I haven’t posted here lately because I’m busy with work and stuff.  And I’m getting my Christmas cards ready to send.  Every year since I started working at the Space Telescope I’ve made up my own custom Christmas cards with images from the Hubble Space Telescope on them.  It’s been one of the joys of working on Hubble that I can do this and send them out to family and friends.

More later.  In the meantime I need a break from the fight.  Really.  It is just such a major stress in my life to have to deal with all the hate out there toward gay people.  It never ends.  It never ends.  And it’s draining all the joy and wonder from my life.  I hate it.  I never really realized how much it stresses me out until I spent that time in Disney World.  When I came back home, several friends and co-workers remarked on how relaxed I looked.  One even asserted that I must have gotten laid while I was down in Orlando.  No…that didn’t happen.  What happened was I managed to recapture some of the joy of life I’ve been missing ever since I took a walk through adolescence, and learned that I would always be hated for what I am, and that finding love was going to be a struggle that I’d probably loose.

I want that joy back.  I need that joy back.  So I’m going to do something I’ve always disdained:  I’m going to drop out of the news loop for a while.  Or at least try to.  If I can.  I’m such a news addict.  Especially when it comes to news concerning the gay community.  I need to back off for a while.  So you won’t see me posting much here about gay issues for a while.  Hopefully.  Maybe.

I have a lot of vacation time accrued, so I’m taking another two weeks off this Christmas-New Years holiday period.  I don’t think I’ll be going anyway…at least not far from home.  I might take a few drives here and there…maybe to see an old friend in PA…if he’s free…maybe to Ocean City New Jersey for a while.  I dunno.  But I need the break.  The relentless hate is just wearing me down.  I need to ignore it for a while.  I need to remember why life is good.  Laugh at me, but I really enjoyed my stay in Disney World.   When I get last Thanksgiving’s trip paid off, I am going back.  No question about it.

I’ve been coding more this last few days, a thing I enjoy immensely.   And working on the new virtual test center at work.  And I’m feeling the pressure to assume more management kinds of roles.  I’ve always resisted that because I like coding and working down in the guts of systems.  But there comes a point where you have to just accept the path life is placing before you.  I had it explained to me today in terms I was finally able to accept, that my value to the organization is tilting more now towards project management.  I’m 55 years old…I’ve been doing this work since the first PCs came to market, and I have so much experience that it makes more sense for me to step up the chain and give the Institute the benefit of that, then keep myself down in the nuts and bolts of things.

There’s an irony here.  Parents are always telling their children You just wait…when you have kids of your own you’ll see…!  And, being a gay man and not wanting to raise kids of my own I would just shrug all that off with a laugh.  But you can’t escape the responsibilities of age, like it or not.  I can just hear every boss I’ve ever had now, wagging their fingers at me from the past and saying  You just wait…when you have staff of your own you’ll see…!

Well…maybe.  All that’s in the future and nothing is certain.  But apparently I am being positioned for it on at least one project and I reckon it’s an inescapable part of having a career in a trade you love.  And the work we do at Space Telescope is for the ages.  You can’t beat that.  At some point I realized that my work life and my personal life had become one and it was here, really, that it happened.  I don’t do nine to five anymore.  I haven’t for years.  It’s a joy few people manage to find and I am so blessed that I did.  I live and breath this stuff.  Single and lonely though I am, I have that at least. 

But I guess I can’t be a simple coder forever.  At some point, you have to move on.  But if it keeps me valuable to the Institute, then I reckon I’ll do it.  There is no growing up…there is only growing.  And I promised myself when I was a kid that I would never stop growing. 

If you made yourself that same promise then I salute you, we are kindred spirits, and I wish you and yours all the best this holiday season.