Dec 09, 2025: firsts

Today, I had to let one of my peeps go, and this week I'm meeting my boss and counterpart in person for the first time. Everyone that reports to me is remote, my boss is remote, and my colleague in a similar position to me and reporting up to my boss, is remote.

All that to say, this has been a week of firsts for me so far. First time I needed to figure out how to remove someone from the equation at [redacted], the first time I met a few teammates, and it was the first time I've had a chance to discuss the makeup of my family with a whole new cast of characters.

All that to say (again apparently), boss man, my co-pilot (what we'll call similar position guy), and I were waiting for sandwiches today in a "strategy" session and my co-pilot asked.....how old are your kids? Boys? Girls?

Now, before we get into all that, I find that I can get the size of a person and their makeup almost instantly upon meeting them. That's not to say the entirety of the human race won't surprise me every damn day, and instead it's to say I've grown to trust my instincts when it comes to meeting people for the first time.

On the other side of that coin, sarah said to me at a family function relatively recently........you get weirder every time I see you these days (I chuckled and it's true). A great deal of that comes from what I've learned from being blessed enough to be a part of bonnibel's journey, and the rest of it started showing up with old age. While there's a time and place for everything, I'm going to do my best to be me at all times.

Maybe it's not so much old age. I've probably always had that at my core. Now that I'm washed though, I might not dial it up to 10 in mixed company, and I also ain't gonna dial it down to 0, basically ever. You get me. Good, bad, or indifferent.

Anywho, I enjoy the boss man's company, and over lunch yesterday I broke down my family dynamic for him. Married twice, same woman. 4 kids, mostly grown. And bonnibel's transgender journey with a simple - my daughter is transgender. No exposition, no grand entrance, not testing him, not drawing attention to me, just here's what it is.

We continued to eat lunch, he told me a bit about his family, I continued to tell him more about mine. K.I.M. (Keep It Moving, for the noobs)

Fast forward to today and the same general topic came up with just me, boss man, and my co-pilot while we waited for lunch. They are both younger than I am, boss man by about 10 years, and co-pilot by 20. Out the box, the younger you are, the more comfortable I will be to discuss anything vaguely involving diversity, so there's that, but again, sometimes you just get a sense for the cut of a man's jib.

Same thing as at lunch yesterday; this, that, my oldest daughter is transgender, and the other. This time? Well, co-pilot's wife is a child and clinical psychologist and he's ready to get into it. Gender dysphoria and other related questions, of course couched with forgive me for asking this poorly, or sorry for asking at all type caveats, and the rest of the stuff that comes with the natural feeling out process that comes along with talking about anything vaguely like this with basically everyone.

Long story short, we had a 15-20 minute conversation about my small part of bonnibel's journey just like we would anything else. They learned about me and mine, I learned about them and theirs. I spoke about it poorly, and they asked about it poorly. I think we all grew a little bit together all the same.

Something shifted in me today. Not necessarily in how I think or feel about any of it. It's something closer to how I'm able to share that experience with the world.

As luck would have it, I've been looking for a way to drop my favorite tweet into the latest iteration of the blog (it's been in others too).

I don't know how to change the world any other way than simply going door-to-door. Each one, teach one.

I love you bonnibel.