When I turned 18, I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said… “Eh, I’m an adult now.”

When I turned 19, my best friends bought me a birthday cake shaped out of a penis.
There is nothing thought provoking except that it stands out as the most profound
and funny birthday present I ever received.

Shawn and John Paul…thank you for the laughs, the tears, and the lessons in growing up. I am proud of the men we have become.

When I turned 20, I was happy because everyone else was happy.
Hell, I even got my dad to buy my alcohol for my birthday party.

When I turned 21… I hadn’t learned a damn thing.
I took some time out of school and moved to Seattle…of all places.
At first I couldn’t stand the city and people… I mean who smiles and says high to random strangers?

When I turned 22, I made a big deal about it and not in a good way.
I didn’t like the attention being focused on me
but my roommates at the time made sure I felt otherwise and the result
was one of the most random birthday parties a kid like me could ever have.
There was a dance off with another apartment complex through windows
Which of course we won after one of my roommates decided to start wagging a dildo
At the other apartment….

Stefanie, Sarah Kim, Ben, Eri, Justin, SYAmericorps, thank you for the learning experiences that year.
I would not be where I am today without them.

When I turned 23, I got a pack of twizzlers, and an Ebony magazine for my birthday.

Bobby and CSB, you knew me all too well.
Sometimes it was scary but it was family and for that I am grateful.

When I turned 24, I was at a quiet transition in my life. I didn’t know where I was going
But I knew that I was going somewhere and that change was imminent.

Heather, Dara, and Freeman, thank you for being the support system that I have needed the most.

When I turned 25, I decided to spend my birthday afternoon at a Rock Bottom Happy Hour.
I was good and solid until a certain roommate decided to feed me shots of Patron.

Gula…thank you.

When I turned 26, my night was spent in Adams Morgan, Jumbo Slice, and losing an article of clothing
while trying to be the next back up dancer for Janet Jackson.
Chief Ikes’ lost and found probably has some of my best looking sweaters.

Embo!!! That’s all I have to say.
Having you there meant so much more than words could say.

When I turned 27, I secretly thanked myself for getting me this far.
I took in a sigh of relief…for what reason I have no idea.
If someone would have asked me that in 2009, my life would have changed in a way
in which all the world was truly a stage and everyone else…

Mr. Mars, thank yourself, because you don’t do it enough.
Kendric and Richard, my brothers in gaydom, thank you for allowing me to be me and to laugh.

So why remember just the actual birthdays?

When I turn 28 next month, I will have a silent conversation with myself.
My hope is to spend my birthday reflecting over some body of water
Remembering that ten years ago, I was an 18 year old with the passion to save the world,
And yet all I had was passion.

• I will remember those late night walks my freshman year.
• I will remember crying….like I had just won an Oscar on my rooftop in Seattle.
• I will remember sitting on the docks of the Chesapeake Bay.
• I will remember everything and anything that allowed me to learn one of life’s greatest lessons.

Life should never be about survival.

Being happy is sometimes a sacrifice.
There are times when you just have to let go.
Letting go of the things you cannot control.
Letting go of the past because you simply want to live.
Letting go of the mistakes you have made while realizing that you would not be where you are if they had not occurred in the first place.

In less than 45 minutes, I will usher in a new year.
While others confess their hopes and dreams as they do every year
I sit in silence.
For the first time I will not plan ahead and will not worry.

I will simply live.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person cries for work that is real.

I turn my back and there he is.
I begin to walk forward and there he is once again.

He is someone that I cannot hide from.
He comes with familiar features.
He comes with a sense of air that I once knew.

He and I have a lot of similarities.
We grew up in the same environment.
We went through some of the same things.
We lived. We learned. We loved. And we lost.
Yet unlike him, I learned just how to do it all over again until I got it right.

We both had the same personalities.
We believed at one time it was us against the world.
We were defensive. We were combative.
We were young and confused.
What we didn’t know was that we had mastered everything we should have known.

That knowledge was that the world was here to protect us.
To shield us.
To allow us to become the human beings we were destined become.
Someway. Somehow
I learned that and yet he didn’t.

While I learned to laugh and cry. To live.. and be happy,
he stopped along that journey and decided to stay in his comfort zone.

As I moved along in the world, forgiving myself for the mistakes that I had made
he chose to place the blame on everyone in his life while believing that those same people
would take the blame and just accept him for who he had become.

What he did not realize is that life itself is a learning experience.
Everyday and every moment teaches us something we thought we knew.
Every time we wake up, there is a lesson to be learned.
Every moment teaches us something either about ourselves or about those around us.

Learning experiences teach us forgiveness.

Learning experiences show us that we are human.
That we are allowed to make mistakes.

Learning experiences don’t judge us.
Learning experiences forgive us..

especially when we cannot forgive ourselves.

So to bring it back to he and I….
As I was beginning to learn how to love myself and see life in a positive manner
he was moving backwards in a motion that he was accustomed too.

Even though our journeys have sent us in different directions
I still believe in him.
I still have faith that deep down inside he can learn to forgive himself in a way
that he has forgiven others.

Yes…I have faith in him.

“And then I told myself that I had to forgive me for the mistakes that I made. God forgives you when you forgive yourself.”

When we are in a dark room
we quickly realize it is easier to see with the lights on.

If we’ve ever been imprisoned, oppressed, in bondage to anyone or anything,
we develop a yearning desire for freedom.

We learn to appreciate good health when we are sick.
We respect wealth when we are in poverty.
It seems quite natural to define one condition
by what appears to be its opposite.

Freedom and oppression
illness and good health
poverty and wealth
happiness and sorrow
peace and confusion
faith and fear
strength and weakness
male and female —

these are not opposing powers.
They are the results of how
the one power of life is used.

The ancestors knew that everything comes from one source.
They knew this source had the only power
and everything else was a minor challenge.

When we stay centered on the source,
the power, we see that there are no opposites.
Only light coming out of darkness
to help us see where we want to go.