peter
“I am adopted. I am gay. And I am a recovering alcoholic. If I learned one thing from all these it is that choosing the easier way in life will most likely turn out to be the hardest way with time. You see, I had many challenges finding my place. Being adopted, I was always looking for acceptance from a very young age and even though I am an introvert and a very shy person my dream was always to perform in front of people. Be a comedian, a TV presenter, or an actor. But it was something that frightened me at the same time and growing up as an only son with two sisters, it was already hard to deal with my father wanting me to continue his name. I chose not to follow my dream and I fell back on the comfortable option of my parent’s business. I did hotel management in college. I was running the hotel for about ten years, literately checking in and out guests all day. I was bored to tears and because of that, I developed a very bad drinking habit. The turning point for me was one night when I got so drunk in town that my partner had to get a rickshaw because I couldn’t even walk and no taxi would take me. The rickshaw driver brought us up to the entrance of the hotel and they both laid me down on a picnic table right in front of the entrance. Jason left me there and went in to get a glass of water, meanwhile, an American guest came out to smoke a cigarette and the minute she saw me I fell on the ground, so she came to help me up. It came home to me when I watched back the security camera footage the next day. That video was an eye opener. Now, that I’m off drink I have no fears. I feel such a freedom that I can’t explain. Together with discovering social media, which has allowed me to have an outlet for my creativity, it turned my life ‘downside up’ and for the first time, I feel like I am in the right place. The only thing left is facing my sense of identity. Recently, after a lot of hesitation, I called the HSE and I asked about my biological mother. They actually revealed a lot about her. They told me she is intellectually disabled that she is not very good in social settings. They also told me that she has another four children, meaning I have siblings. That was a huge event for me, to find out all these things in the space of a five-minute phone call. I suppose, just like life already taught me, there will be no way around it and I will have to meet her someday, but I’m still building the courage for it.”