This month’s episode with Anna Empey is the one we have all earned after a tender chapter of heavier conversations. It is lighter, there is a lot of laughing, and it is about the signs. Not the ones we noticed at the time, but the ones we can only see now, the ones that were quietly flashing the whole time while we went about our lives.

Anne-Marie and Anna compare notes on the intense friendships they once organized their whole worlds around, and on the celebrity crushes they were so sure were nothing more than admiration. They get into the jealousy that felt far bigger than friendship, the difference between wanting to be her and wanting to be with her, and the church language of same sex attraction that so many of us were handed like a diagnosis.

There is one loving thing to hold onto before any of us starts feeling foolish. We did not miss these signs because we were oblivious. We missed them because nobody had given us the words yet. Growing up in religious and conservative homes decades apart, neither Anne-Marie nor Anna had the language to name what was right in front of them.

Wherever you are in your own questioning, you do not have to check every box, or any box at all. The only person who can name your sexuality is you. And if there is one thing this conversation makes clear, it is that you have not missed the boat. Your heart is beating, and the fullest version of your life may be waiting on the other side of what you have not yet let yourself see.

🔥Anne-Marie mentions a do-not-miss Brandi Carlile performance covering the Alanis Morrissette song “Uninvited” in this episode, so if you’re curious, here’s the link! https://youtu.be/kyvDyZoyGUg?si=rWXmdQGaLf6CG1gU

👉Here’s a little teaser of Fortune Feimster’s Netflix comedy special, “Sweet & Salty”: https://youtu.be/Rdj_fEEH5oU?si=rhaJa92JvoQIuYO7

🗓️Reminder: Anna Empey joins Anne-Marie on the pod on the first Friday of every month! You might want to subscribe so you don’t miss it. 😉

If this conversation stirs something in you, you do not have to sit with it alone. Authentically Us is our community for women navigating questioning and coming out later in life, with group support gatherings every week and people who understand exactly what this chapter asks of you. We would love to have you with us. Come find your people here: https://bit.ly/Authentically-Us