Recently I wrote a post for my Facebook account wherein I noted that I have, as of 2023, lived in St. Louis, Missouri for nearly 25 years. That is, for me, quite significant. For much of the time I lived here, I have felt like a New Mexico semi-native 'transplant'; but now, after all these years, I also feel [it's about time!] like a semi-native Missourian.
Heretofore, I had been raised in a military family which moved often; we had lived in Dayton, Ohio [where I was born]; Guam; Biloxi, Mississippi; the Azores; El Segundo, California; Belleville, Illinois; Tokyo, Japan; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Wichita, Kansas. And then I had lived for 29 years of my adult life in Albuquerque again.
As a military brat, I had had no 'hometown', in the sense that many people have, where I had spent the majority of my childhood. As a result, I've never had a strong 'sense of place' that is a specific geographical location I think of as 'home'. In contrast, Linda, my significant partner of 16 years [pictured with me in the attached photo], was born in St. Louis and has lived here all of her life -- and though she has traveled around the US and to Europe, she has never had the desire to live anywhere else. This is, for her, 'home' and it always has been.
I arrived in St. Louis in August, 1998 for the purpose of completing my graduate social work education at Washington University [WU], after having attended New Mexico Highlands University for the first year of social work graduate studies. I graduated from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at WU in May, 1999 with an MSW [to add to the MPA (Master of Public Administration) that I had earned at the University of New Mexico in 1978]. I figured that since I had made some connections in St. Louis, I may as well stay here and see if any of those connections would lead to employment. I had the idea [which turned out to be misguided] that with both a MPA & MSW, I would be a very marketable employee.
Hitting An Economic Wall
I was able to secure a couple of short-term contracts, including serving for 8 months as the Project Director of the statewide anti-tobacco smoking coalition. After that, during two years of a fruitless job search, I survived on some basic economic supplement from my family, and on my credit cards [not a very sustainable situation]. In the spring of 2004, my mother died, and I inherited her estate. It was sufficient to allow me to pay off my credit cards and graduate school student loans, and provide me with a modest income. Mainly, I had sufficient funds that I no longer had to worry how I could pay my bills, feed myself or put a roof over my head. In fact, shortly thereafter I bought an older [circa 1920] 3-bedroom house in South St. Louis, which I've owned ever since.
After another 4 years of an equally frustrating search for professional employment, I realized -- given my 'redundant' employment situation -- I had 'enough' income that, with careful planning, I didn't 'have to' get another job to survive. In fact, I now tell people, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that I 'retired' at age 52.
I had 'hit that economic wall' because I was over 50; I was a male social worker in a female-dominated field where most of the nonprofit agencies were directed by women and they appeared to only hire other females; and I had a somewhat sketchy professional employment history [having lived for many years in New Mexico, which even in good financial times has an anemic economy]. In fact, between my childhood-derived PTSD, spending 12 years in post-secondary education, and being only able to aquire part-time temporary employment for many of the years I lived in NM, I only had been 'professionally employed' for 11 years between the ages of 18-52. I had spent many years 'in preparation' for a professional career which never actually materialized.
From an objective perspective, the old adage, "wherever you go, there you are" has applied in my life. I had had a quite difficult time gaining satisfying professional employment in Albuquerque, and continued to have a difficult time finding professional positions in St. Louis. As a result, for quite a large variety of reasons, I have never been particularly successful in the financial acquisition arena.
In Spite of Graduate Degrees Which Turned Out to be Minimally Valuable...
To the extent that I ever had a 'professional career', it had been as a volunteer community organizer and electoral campaign manager. Between 1978-2012, I had worked on 68 Democratic Party electoral campaigns, and had served on over 30 community boards, both in Albuquerque and St. Louis. In fact, since my professional employment WAS so 'sketchy', I often attached a full page of volunteer work to my professional resumes. In was in those positions where I gained most of my organizing and management skills -- a 'boots on the ground' career, as my brother terms it.
I was also, in New Mexico, from 1990-1998, involved in the New Mexico Men's Wellness Movement, and it was as a result of that experience that I founded, in 2001, the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute [MMWI] here in St. Louis [to which this blog is attached]. Following the acquisition of my MSW in 1999, I had completed a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management at the University of Missouri-St. Louis [UMSL], which taught me how to set up my own nonprofit organization. Though I had great hopes that I could bring the perspective of men's wellness to this city, the nonprofit has never actually been particularly solvent; staffing it all alone, and failing in spite of great effort to find funding for MMWI, it has largely continued, as a fledgling nonprofit, to 'marginally exist' as an online website, this Blog, and the MMWI Facebook page. The many services which I had hoped to fund and staff have never materialized. Such is life...
On the other hand, when I returned to Albuquerque in the spring of 2004 to attend my mother's funeral, several of my close personal, professional, and political friends noted that I had never been particularly satisfied in New Mexico, and hence they encouraged me to remain in St. Louis, where I had so many more activities to engage with [cultural events, universities, 'a larger playground'] and which, being in the center of the nation, allowed me more opportunity to travel. Upon that well-meaning advice, I returned to St. Louis, and decided to 'put down some roots' [which is when I purchased a house here].
In Comparison to Albuquerque, St. Louis is Bursting with Cultural Activity
Having been a member of the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque from 1986-1998, as soon as I arrived in St. Louis in 1998 I become a member of the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, whose founding minister had started Washington University in 1870. I have, in the 25 years I've been a member there, served in many different capacities, on multiple church committees, as well as being a co-founder of the Holy Ground Collaborative, a 7-congregation interfaith organization based in the Central West End.
Beginning in 2000, after completing my MSW at WU, I started ushering at The Sheldon Concert Hall. Soon thereafter, I also became a volunteer usher for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Edison Theater at WU, Jazz at the Bistro, The Black Rep, and the Touhill Performing Arts Center at UMSL. It was a great way to engage in community service and see a wealth of cultural events for free, which, given my modest income, was helpful to my financial bottomline! Within the first couple of years, I had seen vastly more concerts and theatrical productions in St. Louis then all of the 29 years I had lived in Albuquerque. As a close friend, from the men's movement in New Mexico, said to me, "moving to St. Louis was critical for you, since you were starving for cultural stimulation in Albuquerque."
Emotionally St. Louis Has Been 'Just What I Needed'
I had been in mental health psychotherapy since 1982, in an effort to cope with, and recover from, the traumatic sexual, physical, and emotional abuse perpetrated by my parents. A major result of that abuse was that, until my late 30s, I didn't feel like I had any value, to myself or in any of my intimate relationships, unless I was being sexual. In 2015, I took a Video Editing Class at KETC, PBS Channel 9 here in St. Louis, and produced a short video, entitled "Achieving Intimacy After the Devastation of Male Sexual Child Abuse", which spoke to that traumatic outcome
I've addressed that abuse in quite a number of the articles posted, over many years, on this MMWI Blog, so I've already spoken to much of the background of that abuse and its PTSD results. The aspect that I want to address here is that, until the age of 56, I had never manifested an intimate heterosexual relationship that lasted more than 10 months. I kept encountering one female after another [with a notable few exceptions] who wanted to share their emotional pain, which I was more than willing to listen and empathize with, but when I 'took my turn' and started to tell them about my trauma, they simply would not allow me to share that with them. As Mark Robinson, my therapist of 20 years in St. Louis, whom I interviewed for the KETC video, noted "Most women want to have emotionally accessible relationships with their male partners. The problem is if he has experienced any kind of significant emotional trauma where she sees him as not being strong, capable or competent, that's going to damage her sense of who she needs or wants him to be." Therefore, the question becomes, for her 'is she more attached to who he is authentically, or what projection of maleness she wants to engage with'.
I was also, from the age of 25 forward, very motivated by the feminist movement. In fact, I was thrilled about the perspective of many feminists who stated that they very much desired an equal, mutual relationship with their male partners. However, much to my profound dismay, in too many of the dating relationships that I was engaged, there was, if anything, a very UNEQUAL balance in the interaction, and I found myself, often, the partner who was subjected to an excessively unequal expectation by the women I was dating. When I would post singles ads in the local publications, I would always stress that I was seeking a feminist partner. And I would, indeed, meet a lot of women who 'said' they were feminists...but who, in fact, expected their male partners to pay for the relationship, unilaterally protect them, be the primary lover, and make and take responsibility for most of the decisions. That surely didn't feel like equality to me!
Finally, though, in 2008 I met and began dating Linda here in St. Louis. Though she didn't call herself a feminist, she was the most devotedly feminist woman I had ever met. She, like myself, was very focused on having a friend and [eventual] lover, and was quite willing to equally share all the expenses of dating. I was in seventh heaven! And we've been together, in a mutually respectful intimacy, since then. After the first year of dating, the relationship 'surpassed' a record I'd never achieved before. We've now been together for 16 years -- and both of us are invested in manifesting the intimacy till the end of our days. We have achieved, and continue to manifest, a "co-creation of mutually shared intimacies". I often laugh with her that I had to not only engage in many years of psychotherapy to be ready for a long-term relationship, but move to a different state to find the kind of woman who also desired the kind of mutually equitable, respectful relationship that I had wanted all of my life. We have been and continue to be very emotionally healing for each other.
Hence, While the MSW Didn't Result in Employment...
Coming to St. Louis has turned out to be, for reasons that I could not have imagined when seeking to leave New Mexico in 1998, a most positive endeavor. While, as noted above, the social work graduate degree turned out to be of minimal value [I was only able to earn as much in income as the degree cost me in tuition and related expenses], many other quite positive outcomes, for the betterment of my life, were manifested.
• I have matured, emotionally, quite a bit. I had access to excellent psychotherapy.
• I have had a very rich cultural life.
• I've owned a home for the past 19 years.
• I found and manifested a very stable, mutually loving relationship with an intelligent, vivacious, female artist partner.
• I've had, for the past 19 years, a stable income which allows me to have an adequately comfortable life, wherein I can pay all my bills on time, and have an excellent health plan.
• I have access to excellent doctors and a first-class healthcare delivery system.
• I've been in a city what allowed me to easily add to my philatelic and media collection.
• Via my Unitarian congregation, ushering, political campaigning, serving on community boards, engaging in antiracism work, and 2 years of informational interviewing, I have made quite a number of connections in the metropolitan area. Via Linda, I've had access to many great friendships with other St. Louis residents. Which, in itself, is quite an accomplishment -- people who aren't 'from' St. Louis largely know other people who are not from here, while locals mainly know locals who have lived here since childhood. Being able to bridge that gap has allowed me to get to know others locally..
Finally, I Realize, I Am 'Home'
At the age of 71, St. Louis is now, after a quarter century, 'home' for me. Unlike many transplants, though, I haven't remained here due to being employed, but rather out of choice. When I visit New Mexico, as I attempt to do every couple of years, I feel a bit 'out-of-place', as well as having to fight off the 'old feeling' that I had, when living there, of 'disabling frustration'. But I know that I'm only a visitor now, and have another 'home' in St. Louis.
As Linda often reminds me "home is where the heart is", and my heart is here in River City.
