When success stopped feeling like success

So thirty-five years ago, I was in an office in midtown Manhattan, and I was convinced I had reached the pinnacle of my career. I had a job at the United Nations. A job with a career track, an exceptionally good salary, and a secure and orderly life in front of me. The work wasn’t difficult, and I was able to take long lunches, explore Midtown, and especially Grand Central station, and then return to the office. It had impressive views all the way to the World Trade Center. The job had an impressive job title and to my friends and family it looked like I had made it.

But for me there was something more important, I had finally shown to my father that I could amount to something. I had come out to my family when I was 18, and my father had made it clear that he assumed that my life would never be much of anything, I was gay and that would limit me. Also, he thought it was just a phase. But I knew it was not a phase and I also knew that I could achieve something if I wanted to. So I had always had this feeling that I had to prove him wrong somehow.

So my job at the United Nations did exactly that. My dad could now point to his son who worked in a prestigious international career in New York. So even he had to admit now that being gay hadn’t stopped me from achieving whatever I wanted. I lived in the center of the world and every weekend I could enjoy a gay life that I previously could’ve only dreamed of. But there was one strange thing.