Along the lines of my last post, next month for me is usually a time of reflection, of giving thanks and of remembering emotional highs and lows. My birthday’s two days after Xmas, making it hard on the folks in my life who’ve given me gifts over the years (most years I haven’t received gifts for either). Over the past 38 Decembers (not counting the one starting on Sunday), I’ve been smitten with attraction (December 3, 1985), run away from home (December 8, 1978), been mugged by four teenage boys (December 5, 1983), experienced burnout (December ’87 and December ’89) and betrayal (December ’96), not celebrated Chanukah (December ’81, ’82 and ’83), and have experienced holiday joy and summoned up the resolve to make next year a better one.

I used to think that the period between the end of November and the end of February was the season of miracles small and large. That I could fall in serious like for anyone in ’85 — with my second crush (see blogs from July and September) — seemed almost miraculous considering my sober and emotionally detached self at the time. Surviving my third semester at Pitt after homelessness and financial starvation made my December that year especially thankful. Despite my thesis chair and committee, I was beyond happy about finishing my dissertation and having their approval (even if it meant that my post-doctoral career remained cloudy). But the resulting burnout from two rough fall semesters at Pitt and a long and contentious thesis process also helped me understand why many people get depressed this time of the year. In the end, what do all of the pluses and minuses that make up the highs and lows of our lives really mean at the end of the year?

Although I have sometimes felt like a failure, I’ve come to see December as a month of reflection and rebirth, partly because of my birthday and the month’s significance, and partly because of the things that have happened in my life in December. It’s only a season of miracles if you are willing to see yourself and your survival of the year as a miracle in and of itself. Reflection allows you to build on the successes — no matter how few and fleeting — that you experienced during the year and can sustain you into the next one. A rebirth is your willingness to recognize where you’ve fallen short and determining which parts of your life you’re unwilling to fall short in again.

So despite the colder weather and decline in sunlight, the depression, disappointments and drama that has been more Decembers than not for me, the last month of the year is my favorite one. So many of the stories contained in Boy At The Window are ones that come out of or lead somehow to the month of my birth. Even the relationship that became my marriage began in a December twelve years ago (more on that in a later blog).

For those of you who find yourselves depressed or disillusioned by the storms of life, all I can say is that some of my best Decembers have been ones where consumer-based gift-giving hasn’t happened at all or has played a minor role in the holiday season. I’ve usually given of myself in love or trust or out of faith or need. I’ve found myself making plans for the next year or next several years. I’ve often left myself open for good and new things to happen in my life. Most importantly, I’ve found myself looking back at my past and realizing that I have survived so much and overcome so much more, that anything I face now can’t possibly be as horrifying as the circumstances of my youth and young adulthood.

This isn’t a call to suck it up as much as it is one for all of us to put our lives in perspective. To make this season my season and yours as one of humility and thanksgiving and not so much one of shopping and eating. Take it from me, as an authority on how to make this season mean something despite the lack of money or food, Decembers are so much better when you take the time to put your life in perspective and balance.

I’m just as guilty of this as everyone else. It’s a common human affliction really. This not taking stock of our world and our lives, not finding anything to feel thankful about. Comedians like George Carlin and Lewis Black are right about this, hilariously funny, but right. Thanksgivings are an opportunity to combine three uniquely American activities: shopping, gluttonous eating, and watching NFL players knock the stuffing out of each other all afternoon and evening.

I may not eat to the point of puking on Thanksgiving (I usually do all the cooking, so I’m usually not hungry by the time the table’s set anyway) or participate in the annual American pastime of getting ready for Xmas the day after at the nearest malls. I do watch some football, although I’m not a big fan of Dallas or Detroit (the two teams that normally play on Turkey Day). But I must admit that I don’t take time out as much as I used to to say thanks — to God, for my family, for those who’ve been there for me, for all the good that remains in me and in my life.

And on Thanksgiving week especially, there have been important moments in my past for me to remember. I sometimes need to remind myself that though life hasn’t always been great, these moments make life worth living. One of the most important ones occurred nineteen years ago, in the aftermath of my five days of homelessness on the University of Pittsburgh’s campus in the fall of ’88. The revelation that I needed help — and lots of it — to make it through the semester and through college was obvious even after I found a place to live. Right after Labor Day, I sorted out all of my financial aid issues, completely paying off my room and board bill from last year. I found myself with only $450 left over for the semester, even with students loans, Challenge Scholarship, and Pell Grant in hand. Once I accounted for books, food, linens, a new Walkman and other basic needs, I only had a little more than $200 left over. That was by the third week in September.

Even working at CIS didn’t help. Because of my five days in search for a living space, I didn’t get on the computing lab work schedule for September. Pitt paid all of its employees, Work-Study and otherwise, once a month and in arrears. My first full paycheck wouldn’t be until the end of November. I felt screwed. I survived homelessness only to face a major financial crisis, one that left little margin for error. I could’ve saved the forty-five dollars I spent on the new Walkman for some food.

I paid my $140 in rent on time at the beginning of October, and stretched the remaining $70 as much as I could. I made my mother’s favorite cheap meal for one week, five-dollar spaghetti with broccoli. With seasoning and Kool-Aid at home, who needed anything else? With all my efforts, the spaghetti and not-so-meaty meat sauce lasted most of the week. Week two was pork neck bones and rice with spinach, the first time I’d eaten a significant amount of pig since the pre-Hebrew Israelite days. Week three was a vat of tuna fish “salad,” which was mixed with just a tiny bit of scraped-from-the-bottom Miracle Whip with salt and pepper. By the end of that week, I couldn’t eat tuna from a can anymore, and I still haven’t to this day.

The end of October rolled around with few prospects and another drop in my weight. I was sick of Kool-Aid made with bad Pittsburgh water and peanut butter sandwiches. My money was so short that I finally swallowed my pride and asked for help. I first asked Regis, after he noticed that we weren’t even hanging out at the Roy Rogers in the Cathedral of Learning. After I told him about my starvation diet, he said, “Man, I can at least bring you some bread and a potata. We don’t want you out here starvin’.” Later that week, Regis actually gave me some bread and a small sack of potatoes. I bummed a few dollars off of Marc, enough to add a hamburger and some chips to my diet of peanut butter crackers and peanut butter sandwiches. Others got into the act, including Lee, who shared some of his dinner with me a couple of times back at Welsford.

I also started donating plasma through Sera–Tec’s South Oakland “lab” twice a week to supplement my lack of income. It required me to lie next to winos, homeless men, and college students apparently doing this for similar reasons or because it was part of their hazing as frat pledges. I made $75 for six sessions of donating enough plasma to save many lives. The IVs the technicians used and reused they also stuck in the same place in my right arm. So much so that several doctors in the decade after my Sera–Tec days asked me if I ever used heroin. Sera–Tec was a temporary fix all right, one that only provided enough money for more bread, peanut butter and Kool-Aid.

Despite these acts of generosity and my acts of desperation, I knew that I’d probably starve before the semester was over. I had less than ten dollars to work with after the first week in November. I went to Thackeray Hall to register for classes for next semester. While there, it occurred to me to go upstairs to see one of the financial aid counselors, an older Black woman who’d been really nice to me while working through my bill issues earlier in the semester. I told her in detail what was going on. “You need to talk to Ron,” she said, referring to Ron Slater, the university ombudsman, the person who normally resided over tuition payment issues. So there I was the next day, explaining to the ombudsman my situation. “We’ll take care of this, we’ll find you some extra money. Just hang in there for a few days.” He actually offered me money right out of his wallet. “No thanks, I’ll be all right,” I said, my voice starting to crack because I was so grateful that anyone cared enough to help me through my dire straits. I somehow found a way not to cry right there on the spot.

The week before Thanksgiving, I went to check in with Beverly, the financial aid person I’d seen earlier. “I’ve got good news for you, but you’ll have to wait a few days.” Through the ombudsman, the university had recalculated my financial aid package, increasing my Pell to the maximum amount allowed, and adding the federal SEOG grant (Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants) to my aid menu. Both gave me an extra $800 to work with. After that weekend, one where Regis’ potatoes became a part of my diet, I bummed five dollars off of one of my classmates from General Writing. The next day I got my check from the ombudsman. “I’m so glad to have been of help. It’s part of my job. I just wish you’d come to me earlier,” Ron said. Hearing that did get me to tear up. I was in the spirit of the season already. It was two days before Thanksgiving. I spent that holiday at Melissa C.’s house with her and her father, an ailing contractor in his early-sixties. It was the most thankful holiday I’d ever experienced.

It was the first of five straight Thanksgivings either spent with friends and their families or by myself, but all in which I was thankful for what I had while striving for something better. It seems like it’s been a lifetime since those naive and cynical days, where I didn’t trust anyone in my life. The bout with homelessness and the financial straits that followed changed my life in ways that I notice even today. Even with the years of working long hours and fighting for my career as a writer, I realize that I wouldn’t be here or on this blog doing any of what I’m able to do today without the kindness of strangers and friends, the ability to divorce myself from my past or the sense that God had a purpose for me, a reason for living and being. Even after nearly two decades, I have this and so much else to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I did it. I tendered my resignation for my job of nearly four and to my organization of nearly seven years, effective in early February. It was a tough decision, even given all of my reasonable reasons for making a job and career change. I’m happy that I made the move. More importantly, I’m happier and looking forward to the next phase of my life and career.

The days after handing my resignation to my boss and explaining it to her have been filled mostly with relief tinged by a bit of sadness. After all, I like my supervisor and most of the folks I’ve worked with over the past four or seven years. And while I believe that my decision to resign was the right one, my doubts still linger about the consequences of leaving a job — however unstable the job and funding situation was and is — without another position already lined up. It seems weird to step out on faith — in God, myself, my wife and family — without calculating every conceivable angle for staying or going ahead of time.

But besides all of the things I have in my favor, the lessons I’ve learned from Boy At The Window are important ones for the road that lies ahead. I’m the same person who witnessed my mother getting beat up and knocked unconscious by my now ex-stepfather twenty-five years ago. The same human being who stepped in and took a summer’s worth of abuse from my stepfather in ’82, who found himself without a serious friend for years, who contemplated suicide at the age of fourteen. I’m certainly the same person who spent five days on the brink of dropping out of college, five days homeless on a major college campus wondering if I’d ever have any hope of having a future.

I’ve seen and been involved in so many things that I’ve had to overcome to get to this point in my life — including unemployment and underemployment — that I have little doubt that everything I’m searching for will actually happen. Including the success I desire as a writer. Yet the move to close one chapter in my life while opening another one has produced moments of anxiousness, of unfocused energy where I can do everything and nothing at the same time. It’s strange, really, almost exhilarating how this decision of mine has begun to affect my view of myself and my life of late.

But I know that none of this matters if I don’t find my footing as a successful writer and teacher in the foreseeable future. I know that there are things more important in life than paying rent or a mortgage, than the obvious accouterments of success. At the same time I understand that having some sense of financial security and independence can make the other parts of my life that much easier to enjoy and pursue. I want to be happy, to enjoy success and to cherish all of the people, places and things that are near and dear to me. If Boy At The Window has been about anything, it’s been about knowing that life is too precious to spend our time living in fear and despair, without trust and with little hope. That’s what this move to take more control over my life is about, to imbue all I am with a life of meaning and purpose that accounts for financial need, career success and personal happiness.

This week marks seven years since I did my first of two interviews with my current employer, a nonprofit organization just north of Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. The organization is known mostly as a State Department/USAID subcontractor, as most of its work is internationally focused. All of my work for this organization has been US based, either around social justice or higher education reform. Of course, given my upbringing, none of you should be surprised that I would find my way into work that reflects my attempts to help bring fairness to an unjust and unforgiving world.

Overall, I’ve spent ten of the past eleven years since finishing my doctorate working in the nonprofit world, including the seven at my current organization? I’ve taught off and on throughout those years, bringing excitement to an otherwise dull and tedious line of work. I was never an idealist — how could I be after my middle school and high school years. But I still held out hope that important work to help those less fortunate occurred in the nonprofit world. The reality is far more depressing than anything I’ve written about in any of my blogs. There are corporations — yes, corporations — that do more to help people get their lives together than anything I’ve seen in my years as a nonprofit manager.

But even more than the issue of disillusionment, denial, rage, despair and acceptance is the rediscovering of myself as a writer seven years ago, just at the time I did my first interview in the Dupont Circle area. That revelation (see Age of Discovery blog from October) meant that I’d reach the only conclusion that I could over the past seven years. That the best way for me to help others, help myself and find a zone of peace and happiness would be if I fulfilled my calling as a writer. And I’ve been doing as much writing as anyone with a full-time job, a wife and a child should expect and then some.

But even with that, I realize that for most of my colleagues in my current organization, my writing makes me an oddball. The only kind of writing they seem to care about is grant proposal writing — very technical, very report-like, very, very boring. There are law briefs and quantum physics papers more exciting than grant proposals, especially ones meant for the federal government. For those already familiar with this kind of writing, my comments may seem both harsh and irrelevant. Except that I’ve written or helped to write nearly 20 concept papers and proposals in the past two and a half years alone. I realize that I no longer care whether a grant proposal is successful or not. I know that most of what we do doesn’t reach the folks who need the grant dollars the most, everyday people like me during my Boy At The Window days.

So I plan to make a few changes in the next few months, closing the door that I opened eleven years ago when my advisor refused to support my academic job search, while working to open up (more like blow up) doors that I’ve pried open, but not quite all the way yet. I have a nest egg that I can crack open if my search for success as a writer (not to mention my search for other, more relevant employment) continues far longer than I would ever expect. First, I have one person I need to talk to about my future moves, and it isn’t my wife — she’s been supporting my decision for nearly a year now.

It’s a risk, of course, deciding to take a less sure road while chasing down a dream, hoping that my sprinter speed is good enough to catch what I believe should’ve been mine so many years ago. Life, of course, is full of risks, many risks that most of us are afraid to take, even afraid that the risk may actually work and be worth it. The problem with playing life safe is that if you decide not to go after something you truly desire, what you’d prefer not to have usually is the end result. Life for the best part of each of us begins when we decide to go after what we want, often regardless of the consequences. All I know is that I’d rather do what I’m about to do than have my four-year-old son remembering his old man as a sour and unhappy individual, someone who didn’t care enough about himself and his family to fight for everything that could make all of our lives better. Bottom line is, there are things in life more important than an easy paycheck.