“I’m not going anywhere.”

I’m not going anywhere.

This is one of the most divine things a person can hear. Especially someone, like me, whose nightmare is to be alone. But aren’t we all that way, in the deepest part of the heart at least, where it’s hardest for the light to reach?

I knew that if Robyn and I started dating, I would marry her. We started, and I loved her quickly. I was hers, before the end of our first summer. As summer became winter, I started to get scared. I honest-to-God loved Robyn. And I knew that when we married and had our life together, eventually one of us would pass from this earth. And there was a chance that Robyn would be the first to go, and that I’d be left alone.

The idea of being on this earth without kissing Robyn goodnight is among the most painful realities possible for me. What if? How could it? Would I? When?

By then, Robyn already knew the reaches of my curious and inquisitive mind - both the gregarious dimension of it and the morose. And so she said to me, those divine words that protected my soul from its darkest fears.

I’m not going anywhere.

Really, saying this is a promise. It’s a promise that we’re going to stay. It’s a commitment to companionship and love. Whether we reach the gates of heaven or hell, when we say something as bold as “I’m not going anywhere,” it means we’re there. This word, anywhere, is all-encompassing. When we say anywhere, it means we’re ride or die for someone.

But that’s the catch, isn’t it? The second part of ride or die is just that, die. We can’t control when we die; none of us can. So we know that “I’m not going anywhere” doesn’t mean that we’re going to be here forever. We infer that it means we’re here for as long as we can outrun the reaper.

I’m not going anywhere.

Our sons are at the age where they’re afraid of the dark, afraid to go to bed, or some combination of both. I get it. I slept in my parent’s bed well past kindergarten. I was scared too. Part of me still is.

So we say this to them: “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here. I’ll check on you before I go to bed.”

This is what most soothes them. Because they know we mean it, and they know they’ll be safe because we have the night watch. They know they won’t be alone and they’ll have someone to run to if they have a bad dream or throw up in the middle of the night - because we’re not going anywhere.

But they don’t understand the deal, fully. I can’t tell them, yet, that when I say this I implicitly mean unless I die.

This unsettles me because I am making them a promise that they don’t fully understand. I am running the risk that I will be stolen from them before they understand this. They need me to say it, so I say it. And I mean it, so I say it. And I plan to be here for a long time, so I say it. But I’m always still sending up a prayer every time I speak those four words.

I’m not going anywhere.

When I wake up in the morning, I believe in God. And when I go to bed at night, I really believe in God. This faith is what carried me through tonight.

Robyn is traveling this weekend for our soon-to-be sister-in-law’s bachelorette party. It’s Saturday as I write this, and I’ve been solo parenting since lunchtime on Thursday. The kids are having a really hard time with their mother being away. I can tell, even though they are the same rambunctious, gleeful, hilarious set of brothers that they always are.

It was a boys weekend and tonight was game night. Bo was the last one up today because I let him. And to be honest, I think we needed each other. We are both incredibly emotional. We both feel the sting of loneliness more devastatingly than anyone else in this house. So, I let him stay up later than his brothers, so we could play one extra game. He chose Ticket to Ride: First Journey, probably because it’s the only game where it’s at least 50% likely that he’ll beat me.

After his bath and bedtime story, he started to wig out. He flailed his arms, and contorted his body while sputtering semi-coherent sentences, as if the closing of the book’s cover caused him to be possessed by a wandering ghost. Thank God I wasn’t a train wreck of a father like I was earlier in the day. Next thing I knew, he was clinging to me, he and I on top of the duvet - and he was just clutching me, tight as he ever has.

“I’m never letting go,” he whispered.

This may be the most vulnerable he’s ever let himself be around me. His big feelings scare him, and with Bo, there’s no such thing as little feelings. So I am surprised, and humbled, as he says this.

“I will always be with you,” I replied.

Then my heart started to quicken, and tears squeezed out the sides of my eyes.

“No matter where you are or when it is, part of me is always with you, bud. Wherever I am, I am always thinking about you, mommy, and your brothers. Part of me is always in your heart. I will always be with you.”

This, I suppose, is the way out of this ride or die dilemma. I believe in God, and I believe that I have a soul. And I believe that if I love and pray hard enough, part of me will always be with Robyn, and with each of my sons. I can say those words and actually be telling the full truth. Because even if I die, part of me will always be with them.

And that is the divine element. Because with the help of God, I can say “I’m not going anywhere”, fully, lovingly, and deeply, without any exception.

And that’s where I left it with Bo tonight. I carried him to his room. I helped him squirm under the covers, tucked him in, and told him.

I’m not going anywhere.

---

My new book, Character by Choice: Letters on Goodness, Courage, and Becoming Better on Purpose, is now out in soft launch. I’m so excited to share it and proud of how it turned out. If you liked this post, you might find it a good read. You can learn more about the book here.

What Loneliness Feels Like To Me

I fear loneliness. More than anything. I don’t always mind being by myself as I’m happy to be in my own thoughts or take a long run, but I hate being alone. Loneliness is my darkest place. Isolation is my hell. I will do almost anything to avoid loneliness.

I recently finished listening to Will Smith’s memoir, Will, on audiobook. It’s my third venture into listening to memoirs read by their authors, which has become a bit of a hobby as it’s perfect for washing dishes. I’ve completed A Promised Land (Barack Obama), Greenlights (Matthew McConaughey) and I just started Becoming (Michele Obama). All are excellent.

One of the central theme’s in Will is fear. We must face our fears if we want to thrive. If we want to live a meaningful life serving others, we cannot let fear take the wheel. We have to conquer our fears. There is no other way.

Smith has a unique perspective on fear because of his profession. Fear is central to acting. I’m paraphrasing here, but in one of the passages, Smith describes that how fear helps an actor understand a character. Fear shapes our desires, and our desires influence our behaviors. So to play a character well, and represent their story well, you must understand their fears. Fears are central to their story.

Loneliness, therefore, is central to my story. To understand me, you must understand my fear of loneliness.

Honestly, this is something I don’t even understand. I haven’t been able to go there, even though I’ve loosely acknowledged that “I don’t really like being alone” in my own mind. I haven’t even really spoken about the stories I’m about to share, let alone writing them, until literally right now.

—

What does loneliness feel like?

I’m transported back to my childhood. I remember mental images of pay phones. Lots of pay phones. I always had quarters in my bag - whether it was my school backpack or a bag for dance class or swim practice. I always put the quarters in the outside top pocket - the little one, so the quarters would be easy to find when I needed them.

I used so many quarters calling home. It’s me, I’m done with class. Can you come pick me up? Where are you? When will you be here?

In those moments between a phone call and pickup is when the clock was always slowest. Will they make it in time before the building closes? Will I have to wait outside? What will everyone else think as their parents come, of me just standing here? Will I be the last one picked up? Loneliness was the panicking, the waiting. It was the feeling of being stranded, stuck.

What does loneliness feel like?

At our dance studio growing up, we’d have guest teachers come in for workshops. One workshop that I remember vividly was a partners’ workshop. I was probably 12 or 13 at the time. Every male dancer in the company was assigned a female dancer as a partner for the workshop. My assigned partner’s name wasn’t “Michele” but let’s just pretend it was.

One of my buddies, who was a year or two older than me and admittedly a better dancer, was without a partner. His wasn’t there, she was sick or something. Michele knew my buddy better than me, too.

Michele comes up to me, averts her eyes, and tells me she’s leaving to dance with someone my partner-less friend.

“…his partner isn’t here, and he needs one…so I’m going to go dance with him...”

And there I was. Completely dumbfounded. This workshop was about to start, and my partner just left. What is wrong with me? Am I that bad a dancer? Am I disgusting? What is wrong with me? Am I ugly? Does she think I’m weird? Am I a loser? What is wrong with me? 

Within seconds, I felt the bottoms of my cheeks starting to quiver, which remains to this day the first physical reaction I get when I’m about to start sobbing. I was humiliated, and it’s still one of the worst memories to relive in my entire childhood.

Loneliness was the feeling of being an outcast, the feeling of being discarded. The feeling of being singled out as garbage. Thank God for Miss Carla, my ballet teacher, who saw this transpire and immediately stepped in to be my partner for the workshop, making it so I could pretend like nothing happened. I wish I had thanked her then.

What does loneliness feel like?

It’s so odd, but in addition to these childhood memories, when I think about what loneliness feels like, I can’t help but think about hotel rooms.

My first job out of college was as a business consultant. I still joke that it was a job I was paid too much for. Starting in November 2009, I traveled every week for almost four years. 

The routine was consistent: get up early Monday morning, catch a flight somewhere, drag my briefcase and carry-on to a client site. Then, I would work all day, exhausted from the early morning. When it was finally quitting time, I’d hitch a ride from a colleague in the team’s rental car. Sometimes we’d eat together, sometimes we wouldn’t. I’d usually get a quick run in, and work in the hotel lobby.

And then it would be bedtime. The dreaded bedtime.

I’d walk into the hotel room. It would be dark. It smelled exactly the same as the previous week. Like every hotel room I’d ever been in. The bed would be pristinely made.

But that goddamn bed. Every single week, the bed would remind me that it was just me. I was out here, hundreds of miles from home, with nothing to do but work. It reminded me that I had no partner in life. No girlfriend or wife to call. No children. No kickball game to go to with friends. Nowhere to go. I was just…gone, the only places to belong to were the hotel lobby, and that damn hotel bed. In those days, I worried that I’d always come to an empty home, which wouldn’t be a home at all.

Loneliness feels like the opposite of being home. It feels like being nowhere. Belonging nowhere. Living in nowhere. It feels like what it feels like when I’m in the absence of love. It feels like hopelessness.

—

So many of the choices in my life make sense when applying the lens of loneliness. I have gone to such great lengths to avoid loneliness.

Being a part of every club in school helped me avoid being alone. Trying to be friends with everyone helped me avoid being alone. Joining a fraternity helped me avoid being alone. 

Staying in Michigan after college helped me avoid being alone and apart from my family. Living with roommates until I was married helped me avoid being alone. Living in a City helped me avoid being alone. Having a big family helps me avoid being alone. Having music on in this house helps me avoid being alone.

Even my profession is affected by this fear. I work in the niche of business and management that works on organizations, their performance, and their culture. The nature of my works is in teams, so I never have to be alone. The work that I do helps build teams and companies that thrive - and when teams thrive, nobody else ever has to feel alone.

—

I don’t really know how to conclude this essay, because the story isn’t done yet. I am not the hero of this story. I still fear loneliness. Even tiny little things that happen - whether in our marriage, family, or community - trigger this loneliness. It’s paralyzing, still. It’s dark, still. It’s lonely, still.

One of the other recurring theme in Will is that of the “hero’s journey”. It’s something Smith draws on often in his narrative, because the hero’s journey is the most core of human stories. Basically every great book, and every great movie is some form of the hero’s journey. One of the core elements that makes a journey heroic, is that the hero suffers a terrible fate and must overcome adversity, and their fears.

We are all on a journey. We are all living out our own memoir, in a way. For our journey to become that of a hero, we must face our fears and conquer them. For me, that means confronting and conquering loneliness.

Finding peace with the starved twenties

I noticed something odd this week.

Most of my dreams, which are unfortunately always stressful, take place in my early to mid twenties. I don’t think I’ve dreamt about my kids, maybe ever. I hadn’t noticed the pattern until a few days ago.

Why oh why would my twenties be hiding and lurking in my mind?

Upon reflection, my twenties were a lot like this year. I went days, sometimes weeks, without giving a hug because I traveled for work and rolled by myself most of the time. I had fun hanging out with friends at the bar every weekend, but that rarely led to conversations requiring emotional intimacy.

I always thought my twenties were lonely. And they were, but they were more than that. They were starved. Not of nourishment, but of emotion and spiritual depth. And love.

Upon reflection, my twenties were a lot like this year.

It struck me though that lots of people have to live like it’s 2020, but every year. Can you imagine?

I think it was enough to just see the past clearly and more honestly. The moment I connected the dots, and understood the difference between alone and starved I seriously felt it in my abdomen, right below my sternum; a tension released.

Two nights later I had a dream, and my sons were in it. Imagine that.