For twenty years I assumed I was the one in charge, because everybody around me assumed it, and because the first thing I ever read about this described the two roles in a way that made only one of them sound like an adult. I am forty three. I now think I had it the wrong way round, and I have told exactly one person, once, late at night.
North of the river, and my practical experience is thin. Two arrangements, both of which I led, both perfectly fine, and neither of which felt anything like the thing people describe when they talk about it properly.
The platform part matters more than I expected. The place where I have a history has me down as one thing for a decade, publicly, in everything I ever wrote there. Changing that in front of an audience who have known me a certain way is a far bigger act than simply changing my mind, and that is entirely a property of the platform rather than of me.
So I am somewhere anonymous, saying it out loud for the second time in my life.
I would like to talk to people who went the other way later than they should have. Not looking for anybody who wants to demonstrate anything to me this month. Not looking to be somebody's discovery. And not looking to be told I was obviously always this, because I was not, and it has taken twenty years.