Blaze the Daze

Finding meaning, one day at a time

When things don’t go as planned

Detour sign

Setbacks happen

Sometimes in life things happen for reasons beyond your own control. What you do and how you feel in response to these situations define the breadth of what you do have control over. This is so true, that even as I write this and feel like a cliché like some 2000s growing of age drama, I know that I can’t say that it isn’t. When I was a teenager there was a many a dark point in my life where I had begun to slip into a string of things that were not serving me well. I had begun smoking in middle school (both the bad kind and the maybe not so good kind), and drinking in response to another bad decision that got me placed on probation for 6 months. I was in a bad way, both spiritually and physically.

Oddly, in the midst of all of this, I discovered a few things that kept my head above water. A little while after the probation began, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing began, which inspired me to make a positive change for the better. I gave up smoking cigarettes and other tobacco(couldn’t use weed as I was still on probation, though I did sneak it once or twice in that time and I was so scared my PO would catch me, so it was not a routine habit), and took up dieting along with running and cardio. I lost 50 pounds that year, and developed a decent physique that actually made me feel good enough that once the school year began, I auditioned for the cross country team and somehow made it.

Needless to say I was ecstatic.

I ran a good while, and didn’t do too badly as it turns out, even though on mote than one occasion I literally ran until I puked, losing many of the gains I’d already made at that point in the race.

Alas, it wasnt meant to be, and my time on the team was cut short. I my zeal for victory, I admit I pushed myself a bit too hard, as going all out resulted in a rather debilitating bout of arthritic pain in both knees that left me barely able to walk, let alone climb the stairs to get up to my first period on time. Sadly, I had to leave the team just shy of getting my letterman jacket, which I had nearly gotten had it not been for this injury. Add on top that my dad had to work to support the extended family he now had to care for never got to see me run, which he still laments to this day. This is while I got kicked out of the home I had originally shared with my dad, biological sister, and my stepmother and her daughters and was instead told to live with my elderly grandmother, as it was feared that the company I had once shared was a bad influence on me.

One silver lining is in this time I became aware of the value of a healthy environment, and I found comradery in the local Roc youth church via an ex I was dating at the time. This was a great experience, and my uncle who lived with me and I both became regular attendees and enjoyed the sermons and live music with the rest of the congregants. All this time, I began to discover that when a door closes in one part of life, another door opens.

There were another some years, and quite a few more successes and failures before I finally developed the courage to come out as transgender and to reveal this series of events to the world at large. At this point, I am grateful for the people and things that led to this point, as without these factors I doubt that I could appreciate the life I’m in now.

If I could do it over again, I don’t think it would matter much, so I don’t think I would. Life has somehow worked out for me, and I’m healthy again. I’ve enjoyed a romance with a childhood crush or two, loved and lost, and have learned so many lessons along the way that it in reflection it still leaves me in awe of the enormity of the web of events that have shaped my life. I suppose prayer must work, and I’m grateful that I still have that faith even to this day here in March of 2023.

I would say perhaps my greatest accomplishment is that I feel I can look at my life and see that depite it all I have consistently enjoyed love and good friends, and that we have each others backs even in the dark times. I think to me, that that’s what really makes life worth living.

I hope this helps someone, and maybe made you smile a bit. Have a good one!

My Latest Posts

• • •

• • •