As I continue to relate my life story of my younger years, I wonder how I did it all. I am grateful for youthful energy.<\/p>\n
Fast forward five years… I am in a stable full-time job, I just earned my Master’s Degree, my fixer-upper house has been fully renovated, I’m riding my third motorcycle, I have about 30 pairs of boots (10 of those pairs are Fryes), enjoying wearing leather (allegedly for motorcycle riding), and I’m dating. Well, sorta.
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\nMy life was stable, routine, and satisfying. I was earning enough income to own my own house, put food on the table, leather on my body, boots on my feet, and gas in my four-wheeled kid-oriented Camaro and my third Kawasaki motorcycle. I was saving for retirement (albeit meagerly) and also saving for a “house fund” and “boot fund” even back then. <\/p>\n
During my late 20s, I realized that I was gay. I was too busy in my earlier life to do anything about it… explore, date men, whatever. I just didn’t have time.<\/p>\n
I wasn’t completely without a social life when I was in college and in my first years of employment. But what I did socially is like what most kids do today — I went out with groups. Friday afternoons with co-workers at a local pub. Occasional movies with a dear friend I grew up with (and she still is a close friend today!) All social activities were platonic. I never brought anyone home or went to someone else’s home for, ahem, “night-time activities.”<\/p>\n
This period of my life is also when the AIDS scare of the early 80s was going on. If you didn’t live through it, you would not know how frightening this period of time really was for a gay man, especially one like me who had a degree in biological sciences and knew more than the average bear about infectious disease. People you knew died horrible deaths. Many rumors abounded based on little science and much speculation. Many people believed that if you had sex with a man even once, you would get AIDS and die. Period. That was it — sex was considered in some circles as a death sentence.<\/p>\n
I have to admit — the 1980s “AIDS scare” really put the kabash on me exploring anything gay. I remember going to the DC Eagle where a leather store was on the third floor. I wanted to get a leather shirt. But I was so afraid even walking into the Eagle that I ran out… and it took me three tries before I got my leather shirt.<\/p>\n
During this period, my social life remained fairly quiet and seldom, other than the weekly beer-and-burger with friends at the local pub. <\/p>\n
My mother and family were ignorant of my sexual orientation. My twin brother knew that I was gay (even before I did), but he was overseas and we did not speak more frequently than once a year on Christmas. <\/p>\n
My mother kept asking me, “are you dating anyone special? How is “R” (a female friend) doing? Aren’t you seeing her?” Or “did you take “P” (another female friend) to dinner and the movies last week?” Or “are there any nice young ladies you work with who might enjoy your company?”<\/p>\n
My poor Mom, she didn’t know. I didn’t have the courage to tell her. In retrospect, I do think she knew that I was gay but was in denial.<\/p>\n
I met a few guys who I liked and went to dinner and movies with them. Sometimes we both dressed in full leather. I took some guys on motorcycle rides — again, in boots and leather. But our so-called “dates” ended without overnight “situations”. Fear of AIDS was deeply held — usually on both my date’s part as well as mine.<\/p>\n
Overall, my social life wasn’t going anywhere. I was too afraid to go to gay bars, and I wasn’t a night-owl anyway. I generally remained happy to hit the sack at 2030 and rise at 0400 to hit the ground running.<\/p>\n
Regrets? I wouldn’t say that I had regrets, but more of a feeling of emptiness and longing. I had not found the right person for my life yet, but I knew that someday I would. (That’s in the next installment of this blog series.)<\/p>\n
Many more big things happened in my life by my early 30s: <\/p>\n
1) I paid off the mortgage on my first house. I retired a 30-year mortgage in six years by saving like crazy and paying down the mortgage quickly. I amazed myself and my family with my focus and financial drive. But finding $5,000 per year when working full-time and not having other huge expenses wasn’t that hard to do. It purely was a matter of focus-focus-focus, making a reasonable budget, and sticking to it. <\/p>\n
2) To my family’s surprise and wonder, I bought another fixer-upper house across the street from the one where I was living and began to renovate it just like I had done with my first house. I managed to buy the house with a mortgage completely on my own. (No co-signer.) That house cost more, but wasn’t nearly as in bad shape as my first house. <\/p>\n
3) The boss I liked at work retired and the new boss was a jerk. My life at work was becoming difficult and miserable. For my sanity, I quit. Yep — resigned. No other job in sight. I was paid out for my accrued benefits, then spent three unpaid months job searching and remodeling my “new” house while living in my “old” house, and living off my “rainy day” fund. How important that fund is!<\/p>\n
4) I enrolled in EMT\/Paramedic training and began running with a local rescue squad as a volunteer. (Again, youthful energy!) I was appointed by my home station’s battalion chief to an organization that served the community collaboratively. In that role, I got to know influentials in the local Police Department, Fire Department, and county government.<\/p>\n
5) I entered a competition, sponsored by my home state, that if I won it, I would receive a scholarship for doctoral work. I had to choose a doctoral program that fit my interests as well as was not at the same institution where I earned my undergraduate and graduate degrees. The competition involved an interview, an essay of the length and likes similar to a Master’s thesis, and required five recommendations from non-family members. Long story short — I won the competition and my doctoral program began. I enrolled in a University based in California, but had a teaching center closer to home in downtown Washington, DC. (Remember, this was before the internet and on-line classes.) <\/p>\n
The non-family members who recommended me included the (then) highest elected local official in our county, a member of our County Council (who was the same person who was on the Board of Education and helped me get permission to do my student teaching in my home school district), the Chief of Police, the Chief of the Fire Department, and the President of the University. Not shabby! <\/p>\n
While I had a scholarship for my doctoral graduate work, it paid only about half of my costs. I was loathe to take a student loan, so I redoubled my efforts to find a decent well-paying full-time job.<\/p>\n
6) Through volunteer work, I found a listing for another job at a major organization based in Washington, DC. I applied, was interviewed twice, and was selected. I began this new job (that I held for 20 years) at age 32. The new job required a lot of travel, so I learned how to juggle my life whilst living out of a suitcase. I resumed working 60-hour weeks without batting an eye. Grateful again to youthful energy.<\/p>\n
Did I have any regrets for my choices as I went through the passage of my early 30s? Not really. I remember at the time I was nervous and fearful that something would go wrong and I would be in serious financial trouble. My family, though, remained steadfast in encouraging me to focus on my goals and work to achieve them. <\/p>\n
My family asked questions — sometimes difficult and pointed — but it was only because they loved me and were concerned. I see that now, though back then, I did not receive some of their advice as well as I should have. So if I have any regrets, it is for disagreements with my loving siblings.<\/p>\n
How did I make this all happen? Focus. Really, one word: focus. I actually wrote out my personal life goals and revisited those goals often. I then wrote objectives to realize those goals. I then wrote out action plans for those objectives. Yeah, I was a real “management-by-objectives” guy in my personal life. And while I found that “MBO” was yet another fad-trend in the working world foisted by the latest human resources “team,” I found that MBO worked for me at home.<\/p>\n
In summary for this period of my life: I was goal-driven, hard-charging, action-oriented, community-engaged, and focused. Yet I had one big hole in my life: my heart’s fulfillment with a life-mate. Tune in next post of “Don’t Live Regrets: Make It Happen.”<\/a><\/p>\n Life is short: make your life happen by setting achievable goals and acting on objectives to reach them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I continue to relate my life story of my younger years, I wonder how I did it all. I am grateful for youthful energy. Fast forward five years… I am in a stable full-time job, I just earned my … Continue reading