If You Don’t Want My Opinion...

18 years ago today, I gave of myself to help give a stranger the chance at a fresh start. This is my unscripted, unscored recollection of that experience and the ripples it had. 

The past year, for me, has been filled with both apologies and letting go. The concept of offering and receiving an apology is often on my mind. Given we are not taught how to apologize, in the way we are taught something like public speaking, this episode covers the mechanics of offering a meaningful apology when we're in the wrong. 

As I continue to carve out and maintain a healthier, balanced life for myself, a series of engagements with and about my family of origin force me to make a long overdue decision. Trigger warnings: Suicide, and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Some level of detail around the sexual abuse.

I’m working my ass off in therapy to unpack my lifetime of trauma. I realize my family are not my allies and struggle with boundaries and change. I also decide to run for office, face a series of life changing events, learn the answer to a thirty-year family mystery, and find love. Trigger warnings: Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. No graphic details given.

Having finally graduated college, I begin my journey as a young adult. Find love, drift further from my family as they remain incapable of embracing me for who I am, and face a hard reality about having no civil protections as a gay American. I realize I’ve lost my compass and my way.

Having come out at Easter my junior year of college, everything regarding the relationships I had with my family changes in reaction to the news. I realize the damage the messaging from the media had on me as the AIDS pandemic swept the globe and the divisive effect the rhetoric of GOP had on my relationships with my family. Trigger warnings: incest, suicide ideation, and emotional abuse. No graphic details provided.

As I reach adolescence, this episode explores the end of our parents’ marriage and the struggles my mother, sister, and I faced maintaining various levels of connection with one another in our woundedness and desires to assert our independence and move on. Trigger warnings: suicide, rape, and sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. No graphic details provided.

The success of one’s journey through life is largely determined by how well equipped one is to take it. This episode explores the dysfunctional foundations laid for my family of origin by our parents, which left my siblings and I ill equipped to travel. Trigger warnings: animal cruelty (some level of detail), sexual, physical, and emotional abuse (limited detail).

This is not a victory lap, this is a call to action. Donald Trump and Project 2025 are poised to deprive of us of our hard fought rights, and the hard fought rights of our allies. Never before has an election or allyship been so important. Please listen to my analysis of the Trump re-election campaign within the context of Project 2025 and my personal historical perspective. 

My somewhat impromptu thoughts on the state of America this Independence Day 2024.   Marked explicit due to language. 

This episode, at its core, is about the legacy of my father’s abusiveness. Abuses he first unleashed upon his wife, then his children. There is no end to the variations of behaviors people adopt to cope with abuse. Some survive it. Many don’t. My father’s behavior destroyed our family from the inside out. The events I recount in this episode were deeply painful to research, relive, and record. I hope some good comes from their retelling. Trigger warnings for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse apply. This episode is classified as "Explicit" content. It occurred to me, given how much time has gone by and how many life events have unfolded, none of these people exist any longer as we were. We’re all a bit like Schrödinger's cat – we exist and we don’t depending on where and when I’m looking.

Whether suffering from a concrete loss, such as the loss of a pet or loved one, or from an abstract loss, such as the loss of faith or innocence, all losses have one thing in common; they must be grieved.  I began writing this episode after I finished my podcasts on the loss of my dog, Shelby. I have survived many losses throughout the course of my life. I had to learn not only the value in grieving, but also the benefits of doing the work to find the other side of grief. Sometimes that was simply moving forward. Sometimes it was forgiveness. Sometimes it was finding out that there is life after sorrow.  Listen as I explore loss, grief, grieving, and the value in moving forward. 

My short satirical take on Christmas, gift giving, and party etiquette pet peeves. 

The dust settles with my friends following winter break and I decide to come out to my family on Easter Sunday.  My coming out origin story comes to a close as my life long journey of coming out begins.

Rumors spread as I come to terms with my truth and begin to share who I am with friends.  This picture seemed appropriate given it was taken during the summer musical that forever changed the course of my life. It is one of only two pictures I have of myself from this time. The rest were lost to Hurricane Floyd.

Truths are shared and retracted. Friendships are forged and lost. I continue working to figure it all out. This episode is marked "Explicit". If you have triggers, enter cautiously.

In honor of National Coming Out Day (NCOD). The beginning of a four part series on my coming to understand and claim the fact that I was gay. The series begins in elementary school and runs through college. For those who need trigger warnings, be warned. I don't want to give anything away up front, but enter cautiously and rest assured, I am OK. I've done the work and am fortunate to be in a tremendously loving relationship. At the end of the day - I'm so grateful and so VERY lucky! 

The conclusion of Shelby's story. Please don't look away from the end. I know it's painful and sad, but being present at a pet's end is just as important as all the other phases of your time together. I learned a lot about grief in writing and recording our story. As much as I dreaded writing this episode, because I'd have to face her death all over again, doing so brought her back to me and for the last five weeks we were together again. This one's for you Shelby. No longer in our home. Forever in our hearts.

Today is the three month anniversay of Shelby's last day with us. I had intended to finish her story today in honor of that anniversary. But she has a bit more to tell us, before we conclude her tale. I learned an important life lesson in intention vs. impact.

This is the second episode in a four episode series about the life and loss of my dog, Shelby. She was a rescue from the south, I took her in as a medical foster, and we spent the rest of her life together. This is our tale. 

This is the first episode in a four episode series about the life and loss of my dog, Shelby. She was a rescue from the south, I took her in as a medical foster, and we spent the rest of her life together. This is our tale.