Some Background

In thinking about how to approach writing this blog, I decided to start with some background on me and my family. ( at this point in time, any member of my family who is reading this is yelling at the top of their lungs.............Nooooo! Don't worry guys, I am not going into our life history, just mine).

Let me just say that my brothers and sister and I certainly had an interesting childhood. We travelled constantly when we were young, both in the U.S. and out of it. In fact most of my secondary education was not completed in the United States at all. I went to school in the old British Colony countries. Primary and secondary school ( that is elementary , middle and high school here in the U.S.) in Canada, England Australia and New Zealand. In fact for me, the longest I ever went to one school was in high school for my junior and senior years. As you can imagine, with 5 kids in total, all within 6 or 7 years or so of each other, that brought us close together as youngsters. Unfortunately that is not the case with all of us as adults.

I have vivid memories of endless first days at new schools, not knowing anyone, trying to make new friends, only to pick up and move yet again and starting over and over. I think that is why I am a "natural" introvert in my private adult life and why, in part, it took me so long to figure out who I am.

After graduating High School in a small town in 100 Mile House, British Columbia Canada, I moved to Las Vegas to join the rest of my family (My family moved to LV when I was going into my senior year of high school and I did not want to move, so stayed with my best friend and his family till I graduated) and attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas.... but I am getting ahead of myself, let me step back a few years...........

When I was 15, my father was diagnosed with cancer and not given long to live. It was a tumor in his neck that was wrapped around his carotid artery and potentially cutting off his blood supply. Well as you can imagine, this was a tuff thing to take as a kid. My brothers and I quit school and went to work full time to help support the family. I was working as a 7/11 ( convenience store) clerk at age 15 working the grave yard shift. I lied and said I was 21 years old to get the job. Even at 15 I was over 6' tall and looked much older then my actual age. I did that for a bit over a year until I could go back to school. We were living in Toronto, Ontario Canada at that time. We then picked up again and went to Daytona Beach FL. My father was recovering from radiation treatments, but the prognosis did not look good. He took matters in his own hands and decided to research homeopathic treatments. To make a long story short here, he survived and ended up making a business of his cure and survival, which is still thriving today and run by my older brother.

From Daytona Beach, my family went to Nassau Bahama's, that is where my dad operated his business from. I had just turned 16 years old, and was the proud owner of a brand new drivers license. The family car, an old green Buick La Saber was in Daytona Beach, but was registered as a Canadian car, so my dad gave me the keys, and a few dollars and off I went, driving the car, by myself, from Daytona Beach Fl across the country, into Western Canada up to a small town called Williams Lake in British Columbia where I was to live on my own, get a job ( going back to high school never entered my dads mind for me). Well that was quite an adventure as a 16 year old. Really unthinkable in today's world. Could you imagine the headlines if a 16 year old kid was stopped by the police driving across the country or even attempting to leave the country and enter Canada! At any rate, there were no jobs, so I went further North to Prince George where my sister lived. I stayed with her for a while until we all went to the Bahamas with the rest of my family.

So I was in the Nassau for several months, still not back at school, and then my Mom and Dad took my youngest brother and they moved to England and my Oldest brother Raymond and I got an apt in Nassau, ran the family business from there.

The two strongest memories I have of that time are. First I was "picked up" by a much older women who was on vacation, today she would be called a cougar, and that scared the hell out of me. Nothing happened between the two of us, I was much to young and naive, and really not that interested. The second thing I remember is that I lost my virginity in the Bahamas, to a twenty something girl (again I was 16). I really did not enjoy that experience at all. I was in my room with her and one of my brothers was in the living room with either her sister or girl friend, I really cant remember. I do remember cooking a great meal for them though..........lol

OK, so from Nassau I hoped a flight to England to again join my parents. We were not there very long and we moved back to Canada, eventually to 100 Mile House where I went back to school and graduated..........barely! After graduation, my brother Steven and I drove from Canada down to Las Vegas to live with the family and I enrolled in college.

Back to the present for a few minutes. I think now it would be good to elaborate on the emotional aspect of this journey that I mentioned in my initial post. You have some background on my upbringing, which I think lends some color to why I waited so long to allow myself to be who I really am; to myself, my children, my now ex wife and of course the rest of my family and friends. Of course I am talking about being Gay! Yes, at age 43 I dealt with feelings I had experienced my entire life and I made the decision that I did not want to continue to be unhappy with my life, who I was, how I looked and most importantly that my son and daughter did not really know who their father was, in that I was living a lie. And in that lie I was not being truthful to them.

So lets get the questions out in the open that most folks have asked me when I tell them my story and I am sure some of you ( if there are any of "you" out there) are asking.

1. How long did you know? In thinking back now, I have know all my life. I just never acted on it.

2. Why did you wait so long? That is a hard question to answer. I got married when I was still in college at the age of 22, had my daughter when I was 23 and my son came a few years after that. Life moves on, you get in a routine and you start living the life you have built. Fulfilling your responsibilities as a father, husband etc. I lead the life I was expected to live.

3. Did you act on your feelings before you were married or after? Of course I had thoughts, fantasies etc, but I did not act on them until much later in life.

4. Was the coming out process hard? Yes and no, but I will leave that for a later post.

OK, I think that is going to be it for this installment.

Why I am blogging

I have been asked by several friends to think about telling my story, well my journey really, of self discovery, honesty, and physical and emotional transformation to who I am today. I am not sure if anyone will find this of value or interesting, but I decided to do this as a way of documenting my continued journey for myself and if this helps anyone out there, all the better.

Let me share with you two pictures, a before and after shot. I think this will help in understanding why I call this a transformation. I will shed some light on the emotional self discovery reference later.

304lbs - 2006 190lbs 2009

Yes, that is me 114 lbs lighter and a hell of a lot happier as your can imagine. As of today, I have completed my first season as a Triathlete and have competed in three events. The first was the Kansas City Triathlon in May of 2009 - a sprint event of 800M swim, 20 K bike and 5 K run; the second was the Kansas Ultramax 50 - a 1 mile swim, 40 mile bike and 10 mile run; and finallay the Chicago Triathlon - a 1.2 mile swim, 40 K bike and 10 K run. In December of 2009 I ran in my first 1/2 Marathon - the Rock'n Roll Las Vegas Marathon. I ran the 13.1 mile event in 2:05:14 which beat my goal time by 5 min.

I just set my schedule for 2010, I will be doing several triathlons including the Chicago Tri again as I qualified ( i did the swim in under 30 min) to compete with the EAC wave in 2010. My "A" race will be a 70.3 Iron Man in 2010. I have started training for that now. My ultimate goal will be to compete in a full Iron Man event in 2011. With the help of my coach, support of my friends and a lot of hard work. I plan on getting there!

OK, enough for now. I will share more of my story soon.