Mike Iamele
“It was that moment that I decided that I could use my cape to suppress myself and crash, or be vulnerable, express all of me, and fly.”
❤️MIKE IAMELE @MIKEIAMELE
🧡LOCATION: MIKE’S HOME IN SOMERVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS
💛PHOTO BY: MIKE’S HUSBAND GARRETT LECH
💜BLACK ”TEARS” ITEM: SHIRT
💙CAPE BY @INDIE_TRUE_
💚FOLLOW @TEARSANDTAFFETA
🎤IN MIKE’S WORDS...
I grew up thinking superheroes were something different—tough men who had supernatural powers, wore capes, and expressed very little emotion.
I spent my early years trying to stuff down all of my (many) emotions. I wore success and alcohol like my cape, shielding me and hiding all of my pain from the world. And it worked for a while. Until it all came back flooding up.
When I was only 24 years old, I woke up one day vomiting blood—vomiting up everything I never said out loud. And it didn’t stop for months.
I tried to keep working, keep achieving more success, even as my body was slowly breaking down. It was all I knew how to do. Without that cape, I was naked, exposed, vulnerable. And what existed beneath it felt anything but heroic.
Things got so bad that I began to lose control of my bowels. I remember one day at work, I felt the urge to go to the bathroom, so I ran. And I didn’t make it in time. I had an accident at work.
And, worse, I was in such a rush that I didn’t even have my cell phone on me. I just stood in the bathroom, soiled and shaking, looking at myself in the mirror.
I was exposed. The most exposed I’d ever felt in my entire life. I wanted to count how much I’d achieved at such an early age, but none of that could shield me from this. I was just stuck there facing me.
I looked deep into the mirror and heard my own voice but words that felt strangely unfamiliar saying, “This happened. Nothing can cover up this moment or make it go away. This happened. And the sooner I face the realities without fear, the sooner I have the power to change it.”
My life fundamentally changed from that moment on. I fell in love with my male caretaker—my first same-sex relationship after identifying as straight. We spent two years figuring out if we could make the relationship work.
I left my job. I started my own business. I got a book deal. I wrote about my relationship, and it went massively viral overnight, so I woke up to millions of people talking about my sex life.
Nearly a decade later, my life looks completely unrecognizable. But somehow so much more obviously me.
I look at these photos of myself in the cape—photos taken by my husband, the man who cared for me while I was sick—and I see a hero in a cape.
Not the kind of hero I grew up worshipping. Not a cape to hide away emotions and vulnerabilities.
A cape of celebration. Of expression. Colored by the infinite emotions and experiences we carry in our lives.
A parachute to let me fly. After all, that’s what vulnerability is—the difference between falling and flying when we’re faced with uncertain circumstances.
I look back to that moment when I looked in the mirror shaking so many years ago. It was that moment that I decided that I could use my cape to suppress myself and crash, or be vulnerable, express all of me, and fly.
And it was time to fly.
About Mike..
Mike Iamele is a Purpose + Brand Strategist.
For nearly a decade, he’s helped hundreds of people to map their experiences and figure out what they subconsciously do every time they’re successful –– through a process called Sacred Branding®.
In 2014, Mike accidentally came out to millions when he wrote an article about falling in love with a man after identifying as straight––and 100,000 people shared it overnight.
Mike’s also the author of Enough Already: Create Success on Your Own Terms (Conari Press 2015). He’s shared his provocative and vulnerable take on life in hundreds of magazines and podcasts, including NPR, CBS, and Huffington Post.
Learn more about Mike here.