Hurricane: This Is Me Trying

Connor,

I've been having a hard time adjusting. Seasons of life are weird, and somehow we're a family of five in five different seasons. Maybe a better word to use is era; I'm not really sure. But I know I'm struggling to adjust in this season, or this era, whatever you want to call it.

In the eye of a hurricane, there is quiet. And that's where I am, son. The storms are all around and in every direction, but for this moment in time there is only quiet.

I had the shiniest wheels; now they're rusting. I had a career that rusted because it was never meant to be. I had another that rusted in order to make way for the next one. And that one rusted because the last two years have been hard. What will be left when the other half of the storm passes?

For just a moment, a yellow sky. And I grew up in hurricane country. My parents grew up in tornado country. This family knows what a yellow sky means, and once you know that, sometimes there isn't much else that needs to be said to set the scene.

I didn't know if you'd care if I came back. Because I almost didn't. I didn't go back to play baseball my senior year of college. I didn't go back to my first wife. I didn't go back to the first two careers, and I almost didn't go back to the third.

When I was seventeen a hurricane destroyed my town. And so at seventeen I left and went to the place that would shape the rest of my life. That would begin the journey of all of those things I didn't go back to and all the things I almost didn't go back to.

I have a lot of regrets about that. The funny part is that "that" changes based on whatever "that" is. Regrets about what I should have done at seventeen. Regrets about not taking the time to heal before moving on. Regrets about how I let the first career break me. Regrets about how I let the second one push me so much it pushed me away. Regrets about what I thought the third career could ever be.

I didn't drown; I couldn't seem to die.

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout. To see what my life had become. To see where I am. To see what I've done.

I wrote my way out; wrote everything down far as I could see. Or at least, I've planned it out in my head. A story, like this one, but way more complex and way more words. An entire book. Multiple books.

Could have followed my fears all the way down. Or maybe I did. I'm not actually sure. I followed them wherever they led me. I look back at the paths I've travelled and I see just how far down I went.

I wrote my way out; I looked up and the town had its eyes on me. Everyone in the arena had their eyes on me, looking down on me face down on the floor.

And maybe I don't quite know what to say. I can usually find the words to write, but when the words you say are so often scrutinized and criticized, it leaves me not knowing what to say. I don't know why people can't understand that sometimes I just don't know what to say.

They passed a plate around. When we lost you, they really did. I still can't believe they did. Total strangers stepped up and gave and loved and supported that summer four years ago.

But I'm here in your doorway. Waiting for you to answer. Waiting for a moment of inspiration. A moment of truth. A moment of kindness. A moment of something.

Total strangers moved to kindness by my story. Well, by your story. Nobody knows my story. Maybe I've laid out some ideas, but maybe I don't even know my story.

I just wanted you to know that this is me trying.

Raised enough for me to book passage on a ship that was New York bound. Just barely enough to cover the new house and the new life that we'd start when your brother showed up. When our family would be whole. As if our family could ever be whole without you here with us.

They told me all of my cages were mental. Because apparently I have choice. Apparently I have agency. They tell me I've had it this whole time, but it's never felt that way. The cages have always felt real. The maze has always felt like it only ever has one path. They told me there was only one solution, and so if there was only one solution, what choices did I ever really have? I guess that's what a mental cage is.

I wrote my way out hell – or into it. I have no one to blame but myself.

So I got wasted like all my potential. Because I could have been almost anything. I could have done almost anything. I've had more fresh starts than I can count, and so far it's all been wasted.

I wrote my way to revolution. The blueprint we'd follow. A revolution in more areas than one.

And my words shoot to kill when I'm mad. Maybe that's why it's better that I'm sad instead of mad. Glad is so fleeting.

I was louder than the crack in the bell. I've never been one to go quiet. And when I accidentally have, the ripples from the cracks are still loud.

I have a lot of regrets about that. All of the times I should have never acted.

I wrote Eliza love letters until she fell. Except we never thought about what it meant that I could do that. What's on the other side of that one?

I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere. Looping around over and over and over again. "Same story, different chapter" just means that somehow the life novel gets longer and more annoying with nothing new in the book. Running so fast it makes a circle, but for what?

I wrote about The Constitution and defended it well. I found the next career for when this one falls apart like all of the others. I planned on law school. I crushed the GRE. I got the scholarships.

Fell behind all of my classmates, and I ended up here. Realizing that I don't have that fight in me. I thought I did, but I don't. Not after everything that's happened.

And in the face of ignorance and resistance, I wrote financial systems into existence. I went back to the third career, the one that I still had. The only thing I still have. I harmonized the models. I integrated the lessons. I found new beginnings. I turned the third career into three different careers. Three new beginnings, all with visions, and all with flaws. Which leaves me in such a weird season, a weird era. Sitting in the eye of a hurricane, bracing for the rest of the storm while hoping that three budding plants can take root and grow. Three new beginnings, each with a piece of one of you three kids in them.

Pouring my heart out to a stranger. Hoping that maybe I can help someone the ways I've needed help. Hoping that maybe I can help someone the ways I still need help.

And when my prayers to God were met with indifference, I picked up a pen; I wrote my own deliverance. I'm pouring out whatever is left of me.

But I didn't pour the whiskey.

-Dad