Perspective
There is an anonymous troll who annoys the shit out of me. He’ll subtweet me and start arguments and hide behind a fake name with no identity. I’ve fought so often with this loser…
Sometimes I’ll stare at my iPhone scrolling up and down twitter. Falling into rabbit holes. Watching periscope videos of right wing political types critique the tabloid journalism of the left. Or leftist intellectuals smacking down the small-minded right. I’ll click and click and hours will pass…
My wife is very very pregnant with our second child, a boy, and my mom is very very sick.
Being a good father of 1 (almost 2) kids and being a good husband to my wife during these final stages of pregnancy is so much more important than the noise on the Internet.
Spending time with my Mom, who has multiple incurable diseases and whose memory is fading fast is truly priceless and important.
Yet somehow, my priorities often get fucked up by society or technology or what have-you.
We spend our time on so much meaningless shit like writing Medium posts and tweeting and consuming the next piece of content that we can lose sight of what really matters.
My friend shared a story (go read it) on Facebook today about her older brother who died too young at 31. Today would have been his 57th birthday. The story is painful. Beautiful. Gut wrenching. It is a loud reminder that we are blessed with a limited number of days here on the planet.
It also reminded me of my brother who died when he was 20 and I was 7. In the piece, the author grasps for childhood memories of her brother now barely beyond reach.
I can relate. I see glimpses of Jeff with long brown hair and a wry smile walking on his hands (a pretty awesome talent for an older brother). I see him with his hand on my head, arm outstretched as I tried to punch him, my four year old little fists not reaching him as he laughed and we played.
My mom’s memory is now so bad she barely remembers our conversations the following day. She’s in good spirits, but her health has declined immensely over the last two years. I live far away so don’t get to see her enough. Her illness is like a gnawing background torture that is always there that I can’t focus on because there are so many other things going on everyday.
She’ll never get better. It is fucking hard to come to terms with that. I don’t know that any person can, and I sure as hell know that I don’t know how to.
My daughter’s school got cancelled today because they overestimated the snowstorm. I cancelled a bunch of meetings and we got to spend the morning together. I cooked bacon and eggs and made smoothies for her and her mom and we ate breakfast looking out the window at the not-that-much snow. Autumn asked Alexa to “play the What Time is it Song” and we danced. She likes to wear her mom’s high heels and hold my hands and kick her head back and laugh. She’s three going on way more and is the most perfect kid on earth. We pray before meals and she often says: “I love my mom and dad and my family and baby brother. Thank you for my family.” She is generous and kind and smart and divine.
We had some scary stuff happen at the beginning of the current pregnancy but the boy is healthy and due in 7 weeks. My wife is this heroic person who somehow runs a company and supports me through all the shit I write about here on the Internet and especially the things I hide from you people. She is an incredibly strong person who does so many things and keeps a smile and grace about her. She’s the kind of person who shows you she loves you by the things she actually does, not by writing a blogpost about it. She is there when it counts.
And now it counts. Baby number two on the way. My mom sick.
And this here Dad is taking big steps. I’m doing some cool stuff professionally and it is all working. The markets make sense to me, and I am crushing it. There is real momentum in the company I’ve been building for years, and I’m involved in some extremely good entrepreneurial ventures that I will share more about over time.
Perhaps more importantly, my mental health is stronger than ever. I’m meditating twice a day, writing everyday and even watching what I eat. I pray daily.
I’m incredibly blessed in so many ways despite the hardships that life brings to everyone.
I’m not writing this post to complain. I’m writing to share.
I have a theory that the more we share the better we can relate to one another and doing so might make all this life stuff better for all of us. (I even call this Medium collection “Progress through Sharing”).
Anyhow, I’m doing the thing where I spend too much time on the Internet again.
Its time for me to go to more important things. I can hear her laughing.
-DAL
