I was twenty-three. It was a month after I left Spring Awakening. I went to Europe alone. It was the first I was ever out of the country. It was the first time I had ever vacationed alone. I was in Florence, and I was journaling. I’ve always kept a journal. All through Spring Awakening—all through high school and ever since—I’ve kept a journal every day. I’d sit in my dressing room at Spring Awakeningeach night after a performance, and I’d obsessively journal about each night’s performance. So I was sitting in Florence journaling, and I realized I had never once journaled about my boyfriend, and I had been in a relationship with him for three and half years. I wouldn’t even write about it in my journal because I was afraid somebody might read it. But then in Florence I started one day just journaling about him and realized I never had before, and I started wondering, “What is happening?” I knew in that moment I was going to come out of the closet. I came back home and came out to my family first. And then my friends. Then I broke up with that boyfriend and moved out of the apartment we were sharing as “roommates.” ~ Jonathan Groff, FourTwoNine Magazine