Hello on a Monday afternoon,
The week has begun with a plan and some degree of anticipation since I was scheduled for my first of two cataract surgeries this morning. I’ve know for a few years this was on the horizon, but I met that distant boundary was met last September. Unfortunately, the primary provider is so understaffed that I was not scheduled for 3 days short of a year. My primary ophthalmologist referred me to another clinic and surgeon, and after working with them over the last two months (and this is not to take anything from my original surgeon), I feel blessed. The entire staff was phenomenal. The second surgery will be in two weeks. The cataract surgery is one of the things to manage, and, of course, there are the other conditions, some life-long and others not quite as long, but equally concerning. As many of you know, tipping the scales at 17 ounces has had its miracles and its complications, but I know that I’ve been blessed. My new way of describing the things needed to maintain is because s%#t did not have enough time to bake.
And yet that is the perfect way move into episode two of my “family circus” existence. As I moved into my 30s, I would complete seminary, find my way to NE Pennsylvania (know out here as NEPA), try to figure out the life as a pastor, struggle to understand being a husband, and in a sort of oxymoronic manner, succeed and fail at both. While there were specific incidents, the reason for the demise of being effective at either was more due to my own personal struggles than I ever realized at the time. My lack of security in who I was, which was a consequence of my upbringing, and more influential in my decisions, doomed me on multiple levels. By my late thirties I would find myself in Michigan, in a very different situation, but now single, still trying to figure myself out, still simultaneously achieving and failing in numerous ways.
However, in the midst of the chaos I often created, though generally unintentionally, I somehow moved forward. These are the times where if I have a guardian angel, I suspect, they begged for reassignment. My counselor at the time, and I saw him for the entire time I was a student at Michigan Tech once told me I was the smartest and one of the most capable professionally, but a disaster in my personal life. He was correct. The more significant question was to understand the why. I think there were two factors. In many ways, I was a decade or so behind in where many were in their lives. The reasons for that were myriad. Second, I had missed a number of social events that were necessary as we grow and mature. I think this can be traced all the way back into high school. The resulting lack of experiences caused me to go through some of them long after many had grown beyond. This would also have consequences in my professional life as I was a graduate student (for the third and fourth times) into my 40s. At the time most had children ready for college, I was still in college. Acting as a 20 something in your 40s is neither wise nor helpful. This work to catch up and get all aspects of my life in synch would create struggles throughout my 40s. I wish I had been more put together because the gap between what seemed to be and where I struggled was not helpful for anyone. During that decade I left graduate school to work on a second marriage, but failed again, while leaving more than once because of my own insecurities, my fears. Somehow I would be offered a second chance to finish my PhD, which I did, and I would get the first tenure track position I applied for.
Again, up to this point, over a relatively short period of time I found myself in Michigan (both the Upper and Lower Peninsula), Iowa, South Dakota, and Texas, and then it would be off to Wisconsin. While I was progressing in some ways, the struggle to understand who I was personally and professionally would now overlap and, at times, overwhelm me. Wisconsin allowed for more progress of me synthesizing and catching up than I realized. Being single was generally a good thing, but the person to whom I must give the most credit and for whom I am most grateful is the Austrian tornado. Lydia became a parent, a companion, someone I could makes amends with because I was no there for my father. She became a confidant, a guide, and she changed my life. As I had continues to grow as a professor there were still issues, but I would manage them. Lydia taught me more about life than she will ever realize, even when she would enter a memory unit the last few years of her life. 
Wisconsin taught me a lot. And I would finish my 40s and move into my early fifties. Perhaps most significantly, I realized who I was, more about what I was capable of, and how to manage my life more efficiently, more truthfully, and therefore more successfully. As I took back to Menomonie, what I learned was that perhaps the reason I got there was more about Lydia than Stout. And yet Stout prepared me for what would come next. It also instilled something in me I instinctively realized, but perhaps never articulated precisely. The three things I find most difficult to manage is when someone is dishonest or disrespectful, and if someone abuses power. As I look back in life, the things that have been most consequential, caused the most problems, were in the last of those things occurred. Standing up in the face of abuse of power is something I cannot abide. I believe it is because of the abuse I experienced or saw inflicted on others as a child.
When I moved back to Pennsylvania almost 20 years ago, I believe my life finally found the time and place everything could fit together. I would continue to care for Lydia for the remainder of her life and beyond as I promised. I would flourish as a professor, and I found myself in ways unexpected. While I did work to have healthy relationships, and believe I did that well, I learned I did not need to be with someone to be whole. Additionally, through having exchange students, I became a parent of sorts, and with other students living with me from a semester, a summer, or a year, I continued to see that I would have been a good parent. I’ve learned to step away when there was too much drama, and perhaps most importantly, I am content with where and who I am.
More than a dozen trips to Europe and hopefully more to come. To manage my heath through significant hurdles, in some ways I feel healthier and happier than ever. The dotted-line continues, but I think it’s appropriate now versus running or hiding. I’m returning to some things set aside and imagining still more adventures. Indeed, it’s been a circus at times, but it’s mine.
I remember seeing America in concert when I was stationed in Hawaii in 1974. Life is a highway (another song), and yet this song reminds me of my earlier life. Thanks as always for reading.
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 