It will suffocate your fire.

 

It has taken my entire lifetime to fully accept myself. To know to my core that the person I have become is who I was always meant to be. Without a doubt, the most challenging part of getting here has been accepting truths of myself that run counter to how I was raised and what our culture considers positive. My road journey for the last six years has shown me time and again who I really am. From the inspiring experiences to the frustrating ones, and everywhere in between, each has shaved off more of the fascia of who I was once trying to be. Each notable occasion like a mirror presenting reflections that were often painful and deeply challenging. But, just as often, the reflections left me marveling at what I have traversed and risen above.

I began this chapter of my life rolling west from Ellensburg, WA on the evening of July 31, 2018. I will never forget the feeling of that moment. It was frightening and intoxicating all at once! I felt very floaty and rather lost in the month that followed. It was much easier building up to that huge life change than it was to irrevocably set foot on the path I had chosen. Big challenges rained down quickly in those first few months. The magnitude of what I had done rapidly got heavy. But, there was one thing that kept me consistently positive through that transition. It was the spark of my true self being relentlessly excited about the freedom I was experiencing. Over time that spark became an enduring fire of gratitude and self-acceptance. Neither of which I had ever felt to a substantial degree.

In our culture, people who prioritize their needs to even a modest degree are quickly judged as selfish. I have experienced this many times and at first it was extremely difficult to take. It’s still not easy sometimes! Nobody enjoys being judged. But, here’s the thing where judging is concerned; The more judgmental a person is, the less satisfied they are with their own life. On my travels, some of the people I engage with have very negative opinions regarding my lifestyle. I used to feel like I needed to talk them through it and help them understand so they didn’t walk away thinking ill of me. Nowadays I just feel sorry for the pain and regret they so clearly feel regarding the cages they have built for themselves. I never debate with them. I simply share my story if they want to hear it. In my heart I always hope that they walk away challenged to really think about it once they are alone and no longer feel they have to convince me of my stupidity and selfishness. The majority of the time I experience this it’s with men much older than me. Behind their angsty hubris I see the grief tearing at their guts. The more regret a person carries, the harder it is for them to forgive themselves and get free of it. It breaks my heart when I run across it.

I have truly found that to the degree that you love yourself, you will love others. To the degree you forgive yourself, you will be forgiving and understanding of others. To the degree you accept yourself, the more readily you will accept others without judgment. There is no serenity without granting these things to yourself.  

If you readily judge others in petty ways, I invite you to examine what triggers it and look within yourself for what part of you feels so offended or resentful. There's a chance you are reacting to seeing someone behaving in a manner you yourself would like to behave, but you haven’t summoned the courage to show yourself. I get it, believe me! I was there many years ago. The best way to get free of that bondage is to allow yourself to be vulnerable. It will feel terrible at first, but vulnerability is the foundation of courage and transformation. Every positive aspect of who you are and want to be requires vulnerability in order to fully blossom.  

Thank you Talon 🦝

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou

My son learned to play chess in middle school and naturally took to it. Back in 2017 he tried to teach me how to play, but I didn’t really want to learn at that point. And for anyone who has ever learned chess, you know it is way too challenging to learn if one doesn’t want to! Plus, I was still shoulder deep in the most intense period of personal work in my life. I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to take on learning chess.

I did like playing checkers though, so I painted a checker board on the drop down table on the inside of Hella’s back door. The kids and I played many a game of checkers on it when weather was good and we were hanging out together. A couple years ago I got a bee in my bonnet to revisit chess. I bought a cheap set of chess pieces and surprised Talon with them on one of our hangouts in Seattle a couple summers ago. He lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of them and was thrilled to resume teaching me. It felt great! The challenge of learning the game is real though! It takes loss after loss after loss simply to become a competent beginner. Plus, up until he moved to San Francisco, I would only see him during the summer months when I’d be in Seattle. So, we’d get to play maybe 8 times a year at that rate. I’m currently in San Francisco and get to see him a time or two a week. We generally play at least once every three weeks or so. Sometimes more often and sometimes longer between. Anyway, he is so good at the game that I’ve only beaten him once before yesterday! He was pretty tipsy the time I beat him over a year ago, so that one didn’t really count in my book. But, yesterday I beat him straight up and it was such an amazing feeling! At the end of the day when we were saying our goodnights, I thanked him for the day and the game we had played. He graciously congratulated me on winning the match and without even thinking I responded by saying it was a ‘fluke’ that I had won. That ancient voice of shame just popped right out of me and past my awareness. Here’s where it gets amazing though! Without missing a beat he came back with a firm response of, “Don’t say that, you beat me fair and square. It was not a fluke, you simply out maneuvered me and won.” At the moment I accepted that and hugged and thanked him.

Twenty minutes later I was getting groceries before parking for the night when it hit me hard what he had done. Without having to think about it he saw what I was doing subconsciously and pointed it out to me in a loving and affirming way. He did for me what I have done for him for years. With ease and grace he swatted away the shame that was not mine to begin with and affirmed my worthiness. What is astounding about this is that he and I have had rather parallel paths through similar issues over the last ten years. We have walked and grown through them in very different ways. Yet here we are, both having reached a level of empathy and self-awareness that allows us to extend that sense to those around us. It’s profound to me in so many ways how far my children have come in the last decade. I’ll be the first to admit I could have done a better job as a parent when they were kids. I think just about any parent likely feels that way when their kids are grown and on their own. As we age, hindsight and life experience serve up plenty of perspective on the job we did as parents. I am proud that Pamela and I broke several chains of abuse and neglect that we had experienced as kids. In contrast, our children were protected, loved and cherished, never abused, afraid, belittled, cold or hungry. They were and are, everything to us and will forever be our priority people.

I’d have to say that one of the most profound experiences a parent can have is when their adult child lovingly points something out to the parent that the parent themselves has spent their lifetime instilling in them. To unexpectedly see it in action is stunning and so deeply moving.

It is so true that as we know better we can do better. There is much I could have done better as a dad, but there is also much I did well. It is vitally important to forgive yourself and others so you can invest your energy in stretching and growing. Nobody is a failure who learns from their mistakes and the school of life is never out. Beautiful moments will come along to affirm your growth as you actively strive to do better. And it is most often those closest to us who reflect the state of our true selves in how they interact with us.