My Next Thirty Years: kelly shortandqueer

Was it 2004? Or maybe 2005. I met kelly shortandqueer at the Madison Zine Festival the year that I lived there. I remember carrying in boxes of zines with kelly and being struck by how friendly and outgoing he was. I think the last time I saw kelly in person was a few years back now, in Boston, when he was on tour with the Tranny Road Show. Recently, we worked together to organize an event at the Denver Zine Library with artist Cristy Road. In addition to helping to run the zine library, kelly continues to do his long-running zine Short and Queer.

One of my closest friends over the past few years is 48 years old. He’s been with me through some hard times, lending an ear and helpful feedback – both validation and challenging me to look at my responses with a new perspective. I can’t even count the number of times he’s started a sentence with, “You probably don’t want to hear this, but…” Each time, I’d have to stop him and assure him that I know he’s going to give me some push back and if I didn’t want to hear it, I wouldn’t have called him. Often, the end of that sentence would relate in some way to my young age. It never felt like he was expressing ageism. On the contrary, I’ve been grateful for his willingness to share his experiences and wisdom with me. I’m conscious of my own social location in terms of identity development and figuring things out. I know it’s likely that in the future, I’ll look back on where I am now, understanding a whole lot more about the world and have a different perspective of my own, yet again.

I’m turning 30 in about three months and am beyond excited. Maybe this excitement was influenced by my mom’s joy in aging (I remember she called 44 and 55 her power years). Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending more and more time with people older than me, specifically older LGBTQ folks in square dancing and two-stepping contexts. These folks have been models for me in several ways. Many of them have created chosen families that have provided support over many years. They’ve been through so much in their combined lifetimes that I’m continually impressed by the love and joy they share with the world despite hard times, crises and heartbreak. It’s also great to be surrounded by older folks who are confident, desirable and sexual. When I think about people who dread turning 30 (or more generally getting older), specifically around perceived attractiveness, I want to introduce them to my friends who have seemed to figure out how to age gracefully (physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc).

A pattern, which I hope continues, is that the older I’m getting, the more things seem to be calming down. I feel more confident, comfortable and flexible. I still have adventures and late nights out dancing. I’ve found a balance between stability and spontaneity – at least a balance that works for me right now. I think that I’ve made it through my Saturn Return in one piece and have found that the most effective nursing for those bumps and bruises along the way has been living with intention and integrity.

As a trans guy, I’ve always looked young for my age. For years, I’ve had people constantly telling me how much I’ll appreciate it when people tell me how young I look in the future. That may be true, but I’m also excited about getting older, having my presence and looks reflect my age. I can’t wait to have eye crinkles (crow’s feet) that physically demonstrate the joy I experience in life from years of smiling so much. As a sucker for salt & pepper hair, I’m excited to have some gray of my own start coming in. Since starting testosterone in 2005, my physical appearance is starting to catch up with my age and I couldn’t be happier.

For the past year, whenever anyone has asked how old I am, my response has been, “I’m 29… and turn 30 in June.” My plan for my birthday, which I hope to pull off, is 30 days of 30. The question now is what a reasonable 30 days of celebration looks like. I think it’ll include cooking with friends, lots of two-stepping, laying in grass, margaritas, slumber parties, game nights and discussions about how to create a loving community that honors age and experience and how we, as queer and trans people, will age together, learn from each other and share in each other’s lives. For now, I’ll keep listening to Tim McGraw’s My Next Thirty Years and figure out what I want those years to look like in my own life.

The Year of the Whale: Pooja Kanwar

I think anyone that knows her would agree: Pooja Kanwar has super powers. She possesses the uncanny ability to balance fun with responsibility, reckless abandon with fierce intellect, and charisma with modesty. A superhero that is also deeply human. To say that our connection was based around music would be a gross understatement. With about a dozen mixtape exchanges and a number of live shows shared together, music has become embedded in the language of my friendship with Pooja. Catching up with her always renews my faith in humanity. I could go on, but I will just let Pooja take it from here...  

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It was December 27^th, 2009. I woke up perplexed by the peculiar nature of the dream that had fogged my mind over. I remember it as vividly today as I did that morning: I was with my good friend Rose from undergrad, and we were hiking (in legwarmers mind you) to the highest point in Burlington, Vermont. We reached the top and from an eagle's eye view, could see Lake Champlain rapidly inundate the city of Burlington. There were waves crashing on to the land, but more importantly, there were whales…so many whales…everywhere. Whales stranded on top of semi trucks, washed up into beer gardens, and many frantically swimming through minimal depths of freshwater, confined up against one another as if they were salmon spawning. It was a very distinct and chaotic feeling that I immediately wrote about when I woke up, posted on my Facebook and various other blogs. This was during the first month of my freshly commenced PhD program at the University of Vermont. I was 28 years old.

A few hours after I had wrote out my dream and my curiosity behind such vivid imagery, my best friend Kate asked me if I had seen the latest news in New Zealand. I had not and this was the link she sent me:  http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Beached-Whales-In-New-Zealand-Rescue-Teams-Save-Two-Thirds-Of-Pilot-Whales-That-Swam-To-Shore/Article/200912415509184

At this point, knowing that New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of the states, I felt pretty strange; almost as if I had seen this in my dream prior to it happening. Okay, okay…I know this is starting to sound like some new age touchy-feely business but bear with me...it intensifies. As I mentioned, this was my first year enrolled in a PhD program. I had no idea what I was going to be researching, or why, and this was anxiety inducing to say the least. My Bachelors and Masters degrees were both focused on India, specifically in rural water supply and rainwater harvesting practices and I had been struggling on where to go next with my research. A few months later, after contemplating switching advisors or potentially even Universities, a project was presented to me. It involved working in a harbor in the North Island of New Zealand, examining ecosystem services, policy infrastructure and governance challenges. 

A few days after I solidified my avenue of research, I went out and sat at a bar to have a victory beer. The woman who was sitting by me had a blue patch on her purse; it was of a Blue Whale.

So, now we have the whales, and New Zealand both of which have me constantly thinking about the dream I had months before. Jump back to winter break of 2009: I was visiting my home in the great state of Iowa when I had the dream. Over the past few years I had developed a strong connection with my dear friend from college who has been a reoccurring, and extremely positive, force throughout various points in my life. I was, at the time, in a relationship with someone else and it had been in flux for a good chunk of time at this point. I see my dear friend and things, well…get complicated. With the chaos of love, school and the classic late twenties crisis, my best friend took me to a psychic for my 29^th birthday. This woman informed me that I had a slightly open third eye and was experiencing a distinct cycle in my life…Saturn Return (I refer you now to a wonderful post by Traci Yoder that can help explain what this means). 

During my 29^th year I: ended a long term relationship, moved for the 12^th time in 10 years, solidified my dissertation research, found the love of my life, lost friendships I by no means would have anticipated losing while being reassured of those solid and stable parts of my life that will never budge, gained incredible new family and friends, strengthened relations with my immediate family, and have the best understanding I have had yet of what works for me in my life and what does not. 

I am now 30. Am I married? No. Do I own property? Sadly no, long live wasting money on rent. Do I have a job? Nope. I have been a student for 25 of my 30 years of existence. Do I even have a dog?!? Ack! I wish. Do I want all these things? Well, sure. Although, I am unsure if I did have these things that I would have lived in the eight different geographical areas I have, or worked the in the nine vastly different sectors I have been employed by. Maybe I would not have obtained two degrees and started the third degree I have dreamt of having my whole life, or fallen in love the number of times I have and failed… I was living, learning, failing, loving and repeating this process over and over until now, and I have found what works in a magical, motivating way and healthy way.  

I believe the dream I had was the beginning of my Saturn Return. The whales in my dreams represented a time of frantic change and that of colossal magnitude. The disorder depicted was symbolic of the trials and tribulations that would be coming to an end as I thankfully exited my 20’s. It was a time of exploration, experiencing hardships and bliss, and coming to a greater awareness for myself about what works with whom I am and who I strive to be. Honestly, I feel confident that through all the sorting and filtering through my 20’s the best is definitely yet to come, and I welcome my 30’s with open arms. 

[On a side note, I am about 60 days into my 30^th year and I ironically find myself writing a paper about whales for a marine ecosystem services class that I am required to take to complete an Ecological Economic certification program at UVM.]

Existential Crisis, Please Go Away: Timothy Sylvia

After being part of the Cape Cod underground music scene in the mid/late-90's, it's nice to know that there are still good people fostering the local scene and documenting its history. Tim Sylvia is one of those people. I didn't know him really well back in the day, but I can still picture him right up by the PA as my band Social Virus played our final shows at the Orleans Juice Bar. Tim was always super supportive and enthusiastic of our music and other bands we played shows with. In addition to playing in a number of bands himself over the years, Tim has been setting up shows, running a distro, and putting out records through his From the Heart Media. A compilation of Cape Cod bands, past and present, is currently in the works. Music communities everywhere need more Tim Sylvias.  
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Warning: This could get messy.

I'm 28, and I'll be 29 in August. At 28, my life is not what I was expecting and/or hoped for. Probably a token and reoccurring statement. Go figure. All I know is I want this existential crisis to go away. I guess that's what you call it. In the current scheme of the news and events of the world, it's hard to decipher if the doom you are experiencing is because of how scary the world is, or because you're actually experiencing a personal existential crisis. I'm having a hard time, that's all I know. If you're a young, creative, or generally just a forward-thinking person, regardless of any standard, I think you are aware of what I am saying. 

Where do we go from here? What can I do? I don't need to touch on specifics. Too many thoughts, too many questions in my head all the time. Anxiety. Do you think the existential crisis 30 years ago was what it is today? It seems like mine is possibly the worst that could come out of my family history. Look at me?  I can't even keep it together. What I'm trying to get at here is I have a hard time even reflecting on myself at the age of 28, because everything I'm personally thinking about is much bigger than me. Existentially I mean. I need to be more selfish, in my own head at least. I need to be more creative. I need to be less afraid. I need to try and be HAPPY! I guess I can try to reflect on myself.

Let's start with my health. I'm a 350 plus pound man with diabetes. Yeah, I know. I've got to do something about this. I really do. That one sentence, I guess... is my whole real existential crisis. If I don't do something, I may not even exist. That's definitely the most important something-to-think-about sentence in my whole life. I'm always working on it. I swear.

Love, will I ever find you? I'm already very damaged by you at 28. Every time I experience love and it goes away, I just feel more lonely the next time I find you gone. Alone and hurt. So hurt. So hurt that I'm afraid of you. I swear I'll never let this happen to me again, every time. Very cautious about you, love.

I don't consider turning 30 a milestone at all, however what one might have accomplished by the age itself. I guess the only standard for this is set by you, and anyone's opinions you value or take into consideration. Like your parents. I oftentimes think I would have taken bigger, more personally risky and controversial leaps of faith had I not worried about what my mother would have thought about what I was doing for the last 28 years. I guess that makes me a momma's boy, too regretful, and more boring than a family-less me would of been. Which are two things I doubt my mother would have wished for me. I love my family, and I love you, Mom.

Some things I want by the time of my 30th birthday are to be out of my head more often. I want to be healthy or healthier, anyhow. I want a better world to live in, with my help. To take bigger leaps. Huge leaps. Last but not least, I want to be out of this existential crisis. The keyword, and I think the general consensus and theme about turning the age of 30, is change. I need change, we need to change.

My Thirty: Leah Harrington

Some people in my graduating high school class may always associate Leah Harrington with the superlative section of the "Nauset Tides" yearbook from our senior year. With her huge smile, recently shaved head, and hip-before-their-time thick-framed glasses, the 1999 photo of Leah, and her male counterpart, was accompanied by the title: Most Dramatic. Or perhaps it was Drama King and Queen? Regardless, I will always think of Leah as one of the most interesting and fun people I have known, and had the pleasure of being friends with, in high school and beyond.

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This is not what I thought it was going to be. It never is. I thought my thirty was going to be all urbanistic, unruly and controversial. Instead I am a preschool teacher, I’m married, I have a baby, and a dog.  All I need is the white picket fence. I thought my thirty was going to be old. My thirty looks better than any other year in my life. I am so much stronger--physically and otherwise--than I ever thought I could be. And I’m on Cape Cod. Where I grew up. The LAST place I thought I’d spend my thirty. This fact is not to be confused with Disappointment. I did jump the canal long enough to understand I did like the Cape, I just needed to contribute to my community rather than expect it to meet all of my adolescent needs. I am surrounded by these incredible people that were hiding for years, and this includes my family. Where WERE you guys? The average age of my circle is actually more around 35 or 40, and I’ve got to say, 40 doesn’t look so bad. You can still be artistic and irreverent and silly and sexy and young, the only difference is you give that much less of a fuck what other people think about you. My thirty is just that. Finally approaching the place where other people’s opinions don’t affect your sense of self. 

Don’t be complacent. Don’t be judgmental. Love with abandon and let go of the people who hold themselves--and you--back. I have so much more to learn, and so much more to grow. I think I’m going to like forty.

So I have a baby, and I thought I’d write more. This is what I have to offer…