Birthday Wisdom: 37 Years: Part 2

 You're one year older, one year wiser. What is one thing that you learned this year?

Remember your "why."

I often get caught up in existential musings, such as questions like these: “What’s the point?” and “What difference does it make?” and “Who cares?” and “Why does it matter?” Not literally asking for the answer, but more rhetorical frustration of “Why am I here because none of this life feels worth living” kinds of meaninglessness despair. 

These questions most often come up for me when I’m in the middle of something really challenging. I might be trying to get motivated to do a hard thing, like write a book or train jiujitsu or go to work or go skiing, or even just get up in the morning, get out of bed, and get through the day. Or perhaps in the middle of a quagmire at work or a difficult relationship dynamic. When I’m spending a ton of energy on something, I start to doubt the validity of that effort–or even just question the nature of existence altogether: Why am I here? 

If I look at the immediate reasons for something, I often get discouraged. The immediately felt benefits of hard work, while sometimes rewarding in and of itself, are often not enough for me to keep going.  

But something helped me a lot this year. I remembered a motivational saying that captured the essence of purpose and meaning that I was craving: Remember your why.

Take my job for example. If I took it too literally, where I actually saw that my mission in life was to coordinate engineering projects for consumer electronics clients who have no other goal besides getting rich, I don’t know if I could get myself to go into work and devote hours of each day of my life to that mission. To me, that mission is not only meaningless but also potentially destructive to the environment and even to society. I would and do get discouraged pretty quick.

So I have to remember my larger “why”: to contribute to the family and take care of my Bruno. It’s not about making money itself. It’s what that money signifies: my money and energy traded in to provide for a shelter, food, and medical care for me and those I love. That’s it.

If my why for training jiujitsu was simply “to get a black belt,” I’m already gone and quit. I’ve thought about my “why train jiujitsu” a lot recently, because it’s expensive and time consuming, and I’ve thought about quitting many times. “Why am I doing this?” And a tiny voice inside responds: “To move my body and feel strong, to feel alive. Because this is my playtime. To stay mentally engaged and devoted to learning. To share my presence and story as a trans athlete, offering visibility, connection, or inspiration to others.”

Jiujitsu itself isn’t the ultimate “why” — it’s a vehicle for a bigger purpose: living a life that feels strong, curious, creative, and joyful.

So when you’re caught in the spiral of “why does this matter?” or “what’s the point of living?” remember your why. And not the immediate reason of “I want to be fit, look good, feel good, get recognition, get wealth, get validation.” But instead the bigger picture: a higher purpose. Only you can know what that is. Remember your why — it’s usually pretty abstract and separated from the immediate task at hand.

I don’t know a lot. In fact, what I don’t know is a lot more than what I do know. But this is some of the wisdom I’ve gained in the last year. I hope I remember it throughout the next year, and I’m also excited about what else I’m going to learn. Already excited about the jiujitsu and yoga and writing and spiritual journeys that I’m on and excited about what that could turn into, while not losing sight of what really matters: taking care of my Bruno. And to grow. To create. To love.

What’s your “why”?

Birthday Wisdom: 37 Years

You're one year older, one year wiser. What is one thing that you learned this year?

I was on the academic path for a long time: learn a foreign language, get grants, do cool shit, write about it, present it, publish it, teach it.

To my twenty-some-year-old self, it was all pretty straightforward. The clear path was comforting. Despite all the hoops to jump through, at least I knew what and where the hoops were.

Let me be clear: It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows either, nor was it easy. I also wasn’t totally in the dark about how hard it was going to be, if not impossible, to make a living and career out of it.

At the time (and this was over 10 years ago now...), a lot of people told me that studying the Uyghurs was a dead-end for a research career. Some told me that it was only a matter of time before the Chinese government shut it down. Besides, I knew that there was a greater chance of getting into the Olympics than there was becoming a tenured university professor.* Others cautioned me against going into the social sciences in general, especially when spending so much time on a graduate degree in a field that had little to no practical applications.

Despite all these warnings, I remember making the conscious decision to pursue an advanced graduate degree: “I’m going to do this because I want to do it, because I’m passionate about it, because I believe in it, because I believe this work is important, because I believe this research has value, and because I would rather try and fail than to have never tried at all. As long as my school keeps getting external funding, I’m going to keep going,” I thought to myself.

I had planned to quit grad school after my Master’s degree, but upon receipt of the National Science Foundation grant that funded my research for three years, I decided to keep going. It would be foolish to turn that down. I was getting paid – however measly a stipend, it was still an income – to follow my intellectual passions and pursuits. How lucky was I?

And yet, there was another narrative being woven in: That if I just worked hard enough, if I was just smart enough, if I was just determined enough, that I would succeed. I would be the exception. In some ways, I was the classic millennial: I thought I was special. I would be the statistical anomaly that would make it through to a successful, well-known career as a Uyghur and China expert and would eventually become a tenured professor with a stable and secure job. You could have even gone so far as to say that it was "my dream." And I really believed that it was possible. Hard, but possible.

Hope is a powerful thing until it runs out. 

And then, that dream chipped away slowly one day after another, until finally there was nothing left. The realities of this world came crashing down and at the fork in the road, I chose a different path: consulting. Applying my knowledge and skills to data analysis. Learning a new language: computer code. This was smart. This was practical. This was lucrative. This had potential. And I was contributing to the environmental advocacy efforts striving to mitigate climate change. 

Last year that life came crashing down once again. My year-long job search for something better was fruitless, and my boss’s consulting business lost enough clients that I was laid off. I felt lost and hopeless, and in many ways, it felt like the last few years were a huge waste of time, not to mention all the years spent on graduate school.

But you know who was hiring? The tech sector. There was space for me and my skills, long cultivated during my years of schooling and professional life: connecting different people and things, bringing out the best in people through proper planning and direction, navigating different cultures, priorities, and personalities, juggling multiple deliverables at once, and analyzing large amounts of data in a short period of time: Project Management. 

It’s not glamorous. I joke that I’m a glorified administrative assistant. It’s a humble position. You’re like the stage crew of a theatre production: in the background, making sure everything is set up in the correct time and place, that everyone has the gear and information that they need to do their job. But not the main character. Not even the supporting actor. You’re more like the prep cook than the sous chef. In an orchestra, you're the bass player rather than the violin (and certainly not the conductor…). And I can find the joy in that, too. Because ultimately life is really just about finding your place in the world no matter how small.

So, for me the main lesson from this last year is: Don’t be afraid to change course – sometimes in dramatic or unexpected ways – no matter how long you’ve been on your current path (...and sometimes finding a new path in ways that are completely out of your control). You never know what you might find on the other side.

Maybe the point is that none of it was wasted. Every version of me—student, researcher, post-doc, author, consultant—was learning how to adapt, how to be resilient, how to let go, and how to begin again.

This year taught me that identity can be fluid without being lost. That changing course isn’t failure; it’s responsiveness. That meaning doesn’t disappear just because the plan does. And that grounding yourself in your values, your relationships, your body, your curiosity matters more than any single outcome. And certainly more than any single career. 

*This is popular folklore among graduate students and has not been independently confirmed as a statistical fact.

Poem for Myself

I am a hamster on the wheel,
I am the bird in its cage.
Is this how a wolf would feel?

Is this how a horse feels?

Is this just how life is?

A never-ending loop:

Make money, spend it.

Still feel empty.

Make money, spend it.

Still feel exhausted.

What's the point?

To feel safe?

Why did I work so hard?

Why didn't anyone tell me: don't try so hard cuz none of it matters and nobody really cares.

I hate the victim narrative.

I know I have the power.

But do I have the energy?

Do I have the resources?

And even if I did, does anyone care?

Baby Sammi deserves a second chance.

Everybody has their own gifts, 

their own contributions.

It all fits together,

like a tapestry,

like a mandala, 

each fractal a reflection of the whole.

I am you and you are me. 

Human.

Child.

Ego

Heart.

Spirit.

Temporary soul.

When the Stars Don't Catch You: Falling, Flying, and Everything in Between: Part 3

Tears stream down both of our faces. We're standing with our foreheads against each other, rocking back and forth and holding one another. We’re the only people who exist in the world. It’s just us, nobody else has ever existed or ever will. It’s us against the world. 

“You die, I die, we die together.” It’s April 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We’re sitting on a big boulder that juts out like a little peninsula, a creek flowing around us, full with the spring snow and rain propelling it fast down the mountains.  

“I love you,” I said to them for the first time. “I want ALL of you. Even the frustration and the distraction. I want to see it all! Your anger, frustration, sadness, fear, excitement and happiness. I want it all. You are so beautiful. There is a whole solar system in your eyes.”

The craziest experience I ever had was falling in love with B, my brain dosed in the chemicals serotonin and dopamine: I was high all the time. They could do nothing wrong and they were perfect in every way. I could never imagine them doing anything bad.

However, I noticed that when I put them on a pedestal, I found myself cowering in fear—what if they found out that I was imperfect? What would happen then? Once they found my demons, those monsters that sit inside my chest gathering smoke and tension, the tension in my shoulders and in my hips, that feeling of ache that manifests because I’m not good enough and I work and work and work as a way to fight and run away from those demons, the demons that tell me that I suck. The anger that arises from that fear? It explodes sometimes. But when B saw those demons, they didn’t run away. They stayed and deeper in love I fell.

But then one day like a slap in the face, I plummeted down to earth when I realized that B wasn’t perfect either, that B has flaws, some fatal flaws, flaws just like me, just like all of us, flaws that tell us that we are human.

---

I used to write in order to create and share, to play with versions of infinity. As a way for my spirit to dance, as a way for my spirit to dance with other spirits. As a way to inspire others to find, feel, play and realize their own spirits. Like others showed me the path, I wanted to show others, not by telling or lecturing nor teaching directly, but by being and sharing that spirit, the spirit of play and creativity. 

Writing was a way for me to learn and improve language and mind as one tool for play and creativity. A tool to share with the collective consciousness. To contribute to the collective consciousness ideas about how divisive categories are not optimal, that there is another path to a better life and a better world. To share knowledge, being, and spirit for the collective benefit of us all because stifling and silencing hurts everyone. 

I hoped that all beings may find a way to dance with their spirit and with other spirits, so we all may find an even better way to communicate and create, love, and connect in a way that celebrates and honors the spirit of life.

Those were my dreams and my ideals. 

A lot has happened since I dreamed those dreams and held those ideals: friends lost, jobs ended, books rejected, words deleted, money dwindled. 

---

My balloon of pride and hope and expectation did not pop all at once but slowly let air out as I deflated. And I distracted myself. With love and sex. With drugs. With food. With alcohol. With work. With anything that would not allow me to think about the fact that the reality of the world and our human-made systems constrain all of us: Time is limited. Resources are limited. Energy is limited. 

Maybe in our capitalist upbringings when we are falsely taught that energy in the form of oil and electricity is unlimited, we mistakenly absorb this message and think that all energy is unlimited. Human energy to produce and consume. "Money doesn't grow on trees," everyone likes to say. Ain't that the truth. But leaves do, and still there is not enough to absorb the carbon we keep releasing into the air. There are limits to everything. Including the ability of the earth itself to handle the destruction we as humans feel compelled to inflict for our own growth and benefit. Including our ability to keep up with an unsustainable pace at work and in life.

---

To quote the late Andrea Gibson, "I knew you blew this world a kiss..." when you helped me open not only my heart but also my body to the violence of transphobia. 

Those phobias live so deep inside of me that I don't even recognize that when I look away it's because I'm looking away from the shame that lives deep inside myself. 

It happens when I look away from the homeless person on the street. What triggers me to look away? Is it their precarious position and the ravages of their addiction and mental health? Or is it the exposure of their bodily functions: urine, odor, and wild hair? Because that image of the wild, unkempt human? That is all of us inside: raw, gross, smelly humanity. I tend to look away from reality. Look away from the fact that the person could be me if I lost my job. It could be me if I let my secret compulsions of my own get too out of "control."

So I look away, I control myself. And maybe I don't understand that gender fluid person because I don't understand my own gender, something so personal and yet shaped so deeply by society at the same time. And I don't understand the world and its destruction just like I don't understand myself and my own self-sabotage. 

But I knew you blew this world a kiss when you said, "I'm going to love myself AND you AND the fear AND the hate anyway." I put myself and my body out there. I said, "Fuck it, I'm gonna love myself and the world."

Then I felt my limitations and looked at reality in the face and saw all the flaws in the world and in myself. Limitations that tell us that we are human and therefore we too will always make mistakes and that forgiveness is also worthy. Worthy for ourselves and worthy for others, no matter how fucked up things get.

So, to my dreams and ideals, I don't know what I'm going to do with you and your creativity and imagination and hope and impracticality and distance from reality. But maybe there is a way I can hold on to you in the full awareness that you are a complete fiction. 

---

“I’m reminded...of a famous cartoon. It’s of a prisoner, shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out—but to his right and left, it’s open, no bars…All the prisoner has to do is walk around. But still, he frantically shakes the bars. That’s most of us. We feel completely stuck, trapped in our emotional cells, but there is a way out—as long as we’re willing to see it.”--Lori Gottlieb

I used to think I was a bird in a cage, flying and slamming against the bars until I was too exhausted to move. They were only lines I drew myself, too close to see through the blur of exhaustion and fear. Maybe the freedom isn’t in the flight I once imagined, or in the perfect life I thought I’d earn if I just worked hard enough. 

Now, when the dread rises and the weight of the world presses down, I remember this: I can still walk around. My wings might be tired, but they’re not broken. I can stand, stretch, and step forward—out of the cage, into the open air—carrying my dreams as a compass towards something else. 

And for the first time, I am not slamming. I am simply walking.

Perhaps freedom isn’t in the soaring I once chased, but in the tender, steady act of walking forward—wings folded, dreams trailing gently behind me like the shadow of flight.

And as I cross the threshold, I realize: the cage was never the end. It was only the beginning.

The world still sucks. Life is still a struggle. I'm not sure those ideals are ever coming back. Is it time to resurrect old dreams or come up with new ones?

The point is that there is no point...except to walk your journey and find some growth and freedom along the way.

---

Dear dreams and ideals,

You were the reason I got up in the morning. You were the light at the end of the tunnel. You were the thing that gave me and my life meaning and purpose: that there was a happy life out there waiting for me. That hard work would reward me with success and money. That if I pushed off pleasure now that I would get mine later. That there was hope for a better world. 

That there was a future where I could live off the grid–on my own communal farm with chickens and goats and spinach. That I would live in a big, shared house that I co-owned with all my closest friends and lovers. That I could change the world–or at least, have an impact. That the point of everything was love and connection. That I could find interdependence, for living in harmony with myself, others, and Nature.

I miss you.

When the Stars Don't Catch You: Falling, Flying, and Everything in Between: Part 2

 It’s Saturday, December 1, 2022. 

Brie and I had gotten married a few months prior and we were living in Phoenix, Arizona. We spent our honeymoon that October kayaking in Antelope Canyon, hiking the Grand Canyon, and rock climbing in Sedona. Thanksgiving was spent backpacking in the Superstition Wilderness, star gazing and enjoying the shade of the oases that sprung up in the middle of the desert, fed by the underground springs that bubbled up seemingly out of nowhere. 

Riding high on the new freedoms--and unemployment--of my life after academia, and starry eyed with optimism in a new trans male body, I was preparing for a jiujitsu competition in Phoenix. The competition was scheduled for mid-December. 

---

I had recently switched gym affiliations and was newly training with Jay Pages’ gym. We had competition training at the gym every Saturday morning. 

“Slap hands and go,” came the instruction from the coach. 

The timer started, the music blaring. We engaged first in hand fighting–grabbing the wrist, then the forearm, then the tricep. I used my forehead to bore into my opponents’ head, then I controlled their hips, went to the left and then the right. We were immersed in a tangle of limbs and sweat. My brain turned off. There was nothing else that existed in the world except for my breath and the pressure of our bodies against each other, which was strangely calming, simulating murder but in the most loving and playful way you can imagine.

Competition training meant that the session was focused on stand-up (wrestling and judo, something that normal jiujitsu training rounds didn’t always include); higher intensity (faster pace with more muscle leverage involved than a normal training session); and playing for points (this meant keeping positions for the required 3 seconds, switching positions as often as possible to rack up points, and making sure that positions met the requirements for points, things you didn’t normally pay attention to when you were just training for fun or exercise).

That day, December 1st, I let out a sigh of relief when I was paired up with a blue belt female. She was the only woman in the class that day and the only person close to my size. She was kind and friendly and a good jiujitsu player, someone I had trained with before, someone I felt comfortable going hard with because we were about the same strength level. 

We started the session with some wrestling rounds aiming for a take-down: getting the opponent off their feet, either on their back or with their knees and hands on the mat. Round 1. She took me down and I took her down. 

Round 2. She came at me hard with a double leg, where you wrap both arms around your opponent’s legs and use your shoulder to push into their ribs to bring them to the ground. She came in for the kill, made contact with my lower ribs with great force and my foot got caught on the mat. She plowed through me like I wasn’t even there and as she fell on top of me, I felt something snap in my ankle. Pain seared through every molecule of my being and I saw a flash of white light. 

Before I knew it, I was face down on the mat. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk. I just felt tears leaking out of my eyes against my will. But in seconds, I got my bearings. I heard voices yelling as my partner stood over me.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I said. “Just twisted my ankle.”

Training resumed and I crawled over to the side of the mat. A few minutes later, my partner re-appeared with some Advil and a big bag of ice. “I’m so sorry!” she said, looking concerned. “I just ran to the corner store to grab you these.” 

“Thank you so much,” I choked out, still breathing heavily. “I’m okay, just in shock. I better sit out. You guys keep training.” 

With a couple of Advil in me and a bag of ice on my ankle, I sat for the rest of the practice. Nobody paid too much notice. In jiujitsu, injuries aren’t uncommon. 

At the end of training, I tried walking and quickly collapsed in pain. One of the guys offered to give me a piggy-back-ride out to my car. I obliged, my arms wrapped around his neck and my legs wrapped around his hips, feeling silly and childish but thankful all the same. I drove home with my left foot, my right leg useless and flopped like a dead fish to the side. I laid on the couch for the rest of the day. Brie came home a few hours later.

“I hurt my ankle at jiujitsu,” I said. “It’s bad. I think it might be broken.”

“It’s not possible to break an ankle. You can sprain or tear an ankle but unless you shatter the ankle bone you can’t break an ankle,” B replied. 

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. 

“Do you want to go to urgent care?” B asked. “If we go to the ER, we’re going to be there for the next 8-12 hours, just think about that.” It was 7 pm and I didn’t want to be at the hospital all night. 

“Yeah, let’s just wait and see if it gets better,” I said. “I’ll call the doctor on Monday.” 

---

I texted my friend who had crutches from a knee injury a few months earlier and asked him if he still had them, and if so, could I borrow them? He brought them over and I hopped to the front gate of our house to retrieve them when he arrived. 

“Sorry, I’m on my way to an event, I can’t stay long! Hope they’re helpful!” he yelled over his shoulder as he slid back into his car. 

Brie was gone all day on Sunday and I walked my dog with the crutches. At one point I slipped and put weight on the hurt ankle, only to be met with that bright white light and searing pain again. I gasped and went back to hopping with the crutches.

On Monday morning, it wasn’t better and had swollen to twice its normal size. I found a foot and ankle doctor via Google and they had an appointment open for Tuesday. On Tuesday, I drove myself to the doctor, again using my left foot, my right foot collapsed in uselessness. They took an x-ray and reported, “Yeah, it’s very, very broken. Shattered. You’re going to need surgery unless you want to be handicapped for the rest of your life.” 

It turned out that I had broken my fibula (not my ankle exactly, and for this Brie was partially right). It was a bone I’d never heard of before, never having taken biology or anatomy (the fibula is the thin bone located on the outer side of the lower leg, parallel to the shinbone).

I was on board. No way did I want to be handicapped at age 33. By some miracle of God, I was “blessed” to have health insurance that year (or was it extreme structural inequities that health care is not guaranteed in this country? The bill later would read “$65,000” just for the surgery alone, not to mention the doctor’s appointments and supplies needed before and after. Without my insurance, I don’t know what I would have done.)

“OK, when can I get the surgery?” I asked. 

“Right now it’s too swollen to operate on,” the doctor reported. “You’re going to need to elevate and ice it 24/7 for the next few days to get the swelling down and then we can do surgery on Friday.” 

So that’s what I did. Foot propped above my head and encased in ice, I slept and felt sorry for myself for the next few days. My parents and in-laws were scheduled to come visit that weekend, so I called them and cancelled. On Friday night, the only time the operating room had an opening, I went under the knife at 11 pm. Known as an ORIF (Open Reduction and Internal Fixation), it was a surgical procedure used to repair severe bone fractures. They put in 2 metal rods and 12 screws to put the bone back together and secure my leg in place.

---

The nurses warned me that it was “one of the more painful types of surgeries we know of.” The next month was a taste of hell. Only given five days of opiates (“It’s for your own good, the addiction risk is too high and those drugs lower your pain tolerance, resulting in more pain long-term and overall,” explained the surgeon), the rest of the time I was in pain 24/7. Especially at night when the pain demons seemed to emerge just to cackle at me from on high while I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, in so much pain that I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. The one thing I needed to heal was sleep and that was what I couldn’t seem to get.

Brie and I were moving back to Colorado the next week. But I was SOL, and not allowed to be weightbearing on that leg for the next 8 weeks. The following days were a blur of TV shows and audio books, totally dependent on Brie for everything from eating to brushing my teeth. My parents flew in from North Carolina to care for me while Brie packed up the house and drove the car and the dog to Colorado where we were moving.

One day in the midst of my parents visiting, I opened my email to find a rejection letter for a job application I had filed the previous month: “We regret to inform you that you will not be chosen to interview for this position.” 

The room started spinning and the air caught in my throat, my chest heaving. WTF? Not to be cocky, but…the position was for the director of a teacher training program in Asian Studies at CU Boulder. Not only had I graduated from there with a PhD specializing in Chinese Politics and Culture, but I personally knew the current director of the program, who had invited me to apply. I had worked for them in the recent past and I had thought that for sure I would at least get the chance to interview. 

That night, over grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, I cried like a little kid who had been chosen last for kickball at recess, my tears dripping down my face and onto my sandwich. My parents sat dumbfounded, not sure what to say, at a loss for how to comfort their grown adult child in a world they always knew was cruel. They gave their feeblest encouragement but mostly just stayed quiet. 

I had been unemployed for a year at that point and my hope that I could somehow make a living using my degree was dwindling as fast as a paper towel in a fire pit. 

It was that night that I decided I needed to start a new life using the skills I had. No more of this idealistic dreaming bullshit. 

I learned how to code and started looking for data analyst jobs. In January 2023, I found one. It was in the consulting industry with the what everyone told me was a "best case scenario": helping non-profits with their environmental work, especially in regards to public transportation, climate change, and animal and land conservation. What could be better than that? 

Yet I found myself miserable sitting in front of my computer day after day, feeling like a waste of life and a waste of space. Wake up, eat, work, sleep. Wake up, eat, work, sleep. The following months passed in a blur. I gave up on publishing my book. I was too exhausted to work on it.

---

Before, I had a vision of how my life was going to be. I was going to be successful. Use my Chinese language skills to set myself apart from the crowd. Use my writing skills to add creativity and communication to whatever job I got. Spread my knowledge by teaching the next generation. I was going to one of the rare few that knew how to have a healthy and successful work-life balance. 

If I didn’t make a lot of money, at least I would be happy. I’d have a fulfilling career spreading the joy of learning about other cultures and politics, especially in Asia, to other people. I’d write books about all the things I was thinking about: culture, politics, theory, inequality of globalization and capitalism. 

But rejection after rejection eventually wore me down. 

Nobody really cared. Nobody really wanted to hear what I had to say. Most people just needed to get through the day and make a little bit of money in the meantime. Soon that became my path as well.

There was no broader purpose for my life, no broader meaning, no broader message that I was meant to share and pass on. Life was short and cruel. 

“Life sucks and then you die,” said Mrs. Evans, my tenth grade chemistry teacher whenever we complained about the homework. It turns out, she was right.

My dreams about changing the world--or even making an impact--were very, very wrong. 

After all, "the higher you climb, the harder you fall." I had poured myself into learning Chinese, earning a PhD, writing a book, and carving out expertise in a niche corner of Chinese politics. When I was faced with the reality that none of it held any value in the world of tech and capitalism, the blow landed hard. It felt as if all of that time and energy I had spent had been for nothing.

So now, when I wake up and immediately feel the existential dread of life, the doom and gloom hovering over the work day ahead, and on Sundays when I’m filled with anxiety about the next week, when I just barely make it through the day without a nervous breakdown, when I rely on pots of coffee just to make it to 5 pm, I have to wonder, what’s the point? 

But it also gives me empathy. Who has time to appreciate art and learn about politics when you’re just trying to make it through the day?

When the Stars Don't Catch You: Falling, Flying, and Everything in Between: Part 1

I flap and flap and flap and slam and slam and slam against the walls of the cage.

My muscles scream at me to stop. My heart pounds and my stomach lurches, my lungs burn and my eyes water, my head swims and my skull throbs. I smell the cool, damp earth and I shiver in the cold. I hear the screeching of the other birds, crying out of fear and anger. I’m a candle burned down to the wick, and I can’t help them. I am too exhausted to help. I taste the metallic in my mouth and the bile rising from my throat.

“When can I stop?” I wonder.

But when I do stop, I panic. My breath is so fast that I get light-headed and dizzy from the lack of oxygen. They will know I’m a failure if they see the true me. I want to reach out but I’m so scared, scared of rejection, scared of judgment, scared of getting hurt, scared, scared, scared. All I want is a break but when it comes I feel I might die from exposure; that someone will kill me for my failure. 

I’ve never been this stressed out in my life. I’ve never been this busy in my life. I’ve never been this tired in my life. I repeat this refrain over and over again and somehow it comforts me even though I know it’s not the first nor the last time.

Maybe I’m not alone. Maybe we’re all just birds in a cage.

---

Work is one cage, that reliable friend we never had, always there for us. We suffocate there, fainting and losing consciousness for a while. When we wake, we see our shared struggles and we unite to break the chains that hold us down. But then we suffocate and the world goes dark again.

---

It was 2021 and I was living in Prague. I had “made” it: I was getting paid to write a book about a subject I was deeply passionate about. I had a PhD, I was fluent in a foreign language and proficient in another (a life-long goal of mine). 

I was living the dream: I had my own office and a fancy title on my business card. I had a rough draft of a book. Words were flowing from my fingers at the keyboard everyday.

I had finally come out to myself and my community as trans and was starting my gender transition. I went from ponytails to buzz cuts, from bras to swim trunks. I went from make-up to pomade, from earrings to studs. That was the moment that I truly took my life into my own hands, took the wheel and drove off into the sunset.

My muscles tightened, my eyes dried up, my sex drive sky-rocketed, my body hair thickened, my voice deepened, my shoulders tucked back, my chin held high. I was true. I was authentic. No more faking, no more lying, no more posing, no more being an imposter. I was ready to move on, and live in my full authentic self, my fully unmasked body, heart, mind, soul. I was going to be an artist, a writer, and help others find their true selves. I was going to be a role model for growth and transformation, a physical model of what it means to grow and change and not care what anyone else thinks and not care what society thinks, and just be myself. Nobody was going to let me down, nobody was going to get in my way. I was the true embodiment of authenticity, of soul, of essence, of being. I was going to drive the car from now on. The driver was no longer my fear, nor my ego. It was my Self. I had agency and I was taking responsibility for my life. I was handsome. I was trans. And nobody could tell me otherwise. I was a writer, I was a geographer, I was queer. And I was in love. That summer felt like poetry, the rhythm of the sun and the afternoon rain, the sound of thunder in the day and the crickets at night. The back and forth of cool nights and hot days. The freedom of a lengthy daytime, the beat of music at the rooftop bar, the slip and slide sweaty mess of jiujitsu, riding my bike home, weaving between the traffic lights and headlights, the late night noodles and shawarma and pizza by the slice. Summer felt like possibility, adventure, and freedom. Time for something new, for play: word play, mind play, body play, heart play. Thick with desire and hot with pursuit, I was growing and settling in. "Anything is possible," they said. "Dream big," they said. I was so close. This was all I ever wanted. My last dream to complete. Just finish the damn book already. But nobody ever said it was going to be easy.

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All of the sudden, I’m slammed on my back and choked out. I get up and am immediately tripped, and my head slams against the mat again. A man with a full tattoo suit from his skull to his toes smothers me with his size and weight. Wristlock. Ankle lock. Knee lock. I stand up and tie my belt back on. And again: Choke, arm bar, triangle, shoulder lock. I look at the clock. Two minutes have gone by, five left to go. His eyes look like a cat who is stalking and batting around its prey before the kill. Fear bubbles up into my throat and my eyes smart, my nose running from the pressure of the chokes, liquid overflowing in my nasal passages. I’m scared but I don’t know how to walk away, to ask for a break, to concede defeat while keeping my dignity intact. 

I’m in Prague at the local jiujitsu gym soon after my gender transition and I have a sick feeling in my gut that I’m being bullied and targeted for being trans. But there’s no way to prove it except for the fact that this is the first time I’ve ever felt this way in my 10 years of training jiujitsu at that point. Words float into my head: “If you want to be a man, then you better be ready to be treated like one.” 

The most toxic of all toxic masculinities: “I was traumatized so the only thing I know to do is to traumatize others. I was hazed so you also need to be hazed.” Something known as “malgendering:” If you want to be a man, you have to act like one. If you want to be a man, then you have to be ready to receive the physical abuse that we suffered. There is no alternative narrative, no other way to be. To be gentle is not to be male. To be male is to inflict pain and wield power.

I was someone who had embraced and celebrated idealistic notions: “Don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t do, prove them wrong every time, you are the only thing standing in your own way, you can achieve anything that you put your mind to, all you have to do is believe in yourself.” And I was learning that my ideals were not all they're cracked up to be.

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The poster on the 7th grade classroom wall said to shoot for the moon, even if we miss we’ll land among the stars. They told us, don't worry, we must fall before we can learn to fly.

But now here I am, 4 years later, and I have nothing to show for it. Disappointment bangs in my head, and my chest burns with shame.

The truth is that I chose this life–the comfort, the predictability. No more risks, no more chances to hear criticism. In its place is boredom.

I had to admit that I chose this life. If I wanted change, then I must claim accountability. If I wanted joy back. Doubt started to creep in. Questions popped in my mind. Regret ballooned in my chest. And with that anger. Anger at my past self for not being stronger. 

When is it too late to make a change? 

But with any change, loss comes along for the ride, and with loss, pain follows. And that’s what I’m afraid of. 

My dreams, my hopes, my ideals. They were crumbling.

And now I have a choice. Negligence versus accountability. Resurrect old dreams or come up with new ones. 

But is this all there is? Wake up, work, go to sleep. You set the goal, you do the thing, you feel empty. You watch the world go by, but feel utterly alone: Nobody cares, nothing matters. We’re all gonna die anyway, so what’s the point?

Entering Age 36: Part 3- Agency in Life

Every year, I like to do a post for my birthday answering the question: "You're one year older, one year wiser. What is one thing that you learned this year?" Of course, being the verbose person that I am, I always end up with more than one thing. This year, I'm going to post in multiple installments, each with one lesson from my 35th year (in no particular order). Here's the third one.

TLDR; Life is a very short creative project. You create your own destiny. You write the end to your own story. 

It's so easy to blame others for my problems. To blame the system. To blame my parents. To blame the narcissists and control freaks for what they could be doing better and differently. Blame my boss for giving me too much work, blame co-workers for being too lazy. 

The truth is that it's terrifying to take a good long look in the mirror and my flaws and the role I have played in my own failures. 

Maybe this is obvious to everyone else, but for me this was a huge breakthrough: You create your life. And in doing so, you create your own destiny.

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The big change I made this year was cutting my work hours to 32 hours per week (back from 40 hours). 

Last year, I was burned to a crisp. And I would complain about it to anyone who would listen. Life for me was miserable, I didn't have enough time to take care of myself, the house, my dog, or my spouse. It was an endless hamster wheel of staring at a computer screen while my hunchback go worse by the day, causing me serious shoulder and neck pain, as well as frequent headaches and stomachaches.

I had money though. I had money for massages and toys--outdoor gear, jiujitsu training clothes, ski passes, and multiple vacations. But I was not happy. None of those things bought me happiness. Comfort? Yes. But what was I actually seeking? Not comfort, but intense experiences like mountain biking trips in Moab, jiujitsu memberships, and a 4-day fasting retreat that was anything but comfortable. 

So what was the point of running in this endless rat race?

I had to face reality. I was just not cut out for this crazy ass mother fing dog-eat-dog world. But what could I handle? I could handle 32 hours a week. I asked my boss if I could cut down my hours and not work on Fridays. She said yes. 

Nobody told me what to do. Nobody did it for me. I had to take charge of my own life and say: this is what I want for my life. 

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Call it human evolution or spiritual consciousness or ego or dopamine or whatever you want, at the end of the day it is in the seeking that you shall find and it is in the struggle and pain and difficulty that you will emerge liberated. And nobody is going to do it for you. 

You're on your own, kid. You always have been. 

I'm an adult now. With great power comes great responsibility. So it's time to take responsibility for my own life and start writing what I want my own obituary to say about me.