Lately I've had a few minutes of fame in the video game journalism community. It's been pretty cool and I'll talk about that in a later post. With all the attention my writing has gotten recently, it got me to thinking about some things. In the past several months, I've spent more time on social media than I have in a long time, and some folks have asked me what happened to me in the past few years. I had been very active as a trans educator, activist, and public speaker. Then I vanished. I thought I'd take a moment to address that.

For those that haven't known me through that period of my life, there was a time I built and ran www.translife.net. It was intended to be a resource for anyone going through transition and needing role models and good information. I was really bad about keeping it up to date and giving it the energy it needed. I eventually decided that there were better sites out there for the information I had on the site. tsroadmap.com is one of them, if not the best one. I also realized that though the goal was to have many people blogging on the site, it was really just me. So, I decided to just move my blog itself to its own site, which is where this site came from.

I still do the occasional speaking engagement, but it's not nearly as frequent as it once was. I have spoken at almost every university in the state of Wisconsin. I still enjoy it when I do get to speak, but the events are few and far between. I've thankfully found my energy for it returning. So perhaps I'll do more if I can get off my butt and make some promotional materials.

There are several reasons my presence diminished. One is that I just got tired. Activism takes a lot of energy, and for a time, I was bursting with it. I was out there a lot writing, speaking, and all sorts of stuff. After all of that energy, eventually I slowed down and just didn't have it in me anymore.

I think the other major reason I disappeared is because I was living the life I always wanted. I had a good job, owned a house, and was engaged to be married to the woman I loved. It was contentment to me at its purest. I was happy to just live life and take things as they came. I wanted to let others with more energy and vigor to be the new role models of the community. And there are some great ones out there now. The internet has really helped the trans* community grow. I'm so glad to see that those out there now have many people to look up to as good examples. I'm proud to say I was that example for some.

Once that nirvana I was experiencing vanished in a puff of smoke, I realized how much the community had moved forward without me as a part of it. I am very happy to see my community moving in a positive direction. However, I honestly feel terrible that I've not been a part of that. I feel like I've let my community down in my lack of presence. Now that my energy has returned, I aim to change that going forward.

The way I aim to change that is not necessarily by talking directly about trans issues. I want to return to my roots. The goal of translife.net back in the day was to show people that trans people are just like everyone else. That remains my goal. I want to bring positive attention to the trans community by simply being awesome. Through that awesomeness, I hope to help people learn about the trans* community.

So here is my pledge to you all: I will endeavor to be more active out there in the trans* community and the world at large. I will strive to open more eyes to the trans*gender community and show people how awesome we all are. And I will strive to never let anything let me be lazy in that goal again.

There will likely be times I need to step away for some recuperation time. If this happens and I'm gone for too long, or if I'm being lazy, I encourage all of you to throw things at me...preferably not sharp or rocky things....because ouch.

So that's where I am. I encourage you to chastise me below in the comments for my past laziness. This will be viewed as encouragement and in no way will I feel judged (yes I will) by your statements. No really...I won't (will). ;) And hey, thanks to everyone that has stuck with me along the way. You're more awesome than I could ever be.