MeaningMaker Podcast Jana and Charlene

Over these 23 episodes, we’ve chronicled our coming out story — and our life in the decade after that. We’ve honoured and loved and struggled to make meaning of all that came before — and so much of what has followed. These real and raw conversations every other week have healed and changed us both. And recently, they’ve left us with another unexpected gift. The realization that as much as the podcast has been about telling the story — it has also been about letting go of it.

The past is gone but, so often, it defines the present. After reliving this many-faceted coming out story over more than 20 episodes, we talk about why it’s been important to make meaning of what happened in those initial coming out years. How we needed to find a truth about those events which is true for each of us, individually. How we discovered that our understanding of the truth continues to evolve and change over time. And, how all of this has pushed us to re-examine faith, flaws and even how we imagine the future.

We’ve all felt like outsiders at one time or another. In those times, we don’t feel seen or witnessed in some way. Because of who we believe we are, what we dream about, what we do or do not believe in, who or how we love, what we do for a living – and a whole string of other reasons. In this episode, we talk about how so many of us stay closeted and unseen about the things we feel might cause disconnection or rejection in our social circles – and the price attached to those choices.

We’re back at it after a month-long break to talk about the future of the podcast, vulnerability hangovers, making mistakes on the air, what reliving this story for you through these episodes has revealed for us, and the unexpected grief that healing brings. It’s almost like we’re not the same people who started doing this podcast nine months ago.

The stories we create in order to justify our actions and choices become, in so many ways, who we are. They are the things we say back to ourselves to explain our complicated lives. But what if some of those stories were nothing more than comfortable lies? Things we’ve told ourselves to maintain a level of peace about our lives that, if we were honest, eat at us because they don’t reflect our reality. In this episode, we talk about the comfortable lies we’ve told ourselves over the last decade and what happened as we gradually allowed them to become uncomfortable truths.

We love to hear from listeners and, in this episode, we answer some of your most frequently asked questions. How do we know this isn’t a phase? Initially, what did you say to yourselves in order to begin to absorb your changing sexuality? What has been the hardest thing about this journey? What about the best thing? And…the most commonly-asked sex question we get from straight women. (You’ll have to listen to find out.)