In my case the problem was created not by my vagueness but by Daniel’s. But the principle is the same: vagueness about professional status invites assumptions, and assumptions are hard to correct once established. Correct them before they form.
My listing in the Alliance directory was one of the better things I did in those first eighteen months. It was professional infrastructure that I maintained routinely, the way you maintain any professional resource. I updated it when things changed. I refreshed the workshop descriptions when I had new examples. I added references when I had new ones.
That routine maintenance is why Linda Cho found me. It is why I was in a position to say yes when the booking came through.
Systems work. People who build systems for a living believe this deeply and I am no exception. My professional presence was a system. I maintained it. It paid me back.
## The Version of Daniel I’m Working Toward
I want to be precise about something.
I am not working toward the version of Daniel who has completely resolved all of his complicated relationships with work and providing and gender and family expectation. That version is probably not available in this lifetime. Nobody resolves the things they absorbed for forty years in a few months of therapy. That is not how any of this works.
The version I am working toward is the version who can catch himself in real time when the old pattern shows up. Who can notice, at a dinner, that he is about to say something imprecise and choose the accurate thing instead. Who can have a conversation with his uncle Richard about what Rachel does without it requiring effort in the sense of force, though it may require effort in the sense of attention.