Category: General

When Depression Steals the Room


Depression doesn’t always arrive like a storm. Sometimes it slips in quietly, dulling everything it touches. The things that used to bring me joy – laughter with friends, coffee, a good conversation – drift out of reach. Colors wash away. The world shrinks into a small, cold corner where it’s hard to breathe.

It feels like a lifetime’s weight pressing me down into that darkness. I wake up heavy with years I didn’t ask to carry; every small hope becomes harder to lift. I feel alone and isolated, watching my life through glass. Friendships that once gathered now feel permanently distant. Family conversations thin into echoes. Simple pleasures scramble into things I can’t recognize. And there’s a voice that settles in: you are unworthy, insignificant, worthless. That voice is loud and mean and, in the silence, it feels like the only truth.

That loss doesn’t just hurt me. It hurts the people who love me, too. They watch helplessly from the outside, wanting to help but not knowing how. Their eyes ask questions they can’t answer, and I feel the weight of their worry alongside my own. Guilt spreads on both sides: I feel it for not being able to “just try harder,” and they feel it for not being able to make it stop.

Too often, depression is misunderstood as a choice, as if I could simply wish it away and rejoin the world. If only it were that easy. The truth is, depression is not weakness, laziness, or a moral failing. It’s an illness that isolates, confuses, and holds tight.

But here’s what matters: feeling powerless does not make me powerless. Speaking it, naming it, asking for patience – that is its own kind of strength. Depression hurts. It steals parts of me and makes me feel small. But I am still here. I am still reaching. I am still worth the light I hope will find me again.

Keep telling the story,

Professor Peacock

Aging Out Loud: What Gay Culture Taught Me About Desire, Rejection, and Growing Older


There are moments I scroll through hookup apps and feel like a ghost in a room I used to be welcomed into.

I’m still here. Still queer. Still alive in this beautiful, ridiculous, aching body of mine. Still hungry for connection. Still flirting. Still hopeful. But something has shifted—and it’s not just the algorithm. It’s how I’m seen. And maybe, too, how I see myself.

I don’t write this with bitterness. I write it with curiosity. With a little heartache. And with a lot of honesty.

Because as much as I feel hurt by the way gay culture sidelines older queer men, I also have to admit – I’ve done the sidelining too.

I Was Ageist Before I Aged

I used to filter people out by age without a second thought. I thought it was just preference. I’d scroll past men who reminded me too much of my father, or who didn’t fit my fantasy. I didn’t stop to think about what that felt like on the receiving end. I didn’t have to think about it.

Back then, I was what the culture rewarded: younger, thinner, newer. Now, I’m on the other side of that invisible line. And I feel it.

The messages come slower. Or not at all. Sometimes, when I do get responses, they come with qualifiers: “you’re hot for your age” or “I usually don’t go this old, but…” You learn quickly how conditional your desirability becomes.

It’s a strange thing, being both hurt by something and complicit in it.

Desire Isn’t a Crime—But Conditioning Is Real

I’m not here to shame anyone’s attraction. Desire is weird, layered, deeply personal. But it’s also shaped by culture, and our culture – gay culture, hookup culture, digital queer spaces – is soaked in ageism. Youth is not just fetishized; it’s framed as the ideal. Everything else is a compromise.

Even now, I catch myself gravitating toward younger men. Sometimes I’m chasing vitality. Sometimes I’m chasing the version of myself I used to be. Sometimes I just want to feel wanted by someone who represents possibility, not limitation.

But what am I reinforcing when I do that? What mirror am I holding up for others—and for myself?

The Cost of Invisibility

It’s hard to talk about this stuff without sounding fragile. But the truth is, there’s grief in this. Not just about not getting laid as easily (though, yeah, that too), but about the quiet ways we’re taught that our worth expires with our youth.

And I think what hurts the most is not the rejection itself—it’s the accumulation of being unseen. Of being looked through, not looked at. Especially when I know I’m still vibrant, still sexy, still full of spark and stories and tenderness.

I want to be desired not despite my age, but with it. Because of it.

How Can We Do Better?

I don’t have a blueprint. But I think it starts with asking better questions. Of each other. Of ourselves.

Why do we equate youth with value?
Why do we treat older bodies as either comic relief or invisible burdens?
Why are we so afraid to look in the mirror and see time?

I think we can celebrate queerness across every age. I think we can uplift the beauty of experience, the dignity of survival, the sexiness of someone who knows their body and their mind.

And I think we can make space for intergenerational friendships, for mentorship, for flirtation that isn’t transactional, for community that isn’t just curated around desirability.

How Can I Do Better?

I can start by offering grace. To others, and to myself.

I can notice when I’m seeking youth as validation and pause.
I can stop ghosting people just because they’re older than my fantasy self.
I can consider my choice of models and seek out older representation in my art.
I can show up as fully myself, without apology. And trust that I’m not “less than” – just more lived-in.

I can remember that queerness isn’t a trend I’m aging out of. It’s a lifelong becoming.

So here I am, still swiping sometimes. Still showing up. Still believing in the possibility of being seen, felt, held. Not because I’m clinging to youth, but because I’m not done growing.

And maybe that’s what aging with pride really means.

Let’s Talk

Have you felt this too? Whether you’re 23 or 63, how has age shaped your experience of queer community and connection?

Drop a comment or share your story, I’d love to hear from you. Let’s talk about how we’re aging, desiring, and becoming… together.

Note: I used AI to make final edits to my ramblings and online journaling, including some formatting and organization to be more blog-friendly.

Body Positivity in Art: A New Project on Sexual Wellness


#CelebrateUU – Looking Ahead

Since 2019, I’ve been increasingly involved in bringing #CelebrateUU to life. When I first came up with the idea of celebrating #CelebrateUU anniversaries, I had no idea it would grow to a citywide exhibition. It’s a #BigMagic moment, from a book I read about the creative life (Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert). I’ve learned to go with my creative flow, investing the time and energy, then seeing how far the Universe wants to me take the idea.

I’ll be releasing 10 new stories on December 1, 2024 at the exhibition opening that is part of a citywide World AIDS Day Community Reception hosted by the Marion County Public Health Department’s Ryan White HIV Services Program.

For the month exhibition, I’m grateful for sponsorship from the MCPHD Ending the HIV Epidemic Task Force, as well as Roberts Camera. I’m also grateful to the Marion County Library for allowing me to show my art in their public spaces. Through this project I learned of this FREE exhibition space – available to resident artists in Marion County!

#JustTheTip Campaign

I’ve had some creative setbacks this year – though I don’t like that language or self-talk, but it is my unfiltered mind response. I try to rephrase things today, to something like I have a great idea to raise awareness around harm reduction, and will be looking for new creative sponsorship or grant funding in 2025. There. The fact that I didn’t get the Indy Arts Council Arts for Awareness grant funding stream still stings a little. But, I have come to re-see this as a “not now, but…” response, not a “no, never” response from the Universe. That’s why I have networks with the @Indy Rainbow Chamber of Commerce, which has now gone statewide. I’ve also learned that @StepUp could be a reliable fiscal sponsor. They already serve that role for other statewide coalitions. This would allow my to ask for contributions that would be tax-deductible, that would fund the full project. I learned a lot from the grant response Q&A session after the notice of non-acceptance. It truly was a learning process – and I can’t wait to bring the #JustTheTip campaign to Indiana, on whatever level that looks. #BigMagic

Closing Out #CelebrateUU

So, when the stylized portrait phase of #CelebrateUU comes to a close on December 29th, I’ll have a huge time void. I’ve been asking the Universe to give me ideas, so I can hit the ground running. A creative life without projects is a dead one – or dying one. I’ve learned that the hard way.

I’ll have the input from my art intervention, where I ask people “How Did This #CelebrateUU Exhibit Make You Feel?” – inspired my a artistic mentor of mine. Thanks Al Duvall. HT to Dr. Carrie Foote, because I borrowed some inspiration from your workshop creative introduction. I’ll find ways to work quotes from that intervention into future social media posts, to keep working at HIV stigma through the stylized portraits and stories.

I know I want to continue to work in the HIV space artistically, but not ignoring HIV criminal reform, harm reduction, mental health, recovery, mental health. I will continue to champion the selfie portion of #CelebreateUU. That hasn’t taken off quite like I’d hope to based on the original concept. But there is time….

I’ve also thought about taking CelebrateUU statewide, or even nationally. If I could work the photo taking into a presentation or workshop, then I could take this on the road to Positive Living or US Conference on HIV/AIDS.

I know I want to get back into the @CToddDudeoir groove, and have already started that with a shoot with Logan Bloir, who I met through Man Crush Mania. I played with some of his images today. More to come…

#BodyPositiveSexPositive

I hope this isn’t passé. But, here’s my pitch to the Universe.

 I want to do a creative B&W nude portrait series to promote stories of sex and body positivity. Whatever that looks like to the person(s). 

Could be individuals, couples, thurples.

I’d want it to be a diverse set of individuals – age, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, etc etc. I’ve learned to trust the Universe to bring me the right people. It may take time, but they show up. As they say, build it and they will come!

I like combining the storytelling with photographs. I think I want to do the series in the people’s home to be more intimate. This is out of my comfort zone – I like the control of studio lighting.  So I may change my mind but location aside, it’s one of the next projects I want to work on. 

The doubter in me has already started in on me. But anxiety is telling me to do this for with people who have lived experience with HIV, HepC or harm reduction. I may narrow that later. Make it a series on sexual health, wellness and prevention.

That’s what is unique about this project in terms of focus and storytelling.  I’ve wanted to do something in the HIV space and I realize now that stigma is very real in both areas – well all three, so I think there is a creative trifecta here.

My goal is to start work in this in January, after I’ve completed my #celebrateuu project. Not sure what that looks like at first – but I’ll dive in and start creating.

The new challenge will be finding funding so I can give participants a reasonable stipend for sharing their story and image. But I’m getting better at writing grants and could find help to locate donors or grants. In the meantime, I can do it time for print, where in exchange for their time, people get a select set of images from the photoshoot. I prefer cash.

Just putting this idea out into the universe.  

Thank you for coming to my #bigmagic ted talk.