I am almost finished writing my book proposal for my memoir, Somewhere in the Middle, a story about how my life changed after the death of my father. I’ve really dug into the project this year and welcomed the thrust inward. Reliving the complicated conversations, the arduous decisions, and the awkward realities that have filled the past decade in order to write this book is no small task. I don’t write to present that I’ve got it all figured out. I’m not writing a script for others to follow, but what drives me to write is that someone, somewhere might benefit from knowing that even though major aspects of life can and will change, authentic love doesn’t have to be one of them. I know now that my life can look however I want it to look - how liberating to truly embody this sentiment, and how complicated. It’s what we do as humans: we take what we know and we live it until something or someone tells us not to.

As a writer, I make meaning. I have the privilege of selectively shaping meaning with what I do and don’t say. I accept that there will be inaccuracies, but I will not allow for deceptions. I have the right to my boundary - of what I say and what I left unsaid. Others with whom my life intersects will remember the story differently. My only obligation is to stay faithful to my point of view. I don’t write the truth; I write my truth.

After a book proposal is complete, it is usually sent out to an agent of choice. So, as I’ve been researching agents, I like to imagine myself working with the person behind the bio, going to coffee or for a glass of wine maybe. I like to imagine this person believing in my story. When I read about an agent looking for LGBTQ stories, my attention peaks. When I read that she’s looking for queer stories that go beyond coming out, I wonder where my own story falls. Is it a coming out story? Or does it span further into the realm of queerness? Or somewhere else entirely?

My story doesn’t begin with coming out. It begins with a death that throws me deep into the bellows of grief. It begins there, in some versions, but it also begins long before my father’s passing, in others. Most of the time, the beginning is untraceable. Where do our stories begin?

Ten years ago today, on the morning I turned 30, my father called me to tell me his cancer had spread. It wasn’t my father’s death that caused me to question aspects of my life - it wasn’t that kind of direct cause and effect relationship. But his death opened a portal of deeper knowing that we each get one life. One life in this body, in this time, with these people, in this place. The only constant of this life is that everything changes, and when it does, when someone or something enters from the wings catching us completely off guard, what happens then? And how does fear bind us to the “shoulds,” the prescribed, the rigid ideals that define us?

In my writing, I seek to interrogate my fear, and I do so from all angles. There is fear with any kind of change, any kind of shift, not to mention one that breaks so many societal norms. I shine light into dark corners of what it means to be a complex and multi-faceted human - to be real.

When I reflect on this decade, on the changes both of my inner landscape and outer world, I can’t help but remember a moment with my father, just a few months before his diagnosis. He was in Colorado for Thanksgiving. Calvin was two-months-old. We took a walk around the soccer fields near my house. I felt the warmth of my infant against my chest in the baby carrier. His tiny head bobbed with each step, and he curled in toward me like a comma. (The child to this day knows how to incite pause.) As we crested the hill overlooking the fields, we saw hundreds of geese mowing the dry grass on the fields. And in the next moment, a cluster of them above in the sky, all flying together in formation. My father stopped, hands on hips, to watch the soft-winged, round-bellied creatures move effortlessly across the sky, circling once, twice, three times before soaring out of sight.

“That’s something,” Dad said, releasing a long exhale. “They all seem to know just where to go.”

I have leaned on other authors during my process of writing. I’ve sought validation from their stories; I’ve found mirrors. I have a community of voices - most of whom I’ve never met personally - who are my inspiration.

I remember, early on in my journey, I found a new therapist by Googling therapists who specialized in women’s sexuality. Deb’s office was not in a basement like my former therapist’s, but on the third floor of a building surrounded by trees. I could hear children playing at a nearby daycare, but I couldn’t see them because they were fenced in, protected. I showed up to my new therapist’s office for the first time carrying a book with me, the only book I had found that reflected back to me the specificity of my struggle. It was a paperback with purple tones, depicting a woman wandering through a field of wildflowers. It was called Living Two Lives: Married to a Man but in Love with a Woman. I highlighted, underlined and scrawled notes in the margins of the book. The author, Joanne Fleisher, takes readers through her own story, when back in 1979, married to a man, she finds herself falling in love with a female friend. I read the book at night before bed, my black pen in hand. I read the book in coffee shops when I was supposed to be writing, but I hid the cover from anyone’s view. As I skimmed the titles on Deb’s shelf, I wondered where they’d been or why my searches were not revealing titles such as these: Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel, Sexual Fluidity by Lisa Diamond, Slow Sex by Nicole Daedone and even one called Vagina by Naomi Wolf.

The purple book was my guidebook at the time - my beacon of hope. Someone else had survived this; someone else had made it through. If this seems dramatic, remember what was at stake, in my mind. My family. My children. My life as I knew it.

In that session, as I lamented about my feelings, I remember saying, “I see two women together, and I just want to move closer. I want to know more. I don’t understand what is happening to me.”

Deb nodded, “So when you see them, you want to reach out toward them?”

“Yes.”

“So here’s what I want you to try,” she said. “Every time you find yourself wanting to reach toward someone else, I want you to try reaching for yourself.”

In many ways, this is where my story began - with choosing myself.

Rather than continue down the path of fear, a path that was generations old, I probed deeply into my experience and finally began to speak my truth and slowly and intentionally gave myself permission for authentic design and co-creation of a life. Reconfiguring our family, coming out, and entering into my first queer relationship allowed my truth to surface and breathe and gave me a sense of agency and purpose like I’d never experienced before.

My story has taken a decade to live, and almost just as long to write. It is the story of a creation of a nest, a home base, I can authentically call my own. The gratitude I have for my family is immense. My love overflows. I am grateful for Cheri for how she sees me, for how she loves us. Thank you for doing this life with me, for showing up every damn day to be a team. Your tenderness and presence are such generous gifts. I am grateful for Angus; he is the best father to our children, and it is his selfless love that inspires me everyday to be better. Thank you for your patience and understanding. I am grateful for our children. Thank you for being the most profound teachers. And to my father - whose story ended and made it possible for part of mine to begin. Whose life will forever be intertwined with mine. Thank you for teaching me about true joy.

I am responsible for the legacy I choose to leave behind. What will live in the memories of future generations is in part up to me.

There is a freedom I feel, and all at once, an obligation.

Here’s to 40. To giving myself and others permission to live a full and authentic life of love and connection. To coming out. To evolving my work and activism for equity. To sharing my truth. To love.