I am not a big birthday guy, at least when it comes to my own. It has been years since I had a birthday party thrown for me, the day usually would consist of dinner with friends and maybe a stop at a local bar for a few drinks.
The day became way more lowkey after 2016 when the Pulse tragedy happened on June 12, my birthday. Since then the day has become a time to be with my community, remember the 49 lives lost and honor their memory. This June 12 was the 8-year mark of the tragedy and it was spent doing just that, attending events and mourning with friends, with each hug they would lean in and whisper “happy birthday.” It is a weird feeling being wished a happy birthday during a memorial service but I appreciate the acknowledgment from everyone.
I turned 45 years old this year and as I read through my birthday messages on Facebook, I was reminded of a conversation I had 10 years ago on my 35th birthday with the founder of Watermark, Tom Dyer.
The office had gotten me a cake and a card and sung “Happy Birthday” to me, as is tradition at Watermark, and as the cake was being cut and slices doled out to the staff, Tom came up to me. I’m paraphrasing as I don’t recall what he said verbatim, but he said to me “Now is when you have to decide who you are and what you want in life. And if you want to make any changes, the next 10 years are the ones you’ll want to do it in. After 45, change becomes a lot more difficult.”
I’m not even sure if he remembers having the brief conversation with me but I took it to heart that day and really started to look at where I was in life. At the time I was an account manager in Watermark’s sales department. I was happy to be at Watermark but had always dreamed of being a journalist. I was on the high school newspaper when I was younger, I went back to college after my time in the Air Force to study journalism and it was what I had a passion for.
Tom’s words rang in my ears and while it wasn’t the only reason I had made the decision I made, within three months of that conversation, I had left Watermark. Like Kevin Costner looking for another Oscar, I headed west. My sister and her family were moving to North Dakota and I decided to accompany them on the trip. The plan was to help them get settled into their new life before heading further west to Los Angles where I had a friend who had recently moved there and see what the west coast had in store for me.
My time in North Dakota was short lived — I was only there for five months — before receiving a call on a cold January evening from Watermark’s Online Editor, Jamie Hyman. Jamie was pregnant and setting up her temporary replacement while she was going to be on maternity leave. She called me just as I was leaving the gym (yes, I actually went to the gym on a regular basis in those days) and with the snow coming down heavy, I took the call in my car as I waited for it to warm up.
I remember Jamie’s first question for me was “How’s the weather?” I think she knew how the weather was as I’m sure she could hear my chattering teeth on the other end of the line. After some small talk, she asked me what it would take to get me to come back to Florida, and more specifically back to Watermark. I told her a position on the editorial team would be something that would make me highly consider it. Then she offered me her job, temporarily of course, but said that this could be my time to prove myself as the journalist she knew I wanted to be and could be.
Honestly, my first thought was packing up and moving back seemed like a step backwards. You’re not supposed to go back where you just came from when you’re trying to make big things happen in your life. Then I heard Tom’s voice again, “Now is when you have to decide who you are and what you want in life.” In that moment I decided that what I wanted to do was be a journalist and the stories I wanted to tell were the queer stories in Central Florida.
I told Jamie on that call I would come back and within a few weeks I was in Orlando, writing stories and covering the community. While Jamie was gone I did exactly what she told me to, prove myself. Now roughly 10 years later, I couldn’t imagine myself being anywhere else.
