Becoming a Gay Adult

How to keep this short, sweet, authentic and move this thing forward? How to capture the last couple years? What to say that's not already been said? Life is still a challenge. COVID is still here. More disruption was unveiled. And, writing through this still helps. Had a couple good conversations today; some baubles of note -- 1. Having rooting disciplines is clutch -- e.g. morning meditations, workouts, walks -- ways to help bring the body into the here and now and shake anxiety. Shake off what's unnecessary healthily and sustainably, so what remains is what matters. 2. Doing a walking tour with trusted folks to share ideas -- e.g. starting a new venture; or facing a challenge -- is smart. It grounds speaking on the real topics and opens space for collaboration to the best solution beyond a one brain answer. Diversity of perspective brings depth of vision. 3. Evolution -- give things time. Patience. Though much stays the same [grateful earth still goes around the sun], gi

Holidays 2020. This one is for the records. I'll want to read this later. Ha. As I look back, there are tendrils of all the themes that smushed together in 2020. A pandemic, Black Lives Matter, a recession, ongoing recovery from my hip surgery, slow and long. And in my ongoing attempt to be a fully fledged adult -- financially take care of myself -- a furlough, re-employment and a misalignment of values that catapults me into another realm of positioning my self and what I offer at work. On some fundamental level, I made a decision, one I want to stay accountable to long term -- to Post Traumatic Growth (rather than Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.) A key to that is Integrity. That requires developing a personal statement of values. Those values require that I let go promptly any relationships that corrode or mismanage my values. Yup, that can mean I have to let go of a job, core relationships etc, and that's just what I've chosen. Life is too short to spend my time in

i will be ok this is so scary -- towards the end of the work day, i found out from my brother that San Francisco is going into almost lockdown. and David and I finished up the essential work items and took a break to get groceries for 2 weeks. NYC could be next. we're now prepared but worried about how this will impact our lives. we both treasure exercise -- cycling, long walks -- what if all that is essentially curbed? we came back, i took care of work pop ups and now am back to my personal life. i'm learning about this work from home thing that can take over all the hours in a paranoid panic of overdoing. i'm learning to slow down after the work day. allow the sunset to be the curtain to a focus on work and doing, and to shift to relax, let go, release the day. this will pass. we will be ok. we do the best we can and let go. the rest is up to something larger than all of us.

Someone said write through this. Agent Orange is traumatic. And now this virus. We've been through Ronald Regan and HIV. This though seems next level. How did we get through the other hurricane? We formed community, we railed against, we took very good care of ourselves. So much good came out of that work. This can be an opportunity for deeper introspection, decluttering, getting close to the people who mean the most to us, mental hygeine, reading books, writing them, blogging again, eating better since I make meals at home for me and David. Our neighbors upstairs put up the Italian flag. The neighbors across the street put up a sign -- "Are you Italian?" Massimo and Fabiana must have responded, "We are. Are you?" We love them so much. Their families are in Rome, and they've been scared for their loved ones for weeks now. Fabiana is beside herself and we try to console her in our building from time to time. The folks across the street wrote a sign -- &qu

The physical therapist sub said that I'm tracking ahead for someone 4 days post total right hip replacement. I want to be pleased with myself. When they ask what my goals are post-op, I want to say to run a marathon and to do a triathlon again, and to race up the stairs at work as if I'm Superman, and ace all my goals harder and faster, to show I'm not aging at all. I'm perpetually at my male peak performance. During a triathlon, if I notice I'm tracking ahead of goals I know to slow down. Especially in a race. Especially in the beginning. And life, funny as it may seem, is not a race at all. But even in racing everyone knows that for feats of human resilience, it's the starting slow that gets the body properly attuned to the day, the moment, the heat or cold, the tempo that's right on purr for the longer game. Sprints are different, but they are short. Life, as I want to live it, is a long game. To deeply enjoy it, I need to pace. There's a hubris

At almost 50, I wanted to have achieved it all without any real clarity about what that would even mean. This last attempt to lead HR for an organization was valiant. I want to believe I did some good and changed the atmosphere for the work of the humans. I believe I was a resource. That managers shifted in their thinking about leading others, and front line folks, including those who reported to me, gained self esteem, autonomy and learned about their strengths through my capable management, leadership and mirroring. And I want to believe I took much better care of myself at work, than I ever have before at any other position on my resume. And, I firmly believe, evaluations of others notwithstanding, that I have a solid, sustainable, philosophically, spiritually and practical Human Resources practice model, now tried and true in a couple places, iteratively tweaked, that works in 2019 for especially millennials -- front line and management/leadership. So...there's that. So why th