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  • Too many things to list them all, but there's a few big ones.

    Fear kept me in the closet for like 15 years past when I began to figure out I was trans. It lead to years of depression, dropping out of college, suicide ideation, and countless missed opportunities. I did get an associates degree when I was 26, and eventually came out at 28. 6 years later and that first phone call to come out to my sister was the scariest, and best thing I've ever done.

    Fear has stopped me from opening up to pretty much everyone, though I'm working on that in therapy, and have been for a few years now.

    Fear keeps me from dealing with conflicts, I'd prefer to suffer in silence than deal with the overwhelming fear that comes with conflict. I'm working on this one too!

    Managing fear is a constant battle, but I'm slowly winning.

  • Choosing the right university and major. I didn't want to leave my best friends from high school and have to meet new people, so I just applied to the same school they did. I really wanted to double major in creative writing and journalism, but I ended up majoring in literature because it was the closet thing available. I had to do an extra journalism intership and pay for an online certificate program out of pocket to cover my knowledge gap, and I sort of felt like I was simultaneously overworked and wasting my time in college.

    But, like, I wouldn't have fallen out of contact with my best friends. It would have all worked out, and I might have made new friends along the way too.

  • I got into marketing because I was too afraid of a career in music.

    • I didn't know you were musical! What's your jam?

      • My chief area of interest is woodwinds and adjacent, but my instrumental history is roughly as follows:

        • accordion (YES! STOP LAUGHING!)
        • organ/electronic keyboards
        • alto saxophone (and the woodwinds enter my life)
        • alto clarinet
        • tenor saxophone
        • soprano saxophone

        • <insert many years as I concentrated on marketing>

        • dizi (transverse bamboo flute)
        • xun (a Chinese fipple-free endblown ocarina from the bowels of Hell)
        • hulusi (free-reed instrument typically constructed of bamboo and calabash, with drone pipes, though my first was wooden, not gourd)
        • xiao (end-blown bamboo flute)
        • guanzi (double-reed pipe from the bowels of Hell)
        • bawu (like a hulusi without a gourd or drones; can be transverse or endblown for slight flavour differences)
        • kalimba (ranging from 8-tine to 42-tine, I mostly use them to do meditative noodling around)

        I also have this weird electronic musical egg that's got five buttons used for actual sound triggering, but a full three octave range with those five buttons because of a nifty chording interface. It's great, like the kalimba, for just meditative noodling around.

        Generally the music I perform with these is folk or folk-informed, though I sometimes play along with songs in almost any style played on my computer speakers.

  • Flying. That's my Cryptonite. It's not necessarily a problem with heights since I do love hiking, but at least I've got solid ground under my feet and if I fall down, well, that's my dumb mistake then for not being careful enough. The mountains and hills are my friends.

    Then again I do struggle with sitting on a balcony 3rd floor or higher, I really don't like staircases with gaps between each step and I can not climb up a ladder higher than two meters.

    I never fly. Even if you offered me a million Euros, I would not accept the deal. Every time I travel between mainland Europe and the UK or Ireland, I take busses, trains and ferries. It takes fairly long (2 days), it's expensive, but fuck no to flying.

    Then again my superpower is to never get seasick. I grew up in a very maritime environment, I knew how to kayak before I learnt how to ride a bicycle at age 5. I love stormy seas, it makes me feel very alive.

    Last time I took the ferry from France to England, the ship went into a massive storm. All the furniture was moving around, most passengers got seasick. The lad next to my table was just hugging his table trying not to throw up - while I was sitting next to him with a cold pint of beer, smiling, having the time of my life. :D

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