I am thankful to be 41. Growing up in America as a gay man in the 80’s and 90’s I didn’t have an expectation of living to adult hood. My youth was filled with the reality that gay men died of AIDS. I the 90’a, my teen years, we were still dying. Additionally there was the ...

... fear of being killed by a homophobe after leaving my home one day. So I didn’t grow up with an expectation that I would experience this stage of my life. My early twenties was filled with risky sex and drug abuse, for several reasons. Both figures I had nothing to lose ...

... as well as a consistency of self loathing without much of a strength of character put on me by the social structure at the time. So this thanksgiving I am thankful I survived my youth without disease and without consequences of my substance abuse. I have grown into ...

... a well rounded happy loving person. A person I didn’t always know was an option for me. This was not the expectation of my existence. I have a sense of self awareness that I would never have had if my youth did not have those struggles.

I am #thankful to be present and to be able to imagine a future.

And I apologize for the dozens of typos.... it was thought vomit and I didn’t proof read. Oops.