those weren’t just about changing my body. They became daily reminders that I deserve to take care of myself. The confidence I gained didn’t come from looking different. It came from proving to myself that I could keep promises to myself.
My faith changed too. I grew up Catholic and later became involved in Born Again. For a while, I felt like I had to separate different parts of who I was. This year, I stopped trying to divide myself into acceptable and unacceptable pieces. I don’t have every theological answer. I still have questions. But I’ve found peace in believing that seeking God and seeking authenticity don’t have to be opposing journeys.
My faith calls me to become more loving, more humble, more responsible, and more compassionate.
Those are qualities I want to embody regardless of where life takes me.
If I compare myself to the person who wrote that post 131 days ago, I don’t think he’s gone. I think he’s still here.
Just a little calmer. Less desperate for certainty.
Less interested in proving himself. More willing to choose peace. More willing to say no. More willing to let people leave. More willing to believe that he is already enough.
At 20’s, I still don’t have life figured out. I still have dreams that scare me. I still overthink sometimes. I still make mistakes. But for the first time in a very long time, I can honestly say something I wasn’t sure I would ever fully believe: I’m happy.
Not because my life is perfect. Not because I’ve found every answer. Not because I’ve met the love of my life.
But because I’m finally becoming someone I genuinely enjoy being. Maybe that’s what adulthood is.
Not having everything figured out. Just slowly becoming more honest, more intentional, and more at peace with who you are.
If you read my last post, thank you for walking with me.
And if you’re still somewhere between exploration and intention, I hope you know there’s another stage waiting on the other side. It’s called coming home to yourself.
I think I’m finally beginning to arrive.