As I get older, I think about how I have come to be in the place that I am. Of all of the Ups and Downs my life has taken. Of how far I have come from where I was born. The house I came home to as a baby, is still a mile and half from the nearest paved road - and I am living in a world capital.
I didn't take a traditional route through education. My parents started "snowbirding" aka going south for the winter months, when I had 5 years of basic education left to complete. I changed schools ten times in those five years.
College was suggested, but I couldn't decide what I wanted to study and settled that going to college, just to go, would be a waste of time and money until I sorted that out. I started college for 4 or 5 years later; working full time and taking a couple of classes at a time. In a way, I had a major advantage over many of my classmates, because I had worked, filed taxes, bought and sold homes, and traveled. It was easier for me to connect what I was learning, to what I was living.
My early 30's were a bit of a mid-life crisis. I was unhappy with the work I was doing, and unhappy in a relationship that didn't work. It was time for drastic changes. I busted out of the closet, found my Sweet Bear, moved 800 miles away, and went back to University for an advanced degree. Lots and lots of bold moves, and undoubtedly a few people wondered what I was doing and why. The year I turned 40 I started an entirely new career, one that carried me forward to retirement.
Along the way, there were the deaths of grandparents, my one and only Aunt, my parents, and SB's mother. A second marriage. A decision to never hide my personal life from my work life (after being let go from a job after being outed by a friend.) Some periods of prosperity and some periods when I wondered if I would remain solvent. A lot of travel, much of it amazing and life changing, and some of it a lonesome drag that had to be done.
Every up and down, changed me, rounded off my rough edges, helped me to understand what I wanted in life, and what I didn't want. Helped me to better understand the broader world, including understanding that if I don't understand, it is better to remain silent than speak up and expose my ignorance or prejudice.
I talked with a friend recently whose oldest child - a young adult - recently came out as transgender. The parents have had different reactions, one has had a hard time accepting, the other is accepting and really deeply concerned that their child finds happiness and acceptance. And the young adult, is struggling a bit. A college student, with slipping grades. Things that worry parents. With luck the family will navigate these ups and downs, and be shaped by them. The ups and downs of the journey, will lead to the point they are meant to be.
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