JOIN ME AS I SHARE THIS WILD RIDE WE CALL LIFE
MARCH 8, 2020
DESTINATION: HOME
Portion from an article published in Our Lives Magazine
Home has been a difficult concept for me. Where is my home? Where should my home be? Do I need a husband to call it home? What does home even mean? With a year of no traveling and being confined to my apartment, I dove deep into evaluating what home actually means to me. Two distinct identifiers keep rising up; Home as a physical space and being at home in my own skin.
I couldn’t wait to leave my childhood home in tiny Lyndon Station, WI at age 18. The minute I could, I did. As a freshman in Eau Claire, I lived in a dorm that housed more than my hometown’s population. I was assigned to an overflow room; A study room turned into a large dorm room with four other guys. That space felt like home. Our room was the center of life on our floor. Everyone had the code to get in, and residents would bring their parents by saying, “This is our overflow room.”
This odd living arrangement revealed one quality of what home means to me. Home has an open-door policy. Yes, I lock my door at night, but people are welcome, and many people often have a key to my house. My mother has something to do with this. The children in our little town were always welcome to come by. Having an open-door policy and hosting has been a theme in all of the places I’ve lived since then. Every apartment I’ve lived in, including in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, had open-door policies.
Las Vegas
Vegas allowed me freedom to explore and begin understanding who I was. This included coming out. The loved ones who I came out to are still incredibly important in my life. I also learned how to push my limits. I was getting my theater degree, bartending at a slow gay bar from 12:00 a.m. until 7:00 a.m., and rehearsing before I went to work. Home is where you can sleep and feel safe. The fine arts building became my home that last year of college. Even though my apartment was five blocks away, I slept more at school.
Continue reading in Our Lives Magazine
JANUARY 12, 2020
THE TINY MOMENTS THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING
I subscribe to the notion that extraordinary changes in our lives often derive from small uncomfortable moments. This week is the twentieth anniversary of my largest life changing moment ever. It brings me to tears even approaching the idea of it not happening. Everything that I am now at age forty is because of it.
I was a junior at University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. The world was mine. I knew everything as I approached the big twenty-one. I was living in a house with five friends. In the year, the house had some really high points as well as some really low ones. Peeks and valleys are inevitable in these moments of course; Young adults attempting to be grown up while still learning the word responsibility.
On campus I was extremely busy while also holding two jobs in my hometown. It was winter break so work was my focus. I returned to Eau Claire early for a club retreat in Upper Michigan. When I arrived to our dynamic house after the retreat, I was shocked to find the living room packed. The guys who were to be my roommates for my final year of college were all there. Long story short, I learned they made alternative plans for housing. That left me devastated because it was already incredibly late to find housing for the next school year. I was doomed. Despite how angry I was, I knew this decision was not made maliciously. Twenty year olds have really shitty communication skills.
I didn’t choose to party that night. I went to my room and sulked. The next morning, I got up and called my restaurant job to pick up shifts the last few days of winter break. By the time I drove the hour and a half to the restaurant, I made a really big decision. I walked into the restaurant and promptly told them, “I’m moving to Las Vegas!” and then punched in and started working.
That’s it. No long teeter-tottering back and forth. It was the first time I had made a big decision with total conviction and courage. I returned to school four days later feeling so free. The rest of the semester was a blast! I turned 21, I accomplished some big goals on campus, had the best going away party ever, and studied in Cuba, further adding to my life changing year.
That moment, deciding to do something and make a change when I felt at my worst, exploded walls for me I didn’t even know were standing. In 2001 I learned I could meet new magnificent people anywhere. I met some of the biggest loves of my life. The move forced me to figure out who I was. I announced to the world that I am a gay man. Mostly I learned that the fear, the uncomfortable, and the unknown are so worth leaning into.
Writing this story now, knowing what I’ve accomplished and everywhere I’ve been baffles me. Did I really do all that? Did someone wearing my skin do it and I watched it as a movie? It was me. All of it was me. That person is me.
As we continue into the next phases of our lives, I invite you to recollect those small moments that had incredible impacts. It could have been a move, loss of a loved one, a new job, a new relationship, ending a relationship, an accident, a new habit, or just a wrong turn. Sit in the feelings the event made you feel. It was probably scary and full of anxiety, but what was the return? … I know! Right?!
Cheers to the tiny uncomfortable life changing moments!
Cheers to you facing them!
And cheers to you for conquering them!
AUGUST, 2015
Letters From A Change Agent: #findyourlight
Life gets challenging in unique ways when working internationally. You find yourself in a different landscape with different cultural norms, often different languages you may not understand, and different methods to accomplish the same goal. I feel I have become pretty good at rolling with the changes and ambiguity of this work, however, this last month has challenged me in ways I never expected.
I’ve been with a group of university students from New York. We have been volunteering at an orphanage in Northern South Africa. The moment my group first met with the matriarch of the community, we were inspired and moved by her candid approach to the circumstances at the orphanage. The essence of what she said to us was, “Find your light.”
Despite my optimism and constant ability to be patient and open, I tend to lose my light. I lose it in logistics, outcomes, and other people’s needs. I feel this is normal and not negative but since Mgogo (grandma) said this to us, I’ve been unsettled by it. This last month has had me questioning, how can I keep my light all the time? What if our light was constant just like a happy thought in Neverland? So I’ve been trying.
The first weekend here, I got thrown into a situation of selflessness, courage, but mostly need. The community was putting together a funeral for a young mother who lived in the informal village next to the orphanage’s campus. It is tradition for the younger men to be very involved with funerals. Most men my age have passed away from AIDS in this community, so I was needed to be a pallbearer and then assist in burying the coffin. While shoveling dirt in front of family and loved ones, I couldn’t help thinking, “How do I find my light in this?”
Fortunately it has been easy. I find my light in the faces of these children who always have love to give. Despite being refugees, being raped, losing parents to HIV/AIDS, and some being HIV positive themselves, they are always giving love and able to receive it. One woman in my group described these children as, “warriors of battles we will never know.” As I venture into the day care today, I will remember this and hug my heart alive.
I also have been able to find my light in my Peacework participants. These ten courageous young adults have left the comfort of their homes to come volunteer in the most non-traditional of circumstances. They are up at 5am to get 200 children ready for breakfast and school while handling their individual projects, which are more challenging than most jobs they will be offered out of college. Even though they are tired, overworked, often ill and homesick, there are always smiles on their faces.
I believe to make our light the most available, we must better know that human connections are important. We must acknowledge that we are apart of nature and that real human connections are the key to unlocking the light that we already own. The light must be accessed but it is always there. We must train ourselves how to reach it when we need it; Just like a happy thought in Neverland to fly.
How do you access your light? Who helps your light appear immediately? How often do you connect/see/interact with them? Do you make their light appear?
I get reminded all the time that just like food and water, I need interaction with certain people. I try to be conscious of this and work it like a muscle. We must train ourselves on what connections are healthy and assist us in finding our light so it is always available. I don’t think this strategy will change the world, but anything is possible when bettering us on an individual level
Good luck on finding your light!