This is 30…er, 31. Almost.

I’m not gonna lie: 30 hasn’t exactly been easy. And even though I only have a few months until a 1 shoves that 0 aside, I’m not discounting the rest of this allegedly life-changing year.

This new decade feels nice. I have the emotional maturity to deal with life as it comes, with an experiential arsenal chock-full of missteps and tiny victories to help guide me along. With the last plumage of my twenties shaken off, I’m a fully fledged adult – feeling less like an impostor with every passing day.

The associated life knowledge that comes with it severely blunts my ability and desire to blame others or Society or Life for my problems. Because I know, in the big picture, whatever I’m challenged by is pretty minor stuff. I’ve overcome plenty, and I’m more than capable of handling the hard stuff.

Still, there’re also things that I crave with the same ferocious intensity I reserve for my first glass of coffee (yes, a glass – in the morning hours, a cup is a laughably paltry half-measure) – like seeing more of the world, buying a house, adopting another dog, having a kid; not a long list, really.

But sometimes those things become clouded by battling expectations of what I’m supposed to want or do during this transformative decade: traveling to every country imaginable, renouncing materialism, living in a yurt, and finding inner peace while buying a massive house with a matching mortgage, having two cars and two kids, and having matching IRAs. These contradictory ideals often come in rapid fire bursts – shouted through social media posts or those annoying Buzzfeed lists. I’m somehow supposed to become a hippie with a Lexus – a socially aware materialist. Maybe these polar opposites stem from the Millennial context – growing up and balancing a pre-tech, outdoor-fueled childhood with a post-pubescent, office-centric tech explosion. And like plenty of folks, I find myself caught in between.

Do I want to see more of the world? Most certainly – but not all of it; I still want there to be mysterious places “out there” where my imagination can wander. Do I want a massive house filled to brim with kids and cars and stuff? No. But I’d love a small, manageable house with another shelter dog, where we can bring up a human pup sometime down the line.

To accomplish these goals, though, we’ve both acknowledged that we first must develop greater senses of self, and take care of ourselves. The thing is, prior to this decade, I’d already passed through a lot of mental sieves – left unnecessary, emotion-laden clutter and baggage caught in the webbing, and let thought and ambition and optimism flow through. None of it was easy, and I still have a ways to go.

But as I near 31, I’m at the point of looking in and past the mirror and acknowledging that, yup, this is it. And I’m pretty damn happy with it.

This is 30

So I need to treat myself accordingly, and embrace the all too infrequent senses of calm – of knowing that a decision or thought is true and right.

A few weeks back when Andy and I decided to move back to Raleigh in a year, I experienced one of those clarifying moments. All of the doubt and uncertainty I’d been feeling about making a home on this coast (the costs, the isolation, this and that and everything in between…) cleared. And I could see the future that we wanted. It’s still distant, but we’re inching closer to it every single day.

I’m not going to wax poetic and project ahead – assume that this year is going to be a revolutionary one.

To be certain, it’s going to be challenging. But every year, every decade is pocked with cake walks and welters of madness. So I’m not expecting 31 to be anything more than another year of me doing the best to live the life I want.

Because doing just that is interesting enough.

The Stay-at-Home Gay

Gays have a lot of hurdles to clear, some of which are planted in place by our Disunited Theocracy; others by A-gays; historically entrenched, ridiculous stereotypes; and Oprah.

Okay, maybe not Oprah.

Still, so many gays aspire to be “rich and ripped,” “beautiful and successful,” “popular and revered”–with a house in the Hamptons, a cottage in the Keys, and a second home in downtown San Francisco.

Adopting two dogs.

And wearing lots of cashmere for good measure.

Why gay men find themselves gravitating to these ideal types–as if they have something to prove–is anyone’s guess. And there’re probably about as many explanations as probable sources–being socially ostracized, having to remain closeted for one reason or another, being excessively fearful of abandonment, being a late bloomer, on and on ad nauseum.

So many of these factors make gay men more highly susceptible to experiences that eventually define stereotypes, which later confine gay men to a rigid, laughably ridiculous set of behavioral criteria. And while we’re all capable of free will, sometimes it’s easier to go with the crowd.

Buy the expensive things.

Wear the latest fashions.

Embrace a bit of body dysmorphic disorder.

Hell, I’ve tried all of the above, and did actually learn some things: (1) Credit card debt sucks, and makes you resent all of the pretty things surrounding you that contributed to it; (2) Even a Michael Kors $250 hoodie can give you man boobs in the most unflattering ways possible; and (3) Food tastes much better than bile.

But figuring out who you are, and how you’re going to deal with life’s ambiguity, requires a lot of self-reflection, tough love, and emotional restructuration. Most of the time, such introspection is triggered by unpacking heavy emotional baggage, which is rarely fun, and often requires a lot of chocolate.

Coming out, and all of the internal dialogue in the process, strengthened my resolve to deal with toxic situations; after all, reconciling a mentally- and physically- abusive relationship with yourself is one sure-fired way to realize how best to cope with all of life’s stressors and characters. Most people don’t ever have such deep, messy, and intense conversations with themselves. Because those are scary. But what’s even scarier is feeling like a fish out of water and not having the slightest clue how to deal with such overwhelming emotions.

Thankfully, I beached myself a while back and have plenty of tools in my kit–from flailing about and baking in the sun–to patch up bizarre or challenging situations.

All of which have come in handy as I’ve found myself becoming a stay-at-home gay–a StAHG. (Ba da bah! Yes, I’m lame.)

***

No one could’ve ever convinced me that I’d one day take on the role of homemaker.

Especially not the woman I met while contemplating the potential financial boon of donating plasma as an undergraduate, who turned to me with her wide, meth-rotted grin and said, “I do this fer a livin’!” (Bless her heart. And mouth.)

I always assumed I’d be employed, even if at a job I loathed.

But as y’all know, I’d played all my cards at my last job, and didn’t have the energy to reshuffle the deck in the hopes of a better hand. And was incredibly fortunate to have Andy agree, and support my decision.

Still, I felt like a big loser–a feeling most freshly unemployed folks experience. And after I waded through all sorts of emotional cesspools, I began to make peace with myself, and realize that as loser-like as I felt, I also felt sort of proud to have acknowledged that something was severely wrong–that I was severely unhappy–and to have done something about it.

But even with that knowledge informing my next steps, and Andy being nothing but supportive, I still felt pressure to right myself immediately–perform some Matrix-esque move mid-fall to swing into another saddle.

But, why?

***

Delving into the proverbial why can be dark and ugly. Because all sorts of unseemly, latent ideas or perspectives can be brought into sharp relief.

Like when I acknowledged that I’d long thought stay-at-home spouses were lucky because they didn’t have any real obligations–no set hours to bank, no project deadlines to make. They could just wake up late, lounge around, and throw something together for dinner. And if there were kids, then they had an even easier go of it. Because those poopy, drooly blobs of joy can be blamed for anything–late dinner, stained or frumpy clothes, unconditioned hair.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself pressed for time after running errands, making meals, scheduling appointments, cleaning house, managing finances, and conditioning my hair after waking up at 6:00 AM! And double shockaroo when I threw searching for apartments and handling cross-country move logistics into the mix; conditioning my hair just didn’t make the cut.

Worse still, I didn’t even have a poopy, drooly, furry, three-legged and wheeled blob to foist off some of the responsibility for not accomplishing everything I wanted!

How did I–an educated gay man–fall into this role?! 

And that’s when I realized I was being a ridiculous, whining wretch.

So, as I deservedly cringed at each word of my horrid question, I began to unpack the three most problematic components of my complaint:

Educated. Like a lot of folks, I’ve come to expect a college education and MA to do the heavy-lifting, to beat all of those potential jobs out of the bushes. But these days, in this economy, that’s just not the case. For baby-boomers and millennials alike, times are tough. And I need to really acknowledge that, and not give up after not hearing back from jobs I applied for. Even those awesome jobs I was certain I’d snag. I’ve sung my millennial blues. Time to put my nose to the pulverizing stone and work it.

Gay. With as much bullshit as LGBT’s face, I figured I’d somehow receive some payout from the universe in the form of excessively disposable income, an even tan, and muscled calves. But being gay, or going through a lot of self-discovery, doesn’t translate to a handout or a break from reality. It just means you probably have the life-experience to deal with plenty of foolishness that’s thrown your way, and hopefully excessive empathy to share with others who don’t.

Man. It’s no newsflash: our androcentric, heteronormative society rewards straight white men; they are the golden children. Everyone else has to step it up to even receive a fraction of the entitlements they enjoy. So, just because I’m a white man doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t expect plenty of setbacks, unfairness, and hard times ahead–that I should never think I deserve anything more than anyone else. It’s time to grow up and grow a(nother) pair.

So after I chastised myself and quietly apologized to all of my friends who work intensely hard as stay-at-homes, I began to admit to myself that I shouldn’t be ashamed of being a homomaker (last one, I promise).

That everyone has their own problems, their own demons to wrestle. Yes, including the A-gays who don’t see themselves as good enough, even as they watch their housekeeper (for the Keys) brush their newly coiffed Jack Russells, Mad and Onna.

That we all have growing to do, and joys to love–whether the human, furry, or imaginary variety.

That as my D-gay self tries hard not to become a sad cliche, I can still be proud and work hard toward a more fulfilling, professional future.

That, regardless of how long it takes for any of us to realize our potential, we’ll all have to take our respective leaps of faith to new, exciting adventures.

To do our best to land with both feet on solid ground.

To be grateful for those who act as our rocks.

To act as rocks ourselves.

Even a foul-mouthed, excessively cracked one like me.

Millennial Blues

These days, it’s hard not to think about getting the short end of the stick.

Whether it takes the form of a pink slip, a bullying boss, or an increasingly high credit card or student loan payment, Millennials are being forced to face the harsh realities of life in an economically upended America.

Rather than the American Dream many of our baby-boomer parents and their parents sought to realize, we’re left with the collective dregs, the American Nightmare: high unemployment,  higher costs of living, and uncertainty around every bend in our life journey.

To be sure, no one–not our parents, nor our grandparents–has had an easy ride. Unless you’re born into a royal family, everyone has to struggle for what they want out of life.

But somewhere along the way, we got complacent.

We figured that things would fall into place. That we wouldn’t have to work overtime, that our weekends would be wide open. We’d be able to visit family whenever we wanted, and would have that future we’d imagined and were always told we’d have.

But then the Great Recession swallowed up that utopian image, regurgitating back a bleak future for those preparing to enter the job market, to make tremendous strides toward those lofty goals.

***

January 2008 found me mulling over the idea of leaving graduate school. It turned out academia wasn’t for me, and I began to hash out logistics for my atypical departure from a traditional PhD program.

Whether it was because I was so tuned to my graduate career’s rigors, or because I let myself be lulled into a false sense of normalcy, I didn’t really think much of the fact that “recession” was becoming more widely discussed in the media.

Several months later, right after my funding was dropped, I found a job. And I was immensely lucky–more so than I realized.

Immediately after I was brought on, the recession’s impact hit home.

Friends began hearing rumors of funding cuts. Others lost their jobs. But my coworkers and I kept our heads down, our noses to the grindstone, as we hotel-hopped to various contracting jobs.

During the evening downtime, I’d allot dinner to the world news before returning to my defunct laptop to rap away the findings of my MA research. Oftentimes, dinner left me hungry for brighter days. Still, I told myself that things would get better. I would finish writing my thesis, the economy would rebound, and things would be okay.

They had to be, because this life wasn’t what I’d signed up for when I’d chased my childhood dream of becoming an archaeologist.

***

The next months didn’t get easier. My thesis had to be gutted and re-started, and the contracting jobs became more widely distributed, leaving little time at home, and even less time to act like the young twenty-something all of the movies portrayed.

Living in a hotel for nearly six days out of a week wasn’t glamorous, and wasn’t me. But it’s what barely paid the bills. Savings was nearly all devoted to school, and what couldn’t cover it came out of my pocket.

It was all worth it, though. I had to keep telling myself that.

After all, what was the point of putting myself through the wringer if it wasn’t going to literally and figuratively pay off?

As more time passed, and “furlough” became a common word whispered throughout my office, I revisited that question over and over again.

December 2008 found me scrambling for hope and a full paycheck. When I found out my grandfather was transferred to hospice, I took what little time off I’d earned by working overtime. Regardless of the economy, family still came first.

But when my grandfather passed Christmas Day, I watched from my office window multiple states away as three children spilled out of a car in front of a nearby house and ran up to their waiting grandparents. I’d had to tell my grandfather goodbye while he was still fully cognizant. And while we’d had our disagreements in life, I still felt cheated that I’d had to leave prematurely before his permanent departure.

“Well, I guess the next time you see me, I’ll be in a tiny box.”

That was one of the last things he ever said to me. And he was right. All because I had no benefits, and no paid time off. Had I stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to pay my bills.

***

As the nation watched its economy crumble even more, and the war wage on, I was revising yet another MA thesis iteration, and was hoping for something to change. Anything.

A few months later, I went to the doctor for biopsy results.

“It’s cancer.”

The spot I’d noticed a year before on my face was, in fact, a basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. Albeit common and relatively innocuous, I still couldn’t quite wrap my mind around that C-word. And since my funding was cut the previous year, and my current job afforded me no benefits, I certainly didn’t have the healthcare coverage to cushion the blow.

With a bandage covering the test site on my face, I walked into the cool air and couldn’t comprehend that I wasn’t even 25 years old and had some form of cancer. That I didn’t have healthcare. That I’d soon have a degree that I’d been killing myself over that’d be all but useless in the economic cesspool in which everyone was reaching for a life jacket.

***

Unlike so many, I was fortunate enough have my parents’ help. Because of my age, I was still able to be covered under their health insurance.

Two days after I defended my thesis and turned the final copy into the graduate school, the right side of my face was cut open to remove a half dollar-sized chunk of cancerous flesh. The resulting scar has always been a reminder, not so much of my brush with cancer, but of how close I’d come to disaster over the past year.

***

About six months later, the rippling waves from the development markets began lapping at my company’s doorstep. Construction projects that’d been in the works were no longer funded. Other projects were cancelled indefinitely. And furloughs became a reality.

And when our boss held a meeting, we all knew it was that meeting.

“If you haven’t started looking for other jobs, now is the time.”

Many of us had seen the writing on the wall, but we didn’t want to read it. To fully digest the words.

But with that single sentence ringing in my head, I knew I was dancing around the corner of another pitfall.

And through fortuitous happenstance, I was able to abandon the sinking ship with a fortunate few others. We’d made it onto a lifeboat. Many others did not.

***

My lifeboat delivered me to a military installation, at which I docked for nearly three years. But this was a job with no benefits and a nearly three hour round-trip commute. And after enduring years of lackadaisical management and emotional abuse from putative “supervisors,” I couldn’t take it any longer.

Two months ago, in anticipation of the sequester and contractual cuts, and even though I didn’t qualify for unemployment, I left my job. It wasn’t an easy decision. But my partner and I decided that it was for the best. After all, at a time when everything is in limbo, home life takes priority. It has to be shielded from a constant in-flow of work-related toxicity.

Managing our lives is the most important thing in life. But Congress often quantifies us in monetary terms–how much we’re costing them, how much we’re “free-loading.” But what Congress doesn’t see are the effects that their measures have on you–the person, the citizen.

They don’t see you go home and cry. Nor do they hear you tell your partner, your parents, your friends that you’re going to lose your job. They don’t feel the humiliation, the hopelessness. They don’t wonder what will happen, and where that “happily ever after” went hiding.

They don’t hear a flight attendant say, “I can’t afford to start over now.”

They don’t see the charity of the elderly woman in a laundromat who, after refusing $.50 for a complimentary stint at the dryer, says, “At my age, this small money not important. I need big money like a lot.”

They don’t understand how much less a dollar can be stretched when gas, food, prescriptions, and lodging costs continue to rise.

They don’t understand the compounded inequality nested within a crippled economy.

Because my partner and I are gay, it costs me $40 for a prescription that he gets for $5. His employer could fire him for merely being gay. We cannot file joint taxes. And, this year, that may have been helpful, especially since almost everyone got walloped with a significant payback to the government.

Coupled with LGBT inequality and our generation’s dystopia, he and I have talked at length about our future. About how we’ll make it.

We’ve crafted some life goals together and, through hard work and dedication, will strive to achieve them.

But we also know that our generation is fractured.

Wherever I look, I see people unemployed or underemployed. And I hope to soon join the ranks of the latter to escape the confines of the former.

I see a growing schism between the realities of the past and the expectations of the future.

And I know I’m not alone.

“What’s happening to your generation is awful. Just awful. Everyone’s in debt, there’re no jobs. How are people supposed to make it?”

My mother surprised me with that statement after I called her and my father for advice and help. Again, I couldn’t imagine not having their support. But I know that that’s not the reality for most Millennials.

You’d think that the repetitious sound of doors crashing closed would resound in our heads, triggering an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit to guide us to a more fulfilling future–something approximating that which we were promised.

But leaving a paycheck isn’t an option.

Most must acquiesce, choosing to be miserable and underemployed rather than railing against and escaping overbearing, opportunistic employers. And even if we escape, the most many have to look forward to is hanging an advanced degree on a parent’s basement wall, or competing with high school-aged kids for part-time work at the neighborhood grocery.

***

This isn’t a happy story.

It’s one that most people choose not to read, because it’s not energizing, nor is it comforting.

But it’s ending is one that’s continually evolving with the ebb and flow of national tides.

It’s one that has the potential of a phoenix–rising from the ashes of a former body to take flight into a new day.

And it is my hope that that day dawns soon.

And that we all can find our wings.