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About Me — Colleen Addison
My life, complete with health problems
I’m supposed to write what? Okay…
I am 49 and can still do a cartwheel. These two facts can never be stated separately.
I was an anxious shy child and am now an anxious, hopefully less shy adult. Current terror: parking. If you see me sitting in my car, it will be because I just parked and needed to decompress.
I grew up in Edmonton, Canada which was then so homophobic that no boy in my high school, if seated in the back seat of a car next to another boy, would do up his seat belt for fear their hands might brush. It was a thing.
An elected official announced that he would hide gay employees in the back of his store and got re-elected multiple times. He was strongly defended in the media.
University was much better. I felt free enough to admit I like both men and women.
Plus, one of my profs taught some of his classes in drag, which in retrospect was impressively brave.
Nope, my family does not approve. “It’s none of our business” is the current line, marking a vast improvement over previous such comments.
I have four university degrees, which seems funny to write after that: was I drawn to this environment? Maybe, though not all my…