Chapter Five: The Light Inside

Not long after I began my backflip adventure — experiment, challenge, hope, dream, and series of slightly comical YouTube videos — I was still in a lonely, quiet stretch of life. And then came Fairy Drag Mother. Again.

She’d already dragged me (literally) to Brighton Pride, but apparently, that wasn’t enough. She could tell I was still dimming, even after the sparks of gymnastics had started to bring me back to life. One afternoon, she looked at me with that unmistakable mix of affection and authority and said, “Steven, you need to get out of this funk. You need to go on a gay cruise.”

I blinked. “You are insane.”

There was no way I was going on a gay cruise. I’d actually been once before with my ex, and it had been a soul-destroying experience. I hadn’t enjoyed it at all — the vibe just wasn’t me. Everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives, and I just felt… out of place. Those cruises have theme parties every night — outfits, lights, music — all meant to break up the monotony of being at sea. It’s basically a floating hotel, and for a certain kind of person it’s paradise. I wasn’t that person.

So I pushed back hard. With sass. “Heeell to the no! This is not happening.”

She just gave me the look — the one that meant she was absolutely not taking no for an answer. “You’re going,” she said. “That’s the end of it. Figure it out.”

So, in the spirit of saying yes — which I was still learning to do — and with that small spark of hope inside me, I thought: maybe this isn’t so crazy. Maybe meeting Prince Charming at Brighton hadn’t been a fluke after all. By the way, I had kept in touch with that other guy I met that day — Good On Paper — but he lived far away, and nothing much had come of it yet. Our chapter had not started in earnest. But the Shimmer always works right on time, and it was time for a gay-cruise interlude.

A few weeks later, I called up the cruise line on a whim. “Any last-minute spots?” They said, “Actually, there’s one cabin left — right under the dance floor.” It made sense why no one else had taken it, but I can see now the Shimmer’s fingerprints all over that — one room, one chance, everything lined up.

Once I booked it, though, the reality hit: I had to psych myself up. The last cruise I’d done had been around the Caribbean, and honestly, I hadn’t even liked the ports. Most people never got off the ship. This new one was in the Mediterranean, and I told myself: at least I’ll see new places. Even if I don’t love the parties, I’ll enjoy the scenery.

Then Fairy Drag Mother texted me: “Okay, what are you doing about your outfits?”

“What outfits?” I replied. “I’m just doing the bare minimum.”

She fired back: “Like hell you are.” She was part proud mother and part brand manager — she wasn’t about to have her “drag son” representing her looking like a hot mess. So she sent me a list: “Order all of this on Amazon. I’ll come over with one of our friends, and we’ll have a costume-making session. It’ll be your Cinderella moment. Minus the pumpkin. Or maybe with a pumpkin.”

The day came. The boxes arrived — literally the night before I had to leave. I’d already packed my normal clothes, telling myself: whatever happens, happens. But then she and our friend spread everything out on the table — cowboy hats, lights, holsters, glitter — and got to work.

Her trademark touch was fairy lights. She’d sew or pin them onto her own costumes so she’d glow at night — and she said I needed the same. So she and our friend attached little strings of battery lights to everything. Every outfit. Every possible place they could go.

The first theme night was Your Country. She handed me my outfit: a pair of Speedos with the U.S. flag, a cowboy hat, and a toy gun holster. I looked at her and said, “Where’s the rest of it?” She said, “That is the outfit.”

I stared. “That’s nothing. That’s a piece of cloth and some lights.”

She smiled. “Exactly. This is a gay cruise. It’s your time to shine — literally.”

I protested, of course. I wasn’t confident in my body — not yet. I’d lost a lot of weight training for my backflip, but I still didn’t see myself as attractive. The idea of walking around half-naked in public made me want to disappear. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “You ordered it. I’m here. You’re trying it on.”

So I did. I remember walking into the living room sideways — cartoon-style — trying to cover myself with my hands, mortified. “Stand up,” she said. “You look great.” I didn’t see what she saw, but I was practicing the art of saying yes, so I nodded and packed the outfits. Nervous as hell, but willing.

The next morning, I got on the flight. The first night, on the ship, it was Your Country night. I remember putting on the outfit, the lights, the hat. I looked in the mirror and thought, What am I doing? I took a deep breath. Or maybe ten. Then I walked out. All the lights came on.

The hallway inside the ship felt like walking down a hotel corridor — fluorescent lights, sterile, not exactly flattering. But when I reached the deck, the night opened up: music, laughter, and a sea of people in wild, glittering outfits. I thought I looked ridiculous, but then I saw people looking back at me — smiling. Not mocking. Smiling. It caught me off guard. I smiled back, shyly at first, but it was something.

On the dance floor, a guy caught my eye and smiled. He was warm, confident, completely at ease in himself — the kind of ease I had forgotten could exist. He came over and started talking to me. Turned out he was American too, from Atlanta — where I’d gone to Georgia Tech. We laughed at the coincidence and started to relax into conversation. He teased me about my lights — fair enough, I was glowing — and I told him about Fairy Drag Mother and how she’d insisted on wiring every outfit like a Christmas tree. I joked that he’d never be able to lose me on this ship because I literally lit up everywhere I went.

The next night, he found me again. And the night after that. That’s how a friendship began — one that’s lasted ever since. He became a steady presence in my life, someone who’s helped me through so much, who’s brought love and joy and Coherence in ways I never could have expected.

Looking back now, I see how that one moment — saying yes to a cruise I didn’t want to go on, to an outfit I didn’t want to wear — changed something deep inside me. The Shimmer had guided every step, but it was my willingness that let it work. Those little turning points — the Brighton Pride king for a day moment, the spark of gymnastics, the glow of that cruise — each one was a match striking the same flame.

They taught me that light isn’t something that appears once and fades; it’s something you tend, patiently, until it grows strong enough to guide you home. Fairy Drag Mother covered every outfit I wore with lights on the outside, but what she really illuminated was the light within. The one that had been there all along. The one everyone else had already seen. The one I just needed to remember.

That night, as I stood on the deck surrounded by laughter, music, and stars above the Mediterranean, I finally felt it flicker back to life — the unshakable light, the quiet radiance that had nothing to prove. It was never about being the brightest on the dance floor. It was about remembering that the light I needed most was already mine.

That cruise didn’t fix me; it reminded me I was fixable. It also reminded me that light, once found, doesn’t stay put — it has to be tended. The Shimmer was patient with me. It knew that even when I felt radiant again, there was still another lesson waiting — about love, and the difference between shining beside someone and shining with them. That lesson began with a song, and what I wanted next — after all the glitter and glow — was something that looked like safety.