I would say that in the past year I have had to begrudgingly admit that I am finally a success of some level, sure.
Life just doesn't care about our aspirations, or sadness. It's often random, and it's often stupid and it's often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought.
You can either grow old gracefully or begrudgingly. I chose both.
When I was a teenager, the way some of these kids out here be actively gay, it would have been ridiculed in the hood. And now the hood is a bit more accepting. Begrudgingly accepting, but definitely more accepting than 20 years ago when I was a little kid. That doesn't mean that anybody should stop fighting for equality just because people are begrudgingly a little more accepting.
The book says [Lincoln in the Bardo],"I really need this sci-fi device of a ghost inhabiting another person. " You say okay kind of begrudgingly. So the structure seemed informed by need and efficiency.