18 years ago today, I gave of myself to help give a stranger the chance at a fresh start. This is my unscripted, unscored recollection of that experience and the ripples it had.

The past year, for me, has been filled with both apologies and letting go. The concept of offering and receiving an apology is often on my mind. Given we are not taught how to apologize, in the way we are taught something like public speaking, this episode covers the mechanics of offering a meaningful apology when we're in the wrong.

As I continue to carve out and maintain a healthier, balanced life for myself, a series of engagements with and about my family of origin force me to make a long overdue decision. Trigger warnings: Suicide, and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Some level of detail around the sexual abuse.

I’m working my ass off in therapy to unpack my lifetime of trauma. I realize my family are not my allies and struggle with boundaries and change. I also decide to run for office, face a series of life changing events, learn the answer to a thirty-year family mystery, and find love. Trigger warnings: Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. No graphic details given.

Having finally graduated college, I begin my journey as a young adult. Find love, drift further from my family as they remain incapable of embracing me for who I am, and face a hard reality about having no civil protections as a gay American. I realize I’ve lost my compass and my way.

Having come out at Easter my junior year of college, everything regarding the relationships I had with my family changes in reaction to the news. I realize the damage the messaging from the media had on me as the AIDS pandemic swept the globe and the divisive effect the rhetoric of GOP had on my relationships with my family. Trigger warnings: incest, suicide ideation, and emotional abuse. No graphic details provided.

As I reach adolescence, this episode explores the end of our parents’ marriage and the struggles my mother, sister, and I faced maintaining various levels of connection with one another in our woundedness and desires to assert our independence and move on. Trigger warnings: suicide, rape, and sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. No graphic details provided.

The success of one’s journey through life is largely determined by how well equipped one is to take it. This episode explores the dysfunctional foundations laid for my family of origin by our parents, which left my siblings and I ill equipped to travel. Trigger warnings: animal cruelty (some level of detail), sexual, physical, and emotional abuse (limited detail).