Make Your Dreams A Reality: Alec and Blake

Alec and Blake became affiliated to Encircle through Alec’s parents. Who, outside of his knowledge, bought all of the dishes for the Encircle Provo house. He didn’t realize they had done this until seeing the small plaque in the kitchen while taking a tour.

“It was really cool to see my parents not only support me but support the LGBT community.”

While Blake was in the transition of coming out, he saw the encircle grand opening video. He saw Jacob Dunford promoting Encircle and telling a little bit of his story. Blake knew that when he came out, he wanted to help with and be apart of encircle.

After having met Alec and seeing his parents helping encircle, he knew that they, as a couple, needed to get involved.

“Once we both stopped going to church, and in losing that part of service, we wanted to find something to replace that and help the community that we were becoming apart of.”

When Alec was coming out he struggled because he didn’t want it to define him. He didn’t want to meet people and have it feel like, “Hi I’m Alec, I’m gay.”  He wanted it to be,

“Hi I’m Alec, I’m still the same guy that you have known for 19 years.”

He doesn’t want his orientation to be something that he starts a conversation with but it is definitely not something that he isn’t scared to say or talk about because it is a part of him and who he is.

As Blake went through the process of coming out, he went through a stage of thinking he was maybe just bisexual. He spent 6-7 years dating around and trying to do the church thing. After many years and many serious girlfriends he knew that he couldn’t make it work.

“I realized, I’m just gay. Im not bisexual.”

After decided to search for true happiness and self love, Blake started dating again. It didn’t take long for him to find Alec and things moved quickly from there.

“I finally discovered what true happiness meant for me and life became a lot brighter.”

Alec believes that the phrase, “It gets better” although corny, to him it is very true. His advice for LGBTQ youth is to truly seek out what is gonna make you happy because that is more important than anything else. Finding love and beginning to start a family is something that he thought about often.

“I would think about it at night and I didn’t think it was a reality, but here it is and it is totally possible.”

Alec and Blake know that Encircle can be the family support that you need, and the people there can help you make your dreams a reality.