2025 is Over... Next...

In my very typical fashion, I have of course waited until the very last minute to get this post written with a self set deadline of getting it posted before midnight on New Year’s Eve (I did). Lately, I have found myself thinking about the turn of the millennium in 2000 and the impact it had on my life, as well as about feeling different than everyone else as a child, and not knowing why.

Twenty Twenty Six... Wow, we are now entering the second quarter of the twenty-first century, a century I will surely not see the end of. This past quarter century has been filled with enormous societal shifts. I remember ringing in the new millennium on NYE 1999 while standing in Chicago’s Grant Park, less than six months after my move to Chi-town. Y2K was the prescient global topic and source of concern. The fear was real, but was quickly forgotten once we crossed over into 2000. As complicated as life felt at the time, I look back and think about how absolutely simple it was compared to the insanity of the world we live in today.

The year 2000 was quite pivotal for me. It was the year I fulfilled the dream of home ownership. It was the year I went to work for what turned out to be an amazing company. I am still connected to several coworkers now eighteen years after I left for New York City in 2007. I turned 35 years old in 2000, and to be honest, I feel like this was about the time I began to actually feel like an adult. After years of struggling to get my shit together, I was seeing the fruition of all my prior efforts.

Now, twenty five years later, I am sixty years old. I have bought and sold five properties. I met and married the love of my life after nearly giving up the notion that I would ever meet someone and settle down. In fact, when I bought my studio apartment on West 57th Street in Manhattan in 2010, I bought it with the long term idea that should I remain single forever, I would be able to pay off the mortgage by the time I retired and have a permanent home in New York City for the rest of my life.

I advanced in my career to places I never would have believed I would achieve, my last position working as a systems analyst at JetBlue Airways. And then leaving JetBlue after ten years to move to Philadelphia with Yoav in 2018 where I was privileged to be able to step away from my career and focus on being an artist and the restoration of our 1852 rowhouse in Philadelphia.

My life has taken many unexpected twists and turns for the better because I learned how to see the glass as half full. My childhood experiences taught me to always be a bit skeptical and to see the world through very pessimistic lenses. With the help of some good therapists over the years, I have developed the skills needed to turn that pessimism upside down and while not quite pure optimism, at least the intent of seeing things in an optimistic way. This was furthered along when, at the age of fifty seven, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD.

This was a profound experience... Suddenly my entire life made so much more sense. I am not the lazy ass fuck-up I spent most of my life believing myself to be. I have much to say about learning you have been dealing with undiagnosed and untreated ADHD for decades, and I am sure there is at least one post to be written about it in the future.

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With all this new information, I am still very much a work in progress, I am still figuring out how to be an adult. My deep-seated curiosity of nearly everything is stronger than ever. My endless quest for more knowledge knows no bounds, sometimes to my own detriment. The milestone of my sixtieth birthday this past summer has simultaneously driven my desire to reflect on my past and how I navigated life. Those who are close to me often tell me I have quite an interesting life story. I never know how to answer that because it’s all I know. But I am finding that with the clarity of mind I have developed in more recent years, I am able to understand myself, my motivations, and my reactions, so much better.

I have lived my entire life as an outsider. With rare exception, I have never felt as though I fit in... Anywhere really. I can’t put it into words, but I remember feeling different as early as four and five years old. When I was in first grade, I was inexplicably drawn to my friend Jeff. I always wanted to be near him in class or sit next to him while carpooling to and from school. It wasn’t until many years later that I connected that feeling with my being gay. I didn’t even know what homosexuality was until I was in fifth grade and a friend explained it to me. All this happening while I was simultaneously being informed by general society that gay people were evil, being gay was bad, and gay people are destined to live miserable lives filled with unhappiness and loneliness (it was many years before I learned that misery, unhappiness, and feeling lonely has zero to do with sexuality).

The one bright spot in all of this happened in 1976 when I was eleven years old. The husband of my mother’s best friend (whose daughter was my friend in fifth grade the prior year) was a huge musical theater person who enjoyed singing and dancing in local productions. It was during one of these productions that my mother stepped up to become the publicity person for this small theater troop. I don’t remember the Broadway production they were performing, but I do remember going to opening night at a small theater on the second floor of an old store front in Old Sacramento (which was still under restoration from being a slum at the time). After the show, we drove to one of the cast members’ stunning Victorian house in downtown Sacramento for the cast party.

While at the cast party, one of the men in the production was sitting on the sofa quite close to another man. Close enough that it caught my attention. A short while later, saw them holding hands. Even later, I watched as they turned towards each other and kissed. I felt shivers run down my spine followed by tingles all over my body. I knew had seen something I wasn’t supposed to see, while simultaneously feeling an overwhelming sense of excitement. Afterwards during the car ride home, my mother (to her enormous credit) said something to the effect of “Those two men on the sofa are lovers. Sometimes men find that they are attracted to other men instead of women.”

This was followed up by silence.... Nothing... Nada. She was just matter of fact about it, not implying good, nor bad, just fact. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the back seat trying to envision exactly what they did together in bed given that my knowledge of sex at that time was limited to knowing only that the man gets the woman pregnant by sleeping with her and rubbing on each other (clearly pre Internet days). After getting home and climbing into bed, I laid awake all night thinking about what I had just seen. I immediately connected that these two men were homosexuals based on what my friend had told me the previous year. I also immediately connected that there was, on some level, acceptance by others of their being together, even though I long knew that society didn’t approve. That gave me hope. But I couldn’t stop trying to imagine what they did with each other in bed, because that night for the first time in my life, I knew I was just like them.

Looking back in later years, I give my mother huge credit for stating just the facts and not interjecting commentary or opinion (my father of course stayed silent as he nearly always did in these types of conversations). I had never heard either of my parents mention anything about homosexuals, homosexuality, or anything related before this, and it wasn’t until l came out to them several years later at the age of sixteen (that’s a story for another time) that the topic would come up again. I now know how fortunate I was to have parents who were not taught to hate people who were different than they were. They may not have understood why people were different, but they never showed hatred. This applied to folks of different races as well. I remember my father making exactly two racist jokes in my presence. I also remember my father treating people who were different exactly the same as all of the white middle class folks we were surrounded by.

So.... How does all this relate to 2025? Well it doesn’t really.... But it does relate to the personal reflections I have been thinking about this past year. When I was younger I used to roll my eyes at older folks who seemed to live in their past. But, I now have a much better understanding of how they end up there. Nostalgia can be corny, but it can also be helpful in figuring out who we are now, how we got to be this way, and what we can do to make things better.

WOW... I didn’t intend this entire post to be about me, me, me, and me... But I am guessing that a fair number of you, my wonderful dear readers, can relate to some of my life story. The world feels more chaotic than it ever has in my lifetime, and 2025 was hard... Really hard... For all of us. I want to send a huge thank you for being a reader. I have done some form of writing for two decades now, and I never envisioned I would have as many readers as I do. I write as much for myself as I do for others.

As for 2026??? My optimism is holding onto hope and says that 2026 will be better. My realism says to remain cautious about getting my hopes up too high. And the still remaining small bit of pessimism inside says “What the fuck!?!?” My goal for the new year is to be open to new things and try, try, try to not sweat the small stuff.... I really want to write more. I believe I have something to contribute here, and I believe there is an audience for it. I want to dive deeper than ever into creating my art, as well as work harder to share what I am doing with it. I also want to keep working at disconnecting myself from the chaos across the pond, while simultaneously doing everything I can to be supportive of those I love who do not have the ability to leave.

Also... Next week we start back up with our A1 Portuguese class. Not going to lie, learning a second language at the age of sixty is not easy. But I am determined... I cannot wait until the day I can understand my neighbors in the elevator without difficulty, and I can say more than just “bom dia”, “boa tarde”, and “Obrigado”.

Parting Shots

Last tidbit… I get asked about my art. To be honest, I don’t really have much to show beyond just daily(ish) practice works. It is my goal and intention to have a body of work. This body of work is currently just a concept residing within my head. But, the above shows some of my practice stuff along with some generative art I created using computer code and a drawing robot. But all that is for another time.

As always, I would love to hear comments and feedback. Happy New Year to all of you. Please know that I am grateful for every reader… That includes you!