Harvesting Your Garden

Sunday morning brings fond memories of a wonderful Saturday filled with activities.  Attending the Transgender conference at the Philadelphia Convention Center for the first time I experienced the magnitude of the LGBT community both in size and in age dispersion.  We have an opportunity to pave the way for the youngsters among us; those who are more open about their life.  Mentorship, leadership and guidance can facilitate their navigating the channels of their pathways to adulthood and a full and rewarding life.

Traversing my transgender landscape, yes it’s a landscape because we can cultivate, plant, tend, trim and harvest through our words and actions.  Yes, like farmers, we have little control over the weather, climate and market forces that impact the fruits of our labor.  Every planted crop will not successfully harvest. Every plan, regardless of how thoughtful, will not yield intended results.  But we don’t succumb, we don’t surrender.  We forge and toil until we can gather and enjoy our handiwork.

Setbacks are more common than not.  Not everyone is developing the same landscape. Each takes our personal approach.  Some plant small gardens, others a full field.  For the benefit of the younger and yet to be birthed generations, we must be conscious of every gesture.  One bad decision will spawn many progeny.  One good decision will foster acceptance.  But remember, just as a farmer would not do something thoughtless to budding crops (stunting their growth or killing them), we will be hard pressed to recover from ill-conceived words or actions.

The good and bad are not contained to your field.  If you introduce an invasive insect to address one type of weed in your garden, that insect may benefit your crop but will leach onto adjoining farms and may be a destructive force for your neighbor.  And as we’ve seen throughout history, once good turns to bad, propagation is almost inevitable.

All this to say, what you do isn’t about your life only.  Actions, words and deeds irrefutably have lasting impact on those around us and who succeed us.

I’m in this for the long haul.  If you are tilling the same dimensioned field, let’s connect so we can help each other and learn from our experiences.  None of us has cornered the market on absolute intelligence and perpetually reliable information.

Have a wonderful say.

Love and hugs, Nikki DeCaro