Even though I came out finally, I’ve been feeling odd about the label. It feels weird to identify as ace, it’s not as easy as it was when I was a teen and came out as bi.

Then this past Thanksgiving week I had two incidents that made me feel much better about it.

The first was coming out to my first boyfriend (now an ex) when I was staying at his house. It was partly a defensive thing and partly an attempt to have a conversation with him, as we’ve both changed a lot and shifted in our labels over the years. It was easy though, to come out to him and say the words out loud. It felt good. It felt right.

The second was at a D&D night at a game run by a fandom friend. I was meeting a large group of strangers and kinda nervous. I noticed one of them had an ace ring on and felt happy, ‘cause I’ve never seen one of those in real life. During the game at one point the topic of “wait is anyone here straight? Nope!” came up and two of the players mentioned they were ace, and I said I was too, and we all high-fived. It felt good. It felt as easy as anything.

Being isolated just makes you second-guess yourself too much, if you’re not careful. Talking to other people to compare yourself to, or bond with, is an important part of the process. I’m still awkward and a bit unused to this, but feeling more sure of myself now.