The Aughts

Uff. I think every year in the past (too lazy to check archives) I've managed to avoid the drunken nostalgic post, on New Year's, if no other night, but tonight I feel compelled. The thing is, it's weird. I know I haven't yet been alive 3 decades, and yet somehow it seems weird to me that the beginning of this decade leap frogs an entire section of my life (grad school in atlanta). The beginning of the aughts is me living in clark tower on the north side of campus, then moving in with PC and AWB in my first 'big girl' apartment (I remember clearly thinking whoever thought we should be allowed to live with our friends was a genius!). More than one third of my life, to date, has been spent in college or grad school! Ridiculous! I know the 90s are supposed to be my decade, the decade when I became truly sentient, struggled through adolescence, etc. etc. But the aughts are when I figured out how to be grown-up. Ok, so probably, hopefully, I'll be figuring that out for the rest of my life, but I mean, the aughts are when I went through therapy and did two big geographic moves (mostly on my own) and became a doctor (eep!) and got a job (double eep!) and kind of started to think of myself as someone other than my parents' kid. Also, and this is important, if also egotistical, the aughts are when I finally figured out that I'm kind of awesome. What a nice place to start the teens.

Gender Identity and Sexual Preference

Had an interesting and enlightening conversation tonight with a somewhat butch lesbian. Who came out and reinforced something I've been thinking - it's challenging to be a straight butch. She said, I look at you, and the rather femme clothes you're wearing tonight (blue sleaveless dress, knee-high-high-heeled-boots, white cardigan) but I recognize that you don't carry yourself that way - you walk and take up space like a butch. And I don't know what someone like you, who doesn't like women, does.

You and me both, sister.

Because that's the thing, right? I like men. I'm quite comfortable in this statement. I want a family, children. Similarly comfortable. You know what other ideas make me comfortable? I want to be the breadwinner. I'm good at that. I'm going to continue to be good at that. I would make a good head of household. I'm not trying to reinforce stereotypes here, rather just say that I'm acting and living out a rather traditionally male stereotype. And, sadly, we haven't managed to advance enough as a society yet to generate a particularly large pool of men who are comfortable being and desire to be a primary parent and house-husband. A couple of my female friends are blessed with male partners who fit this description and they rock my world. But the pool from which to choose is pretty small. The pool of men who want these things, and also manage to see themselves as equally awesome (e.g., bringing something different, but equally important, to the relationship table) are diminishingly small. Bummer for me.

But such is life. And fan of compromise though I may be, this is one area where I'll be standing my ground.

Best of luck to you, and to me, in finding what you want, and what you deserve, in the decade to come. joyeux aneau. prospero ano nuevo. happy new year.