The eve of the propreantepenultimate day leading up to my birthday

~Sunday, 10/08/17~ And so begins the countdown to my 60th birthday on Friday. I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple of months, and it’s been an interesting exercise trying to narrow down 3 things to highlight about a whole decade of your life. It’s made me think of Jonathan Larson’s Seasons of Love from Rent, the musical, a few times, too.

So, without further ado, here’s today’s reflection.

Birth – 9 years old (1957 – 1966)

BEING A MILITARY BRAT. My dad was a 30-year career marine, and we moved around a lot in my formative years. Most of it was between the ages of 4 and 13, and I attended 9 different schools between kindergarten and 7th grade. Most of the places were in Massachusetts, where all of both my mom’s and dad’s families lived. See a list of all the schools I went to and where.

LEARNING ABOUT AMBITION AND DETERMINATION. When my dad went to Vietnam for a year—his second tour there—we lived upstairs from my aunt and uncle. My uncle was building his own home, and I watched him cut stone that he had previously measured to fit its neighboring pieces already up. He cut the stone by hand, with a chisel. If I remember correctly, it took him over 10 years to finish that house. See a picture of the house.

REALIZING I WAS GAY. At age 7, I began to realize that I was gay, although I didn’t know that word then. It was more like coming to the frightening realization that I was a freak—one of those kind of people—and although I didn’t know it then, it was the beginning 28 long, and at times exhausting, years trying to hide it.

Other reflections: 10 – 19 years old | 20 – 29 years old | 30 – 39 years old | 40 – 49 years old | 50 – 59 years old