It’s a puzzle that I lost the pieces to make whole.

One thing they don’t teach you in school—or in the media world where I learned most of what I know—is how to reconcile the past with the present.

Somehow that question led me to a bar with karaoke that started with Disney songs, moved into the most vulgar and aggressive sermon I’ve ever heard, and ended with a room full of half‑awake strangers singing an a cappella version of “Closing Time.”

Today began very differently. I woke up early, pulling myself out of a dream and into a reality I’m still struggling to accept and understand.

For years, I hated my life. My job. My situations and situationships. My problems and my prospects. I had people around me, but my personal economy of worth was, frankly, wrecked.

I had structure, but I kept missing the mark—at work, in relationships, everywhere. Still, I had people.

Now I’ve lost a lot of that structure. I’ve lost important people. I’ve failed in relationships in ways that can’t be fixed right now, and maybe can’t be fixed ever. And yet, for the first time in a long time, I have things I’m genuinely proud of. 

I have a job I love. I have prospects. I’m pushing toward new creative and event‑driven projects. I’m putting myself out there instead of just getting by. 

I’m in the most functional relationship I’ve probably ever had. It only took me until forty‑five to figure out how to be that person.

But the failures—jobs, relationships, timing, all the moments where I didn’t figure it out soon enough—don’t disappear. Some can’t be repaired.

I’m visiting family in Arizona with my dad, my brother, and my girlfriend. It’s been great. A genuinely good vacation. And still, my brain can’t stop circling the shadows in the room. 

I haven’t always been a good son. I haven’t always treated my dad with respect. I’ve been mean. Even if things are good now, the old stuff hangs there like frozen meat in a cooler I can’t stop punching.

I wasn’t a good brother either. I was so self‑absorbed I didn’t notice anything. My brother never came to me for advice when we were kids. That means either I had nothing to offer or I made him feel like he couldn’t come to me. That sticks.

Even though things are good now—better than they’ve been—we’ve all worked on it, and we’re still working on it, those shadows sit at the edge of my mind and poison every good feeling I have. It’s unfair. It’s human. And it happens anyway.

And then there’s the person I pushed away twenty‑six years ago by ghosting before ghosting even had a name. I was so wrapped up in myself I couldn’t even write a goodbye letter. 

Somehow she’s back in my life now, and maybe that’s the thing that makes me believe in God again—but not fully, because we still have a lot of unresolved history. All my relationship failures, most of my own making, all my communication breakdowns, all the selfish impulses I didn’t know I had but definitely indulged—they make me fear that I’m poison.

The overarching problem is the one everyone faces: how do we reconcile the present with the past and still believe in the future. 

How do we stop punishing ourselves for the mistakes, the missed chances, the shame that haunts us, without letting it ruin what’s good right now.

These five days with family have been great. But every night when I try to sleep, I think about the people who aren’t here. The failed relationship with my children, now adults. The fact that my mother is gone. The things I don’t get to fix. 

I push it away, take a walk, try not to let it ruin the moment—but I also don’t want to forget it, because it’s true. It’s real. And the worst part is that I can’t rationalize a way to fix it. I can’t accept it.

Which, in a ridiculous chutes‑and‑ladders way, brings me back to karaoke.

I walked in and people were screaming—well, singing—“I Hate Myself for Loving You.” Later someone did “Friends in Low Places.” And then there was the woman who had the worst karaoke experience I’ve ever seen, and yet the one I understood the most. 

She requested an eight‑minute worship song, and we all got eight minutes of therapy instead. It turned into a sermon, then a grievance, then something like a chaotic musical monologue. At one point she used words I don’t even know how to repeat. She was struggling. And there I was, just trying to decompress, while her trauma milkshake splattered across the entire bar.

It wasn’t enjoyable. Some of the words were indefensible. But I understood it. She was everywhere at once—emotion, memory, pain—pouring it out in a way you don’t usually hear on a karaoke mic. 

I’ve been going to karaoke for twenty‑seven years and I’ve never seen a host take the mic to argue with a singer about just singing the song. But in a lot of ways, it felt like my inner brain made visible. Messy. Uncomfortable. Borderline inappropriate. But honest. You could hear her consciousness spilling out.

And it reminded me: life is messy. Life is hard. Life gets worse when people die or when people decide they don’t want to be in your life anymore, even when they have valid reasons. 

But sometimes people don’t leave. 

Sometimes they come back. 

Sometimes they keep trying.

And just like that woman who turned karaoke into her personal pulpit and therapy session, that’s what it means to be human. We don’t get clean endings. We don’t get consistently happy stories. We don’t get what we expect. 

Sometimes you find yourself identifying with the person having a psychological breakdown in the middle of a praise song at karaoke, and that’s ok. If a bit awful in the moment. 

Like putting a puzzle together when you know you’ve lost some vital pieces. 

Take a walk

 About a month ago my truck wouldn’t start. It made me spiral. I didn’t know why. I didn’t have the money to fix it. But it was safe in a garage and I had planned my life to walk here before I was lucky enough to have a vehicle. 

For the last month I have been forced to walk more. To work, to the store, to go out. 

I have found it is the best thing that could have happened. 

When the truck broke, I began to spiral, so much of my personal freedom has always been tied into having a vehicle. 

Getting a license is a rite of passage. It is the first time as a youth you can have self determination. It is a societal demand, a badge of honor and a badge of shame when you can’t drive. 

The American dogma loves the car, the truck and all that it entails. You aren’t a real adult if you don’t drive. Jobs that don’t even need you to drive will not hire you if you can’t drive. They don’t trust you can make it to work without a vehicle. 

I felt a lot of shame when the truck broke and I couldn’t immediately fix it. 

But then in the midst of my spiral. I started walking again. 

Walking was a big part of me surviving during COVID and unemployment. I went almost 4 years without a car. No cost of insurance, garage, gas all that. 

But I saw so much of the world different when I started to walk. I slowed down and saw things differently. 

In the last month I have discovered that again. I moved here thinking I wouldn’t have a vehicle. I picked my apartment thinking I wouldn’t have a vehicle. 

In the last month I have seen more of my local community through walking than I did in the 13 months of driving. 

It has reminded me how the simple act of walking is a natural therapy. It provides perspective, exercise and peace. 

I am a better me after a walk. After seeing all the vilification of technology and screens over the past several decades, I think that we as a society have missed the point. 

The screens are the red herring. The inherent problem is that we stopped moving, stopped being physical beings, became click and stick. 

I have been better for the walking in the last month. I need to walk. It helps me regulate my darkness, my chaos and makes me breathe. 

Maybe. Maybe. It’s not technology that is killing us. But our lack of connection to being a physical being. Take a walk. See the world that you can’t see when you’re paying attention to the road. 

Forget the shame of shiny vehicles and status. And just take a walk. 

Random Mondays it hurts more.

Grief is a horrible and variable thing. Often you think that you can plan for it, certain days, holidays, anniversaries. These are things you can see coming and plan for the emotions that will likely follow. You don’t always succeed but you know it’s coming. So that’s something. 

For me the worst days are the unexpected. Maybe a random Monday. Like today. Sometimes it’s a fun moment, like a story or moment you want to share with Mom because you know it would make her smile or laugh. Sometimes it’s a confused brain moment, thinking we need to let mom know we are running behind so she doesn’t worry. 

What I have learned is that the worst, the thing that hurts the most, the moments that wreck me are more subtle. They aren’t anniversaries or special dates, they aren’t holidays. They are the moments that I need my mom the most. 

The moment when I want to call her. Just to tell her what I am going through. The times I need her to listen, to give advice, to challenge me or support me. 

Mom and I were a lot alike. And I could drive her insane with my attitude, actions and questions. She could influence and infuriate me with her responses and her patience. 

It sometimes, more than I want to admit, got messy because I got messy. Often she would listen and love even if she didn’t understand. She seemed to innately know when to push back and when to wait for me to wear myself out like a child than doesn’t want to accept the reality of sleep or reality itself. 

I tried to embrace calling her more toward the end and I will never forgive myself for not calling more most of my life. I had this incredible resource and I foolishly thought it would always be there. 

I would give anything to be able to call my mom today. To tell her my thoughts, my fears and my frustrations. And I know I would be better for it, just to have that outlet. To know my mom was listening and there. 

She might not agree or always trust my thoughts, actions, she didn’t always have solutions or the right thing to say. But she was always there. And she always was willing to listen. 

That is such a powerful thing that I miss. 

Call your mom if you can. Please. 

Chaos in the Memories

Today was a day of chaos and memories. 

A mess of thoughts and past realities. 

I visited a place I idealized and found echos of the ideal and realities that subterfuge that ideal. 

I stood in a funeral home alone with a body for 10 minutes. 

It was a different type of visitation. 

Yet in a city I was born in. Of which I have flawed and imperfect memories. 

Sharing space with a body in a weird space between now and then felt very…

Normal? Comfortable? Ok? 

This man was loved in life. His accomplishments on a table. Yet in some weird moment of timing. It was just me and him. 

A man I didn’t know. But who I had come to mourn through family obligation. Not obligation then duty. It’s a fine line. 

I was warmed by the way this many was spoken of, the way his family and friends wrote and told his story. 

Here in this place that I have such connection to, but not hold on, this place that my memory of has had a hold on me. 

It was a ridiculous juxtaposition. Me returning to my place of birth to walk into a place of death. A funeral home. A visitation. In so many different ways. 

He seemed peaceful in his repose. I aim for that level of comfort in reality some day. 

Fighting the Battle Lost the War

 There was never a Reichenbach Falls moment when I failed. My failure was so many smaller moments that built on each other time and time again to create an environment that I could not survive the cumulative effect.

I lived my life thinking I could fight any battle I thought when it came to my Reichenbach Falls moment I would survive. But like much of my life that was hubris and ego and foolish.

By telling myself that it would be one cinematic thematic moment that I would have to survive. I miss that reality is a series of Reichenbach Falls not true epic moments, but 1000 tiny moments - That build together to create a waterfall that you can’t cannot overcome.

I was thinking I was fighting a battle that led to a climax. I was blind to the fact that the battle is 1000 tiny moments. 

1000 tiny battles that all add up to something that is so much more important than a singular moment. 

You don’t lose the war in a climactic battle you lose the war in all the tiny battles you lose along the way. 

I thought I was building to an epic climax to a battle that would end no battles. 

Yet in it I lost every battle along the way till I found I had nothing to fight for anymore

Fighting a losing Battle.

 I am many things. I’m not all the things she told you. 

I am many of them. Most of the worst things. 

But she’s something. 

She’s only ever loved one person. Who took advantage. And still holds a power over her. 

It’s why when she choose someone else, they reminded her of him, of Mordecai. 

Her one and only true love. Unrequited perhaps. But never forgotten. He was the specter I would never live up to. 

Then she found a new one. Closer to him. More her style. 

And I lost my shit. 

She went to Ireland with him. Twice a trip I was told we couldn’t do together. But she found her Mordecai proxy. 

Then when I felt hurt. It was my own fault. It was my ego. 

For years she refused any social interaction. But when the false Mordecai was involved, she was all about it. 

I came to believe that my wife hated me for not being the man she really wanted and that she found a placeholder. 

And I did everything wrong. 

As she emotionally cheated with this proxy of the only man she has ever truly loved. I did worse. I stepped out. 

I fell in love with someone else. Who didn’t use me as a proxy for the man who manipulated her. 

I was wrong.

The details don’t matter at that point. But the truth any became clear. She immediately called my family. Not her own who didn’t have the ability to actually support her. They would have tried but she knew which cupboard had the butter. 

Maybe that was the plan all along. Milk this family and then find another man she can’t “commit” to due to the trauma and milk his family as well. 

Always keeping open a legal door even though she said we should split it all even. And then milk what ever she can at the last possible moment. 

She never felt valued because at an early age she was told her sister and her cancer was the priority. So she spent the rest of her life working what ever system she could to get what she needed. 

It’s not evil. It’s just pragmatic. But it was never love. Well maybe the love she had for the one who would never love her back, Mordecai. He who wouldn’t even kiss her when he demanded her affection. 

The time will come when she will demand from you like her parents who can’t support themselves demand from her. 

At that moment I hope you cut her off like you have me. 

Let Uncle Mordecai finally step in for the shit he has created. 

You’d love Matlock

So MOM, there’s this show that just came out and it’s new and different but also kind of the same. It harkens back to a show of the past Matlock, with a bit of murder she wrote. I’m not sure if you would love it but I think if you just watched it you connect with the clever logic as storytelling. 

I don’t know if you get signals or streaming where you are now but I would’ve loved to watch it with you. It feels your style. It feels the type of show that you would love and love it as much as I love it. It also hurts because I can’t watch it with you.

There are things in life that I want to you to  and see that I can’t imagine you having to deal with and there are things that I want you to see that you’ll never see. 

 I think this is why we hope and pray the after life. One of the hardest things about grief is loss. We want to share with those we value the most. We have stories to tell. 

I don’t know if you get streaming or signals where you are now but I’m going to pretend you do. So let’s watch the new version of Matlock. 

I spent so much of my childhood saying, “Mom look!” it’s a hard reality to have that fall on ears that can no longer hear. 

But I watch a show a moment that reminds me of you and in some way, that’s a momentary balm.