I am not much for celebrating birthdays, though I did enjoy it as a child. Most birthdays meant inviting Bob and Dave May over for dinner and eating chicken my mother had fried in Grandma Stone’s iron skillet. On my ninth birthday Bob and Dave gave me the model car pictured above, a 1959 Oldsmobile. It’s on a bookshelf in my office, along with a green 1960 Ford Galaxy, a red 1964 Ford Galaxy, and a yellow 1964 Thunderbird.

In a lot of ways I was a typical boy. I loved cars, erector sets and chemistry kits, and spent a good bit of every August obsessed with praying mantises. We caught them, built generous sized cages, and fed them grasshoppers. We loved watching them eat the grasshoppers. One year we made the mistake of putting a male and female praying mantis in the same cage. The female ate the male while they were engaged in, shall we say, memorable activities not well understood by ten-year-old boys. That memory stayed with me. But I digress.

A lot of random anniversaries remain in my mind, locked there by the memory gods. My parents wedding anniversary was May 20. This year would have marked their 80th anniversary. They made it to 73 before Mom passed. Dad died six months later. Grandma Stone, my maternal grandmother, was born 139 years ago this coming May 28. She lived into her nineties, as did both of my parents.

Cathy, my former wife, reminded me this morning that today was her mother’s birthday. She would have been 95. She passed away last year, October 12 to be exact. I remembered it was her birthday first thing this morning, before Cathy told me. Today is also the anniversary of one of my “firsts” as Paula. I’m not telling you which one or what year. That’s private. Another is coming up in nine days.

I did my first TED Talk on November 11, 2017. I can’t believe it’s been almost nine years. The talk was released on December 19. I was speaking the next morning at a high school in Littleton, Colorado and watched the talk for the first time when it had fewer than 100 views. To date it has had over seven million views. There are still at least 100 views a day. Last fall there were a couple of months when the algorithm gods were smiling and the talk was back up to 5,000 views a day. Go figure.

I graduated from high school on May 21. The girl I was in love with at the time had turned 18 the day before. Though I was crazy about her, she chose the other guy. I remember the summer they got married, though I do not remember the day.

Cathy and I got engaged on June 22, 1972. I asked her to marry me while we were standing in front of Jackson Christian Church in Massillon, Ohio. Not exactly a romantic spot. One of my closest friends was born in Boulder, Colorado six days later. I always think of my friends as being about my age. Most are much younger than I. I imagine that means something.

The woman I am happily dating now was born exactly 40 days before I graduated from high school, 21 days before I turned 18. That just seems weird. We first held hands when we were at a restaurant where I was eating a wedge salad and shepherd’s pie. Also weird. I remember the date of that too.

The Stone Canyon fire started on the afternoon of July 30, 2024. I was just returning from a run up Stone Canyon Road when it broke out. I was Mayor Pro Tem at the time and spent a good part of that day and the next at the fire station, watching agencies coordinate firefighting efforts. It was like a carefully choreagraphed dance. I was on NBC Nightly News that day, still in my running clothes, covered in sweat, no makeup, hair sticking out like Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons.

The day Cathy and I got married is an easy one to remember, December 31. We were pronounced husband and wife right before midnight.

I remember lots of other random dates, but I can tell I’m starting to bore you.

Three days from now is my 75th birthday. I am hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park that day. I won’t have cell coverage, just so you know. I don’t want you to think I’m rude if you text and you don’t hear back from me.

Seventy-five does not seem nearly as significant as 70 was. I’m not sure why. It feels like 80 will be the next tough one. I mean, I still run six days a week, mountain bike, hike, and fly all over the world speaking and whatnot. That is not likely to change anytime soon.

Every day of this life is holy, sacred, and to be lived for the greater good, including this coming Saturday, May 2. Life is good, and I am blessed on this 29th day of April, in the year of our Lord 2026.

Around seven years ago I went through one of the more difficult experiences of my life. Because of the millions of views of my first TED Talk, I was earning a good living speaking around the world. I was pastoring a new church. Five years after my transition, I was really settling into my life as Paula.

In the midst of this upturn I was suddenly afflicted with internal turmoil. I had a new therapist with whom I was doing EMDR, a rapid eye movement therapy known to heal trauma. The trauma I experienced when I came out as transgender and lost all of my jobs and most of my friends needed to be healed. That was the reason I began EMDR, but as if often the case, it brought up deeper trauma that had been retained in my body.

When we are threatened, the cerebral cortex turns over its functioning to the midbrain – the amygdala and hippocampus. The hippocampus goes into hyper memory mode, though what it remembers is not necessarily what is ultimately helpful. The amygdala helps us respond with fight, flight, fawn, or freeze, depending on the nature of the trauma. Flight is usually the first choice, if the midbrain decides fleeing is likely to be successful. If flight is not an option, we will fight. Fawning occurs when we befriend the perpetrator, prioritizing staying alive over fight or flight.

If the midbrain decides none of those options is available it goes into freeze mode. Freeze mode turns off active memory and in short, prepares you to die without consciously experiencing the death. If you survive freeze mode, you have no memory of the event. Though your mind has no memory of the trauma, your body does. The trauma is held in the body until it is released.

If you’ve ever seen a deer recover after being chased by a predator, you will notice the deer shake and shiver from head to toe. In that physiological response the body is ridding itself of the trauma just experienced. It is literally shaking off the trauma.

Humans have no such automatic physiological way to release trauma. It remains in the body until it can be released, often through therapeutic methods like EMDR, somatic therapy, cognitive processing therapy, or prolonged exposure therapy. I am fairly well acquainted with the first two. The clearest and most understandable book that explains the process of healing trauma is Peter Levine’s Waking the Tiger.

It is one thing to treat people experiencing post-traumatic stress. It is another when the post-traumatic stress is your own. On three occasions when I was in EMDR back in 2019, I left the therapy session without the trauma contained. Containment is a process in which the session is wound down so the trauma does not leave the therapy office with you. One time I went to the home of one of my copastors and literally slid to the ground in tears, completely dissociated. My copastor had no training to know how to deal with that.

On two other occasions I went to a close friend who did intuitively know what to do. She sat with me until I could move out of my dissociation and become regulated. On one occasion that took several hours. I will always be grateful for her presence, care, and nurture.

That was seven years ago. For the last two weeks I have found myself again in a place in which trauma has been triggered and I have found myself dissociating. If you know me at all, you know I am nothing if not controlled. Becoming dissociated is very troubling.

This trauma response arrived with the loss of the mayoral election. I wrote last week about some of the reasons for the loss. Doing a postmortem of the campaign was important, both for me and for other transgender candidates who might consider running for office. But this emotional response was not about understanding. It was about feeling, and the overwhelming feelings were shame and guilt for having let others down.

That has resulted in an inability to concentrate, an avoidance of friends, dysthymia (a generalized malaise,) acedia (spiritual torpor) and a few moments of dissociation.

You might ask why I am writing this. It’s a fair question. Why would I want to invite a few thousand folks to look into the process of my inner workings? The reason is because I know there is a very good chance you too have had a similar experience, past trauma you do not even recognize coming forth in your body via an unexpected trigger. You do not have to run for mayor for this to happen. The triggers that cause post-traumatic stress are many, and often bear little resemblance to the original trauma.

But when they come, you need to care for yourself. Do what you must to get through the day. This is not a time to be concerned about disappointing others. You must take care of yourself. Things began to lift when I left a conference I was attending with friends and cancelled my attendance at another. I felt like I was letting people down both times, though none of them gave me the slightest indication that I was.

As the weight began to lift, I found the strength to attend my last meeting of the Board of Trustees as Mayor Pro Tem. I gave a little speech, focused on helping the incoming board members feel comfortable in their discomfort. It is a big job, and anyone who takes it on without feelings of inadequacy does not understand just how big the job is.

I then attended a party honoring our outgoing mayor, who has become a very close friend over the last four years. I had delightful conversations with folks from town, politicians from the region who have become acquaintances and friends, and others who wanted to celebrate Hollie’s service to the town. I was complimented on how I ran my campaign and encouraged to try again. The trying again part does not sound very appealing, but the evening was very encouraging.

Life is not a problem to be solved, it is an experience to be lived. Sometimes it is a puzzle and a mystery. Some parts of life cannot be solved or even understood. They must be lived, and trusting the flow is a part of the living.

To be clear, I am good, and there is no need to reach out in concern. I have proven to be a very resilient soul. I just thought it might be helpful if I shared my experience with you. As I say at the end of many a blog post…

And so it goes.

There’s nothing quite like running for office. My first term on the town Board of Trustees we did not have enough candidates for an election to take place, so all candidates were seated. There was an election for my second term. I did not start getting nervous until right before election day. I knew the odds were with me, but I still let out a sigh of relief when I knew I had been elected. I ended up serving as mayor pro tem, a decision made by the trustees in their first meeting.

This time the odds are 50/50 and I really have no idea who will win. I’ve been trusting my gut but my gut has not been reliable. Every couple of days it shifts its opinion. Someone asked me at church yesterday if my opponent was formidable. I hadn’t used that particular term, but if formidable means he may well beat you, the answer is yes, he is formidable.

Mark has a lot of institutional knowledge about the town. As a board member he has dug deep into issues and at times brought illumination to the entire board. He is a dedicated volunteer who has devoted countless hours to meeting the tangible needs of others. He is a good guy.

If he is so exceptional, why am I running against him? I’ve worked with Mark on the board for two years. I believe he is a better board member than he would be as mayor. I’ve chaired boards for over half my life. I believe a key to efficient functioning in any organization is good governance. It is my opinion that I will be a more effective mayor than he would be.  As I said in one of the candidate forums, the town is probably in pretty good shape whoever wins.

But back to the election itself. It is flat out strange to realize that in twenty-four hours you will find out if people have made the decision to accept you or reject you. I suppose that happens to everyone who becomes one of the final two candidates in any job search, but in those situations it’s a handful of people making the decision. Here, it is an entire municipality, or at least the voters thereof. Well, a portion of the voters thereof.

Municipal election are notorious for a light turnout, particularly when they are spring elections. There has been a lot of interest in this election, with two candidates for mayor and nine for six open board positions. Still, I will be surprised if we get over a fifty percent turnout. If it was this November, that would be a different story. Most people would agree that things are running pretty well here at the municipal level. When people feel that way, they tend to feel less passionate about voting.

I’ve used the picture on the left above for my campaign. The one on the right, the cover photo of my book, has more of a Mona Lisa feel. The women at my speaker’s agency prefer that picture. They say it gives me gravitas. One of my good friends says it makes me appear aloof. I reckon the truth is in the eye of the beholder.

I am not sure how anyone running for office could avoid taking it personally if they lose. I mean, people had an option and they specifically chose someone else over you. I imagine it drives some people to campaign harder. When I decided to throw my hat in the ring, I had already worked through the whole rejection thing. I would not have run if I would not have been okay losing. People are not rejecting you as a person. They are rejecting you as the elected leader of their community.

It has been interesting that not once have I heard a single word during this election cycle about the fact that I am transgender. I am sure there are people who are not voting for me because of it. But ours is a liberal enough environment that they are not posting about it online. One board member sent a letter to the editor of our local newspaper alluding to it and stating strong support for me. He had sent it to me before sending it to the paper. It was thoughtful and very well written. At least two other newspapers had articles about the election. They did not mention my gender at all.

I am well aware how fortunate I am to live in a place in which my gender identity is not a major issue. For most folks it is an afterthought. As our mayor said, “The fact that Paula is transgender is the least interesting thing about her.” I so wish that is how trans folks in the rest of the nation were experiencing life in their neck of the woods. Being transgender is hard to begin with, let alone navigating life if you are being treated as a pariah by your neighbors.

Would I run for office again? I was ambivalent about running this time. I was strongly encouraged to run by our town staff and current and past board members. I would not have done it without their encouragement. I will be disappointed if I lose, but not profoundly. If I win, I have a lot of hard work in front of me for the next two years. But the pay makes it all worth it. And what is the pay, you ask. It is $700 a month. That’s right – a mind-blowing $8,400 a year. What on earth will I do with those kinds of riches?

I will update this post tomorrow to let you know how things go.