Life

Ever had a conversation with your child how we all make mistakes in life? Well, I have had it twice now in 24 hours.

Yesterday, my oldest got frustrated and called some of his classmates a not nice word. The text he sent me was apologizing and saying that he was a disappointment. I realized that in that moment, he needed to be reassured that he was not and that things would be ok. And they were.

We talked when he got home. We made a plan for how and what he was going to say when he apologized, then we left for his baseball practice.

Well, this morning, I had to use the phrase we all make mistakes in life, especially adults.

Last night, well let’s just say that it was not a good night.

I took my son to his practice, met up with a fellow teammates dad for a beer and wings and while there, I saw a text message from a “friend” that triggered me. It really put me in a bad place mentally.

On the drive home, my son said something and I went off. I was frustrated at someone else but my son caught the blunt of it. I was so out of sorts that by the time my wife met up with us, I was frustrated with her and taking out the text message on her. I could not get out of my own way.

This morning, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. knowing that I needed to apologize.

I knew what I needed to say and how I needed to say it. But it sucked.

I felt like a disappointment.

I felt like a bad dad and a poor role model.

I felt sick to my stomach.

But when I woke my son up and I apologized and started with we all make mistakes in life and I messed up bad last night. I was upset with someone else. I was hurt by someone else and the last person in the world that I wanted to hurt, was him and my wife.

I am still replaying last night in my mind. What I said. What I should have done. But I could not get out of the cycle.

This morning my son out of the blue texted me, while I’m sure that he was in class, to let me know that he loved me.

We all make mistakes in life, but it is what we learn from them and how we improve ourselves that makes the difference.

Read more

It is truly hard for me to say this, but I made a mistake recently in my career and though it is not the end of the world, it comes with a price.

Now, what could be so bad to admit that I had made a mistake? Simply put, I should not have changed jobs. Or at least, I should have held out for a different one. But there were reasons why I changed when I did and why I went with this role. I went in thinking that this was a good fit, but the reality is very simple, it is not the best fit.

Having worked for the last 11 years with the same organization, I felt that it was time to change but in reality, it just was not the change that I needed to make. So I have been in contact with other organizations and hope to turn this mistake into a positive change.

Today, I am grateful for the decision that I made and the opportunity to learn from my mistake, but at the same time, I am ready for a new change. But as I told the boys, mistakes will be made, but the bigger challenge is what can be learned from the mistakes?

Read more

A few days ago, I proclaimed that I was taking charge of my life again!

This past year has taken a toll on my physically, emotionally and mentally and honestly, I have struggled. I have struggled with gaining weight. I’ve have not worked out in the last few months like I have in the past or needed to do so.

And at the end of the day, I have to be here for my family. I have to be the one that is here for my kids, when/if my wife’s brain cancer returns.

So I made the decision last week to resign from my job and focus on them. It wasn’t an easy decision, but one that was necessary for myself and my family. But it was a decision that had to be made.

In life, time is limited, but it is what we choose to do with that time. And I’m choosing to take back my life. I am choosing taking charge of my life again. But more importantly, I am choosing my family first, which is something that I have not always done.

To leave my job, was really a difficult decision for me, as I have been with the organization for 11 years. But the reality of it is, even though I struggled, I knew the answer. I wanted to protect my team and those that reported to me, but my team is also my family and they need me just as much as my team at work does, if not more.

Rarely have I put myself first, but today, I am doing just that. I am committing to working out daily and taking better care of myself. I’m going to ride the Peloton, do a mix of Yoga, Stretching and strength training and I look forward to walks in the morning, as it turns cooler. Today, right now, I have to plan on an unknown. I have to prepare for a life without my wife and being a single father.

With the help of some of my closest friends, who will keep me accountable, I’m taking charge of my life and committing to being a more present and less focused father and husband for my family. Because they are the team that I have to focus on first.

Read more

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been asking my friends for life lessons that would give themselves when they were 18 or 21 based off of what they know today. I have to say, one important life lesson, pick your friends that have a close value and moral compass as you do, because their responses were not much different than what I have shared with you both.

Here are a few examples of life lessons that they shared:

  • Take your education more seriously in high school. And realize the impact that it will have for your future both with college and your career path.
  • Consider doing a job that you want to do, not settle for what you have to for financial reasons.
  • Talk with your parents more and listen to their advice, head their warnings and learn from their experiences.
  • Travel and learn about the world and people that live there.
  • Form your own opinions and don’t relay on others to tell you what and how to think.
  • Think about your retirement today! Save as much as you can today, so that you can retire and enjoy your life.
  • Do not pass up an opportunity!
  • Learn from every experience, good or bad!
  • Do not be afraid to think outside of the box.
  • You don’t have to be drunk or high to have fun!
  • Call your mother often.
  • Do not hold back and ignore the opinions of others.

I’ll add a few more of my life lessons as well:

  • Life is not fair, realize that now. It makes it easier to handle things as you grow older.
  • Focus on the positives in life, if you focus your attention on the negative things, it will only drag you down.
  • Find 5 really close guy friends, trust them and they trust you. Form a friendship that you can talk with them about anything from money to women to cars to sports and any and everything. Trust me on this one.
  • As stated earlier, save as much as you can. And hire a really good financial planner. Lucky for you, I’ve already got you one. But make sure that you listen to their advice and guidance when it comes to money.
  • Do not get sucked into credit card debt. Like quick sand, it is easy to fall into and really hard to get out of it when you are in the pit.
  • Find the love of your life and when you do and you will know, don’t let her go!
  • Trust your gut instinct, rarely will it lead you astray.
  • Spend time with your grandparents and family.
  • Find a hobby that you enjoy doing.
  • Remember that at night when you go to bed, when you drop your pants, you drop your worries.

As I write then out, I wish that i had done many of these things, especially as it pertains to spending time with family and saving for your future.

Read more

I had a moment last night of breaking down and I realized, that it is ok to be sad. Strange right? That we have to give ourselves permission to be sad.

This past year has been hard, painfully hard. As a family, we have dealt with the loss of family members, my wife has had multiple surgeries now and right, a pandemic. And we are still living through the pandemic, a year later.

I had a little bit of a meltdown last night. Reality just hit me and hit me really hard. I have not seen my parents in over 14 months. 14 months! Even when I lived in Texas, rarely did I go more than 6 months without seeing them, so this has been a rough year.

As I sat on the kitchen floor, crying, I explained to my wife, that she can see her Dad whenever she wants. I don’t get that luxury. I can not get a hug from my mom and let her tell me that life is going to be alright or not. And I realized in that moment, that it is ok to be sad.

We have been through a lot, but even though we have gone through a lot we are still beyond blessed. We do not know what the future has in store for us, but we will face it together. There will be laughs and a lot of tears in our future.

I am starting to understand more so throughout the days, that it is ok to have grace with ourselves and others and it is ok to be sad too. They do not mutually go hand in hand, but they are both mutually important.

Read more

I’ve been asked a lot recently when do I get a break and the reality is, I don’t. I can lie and say that I do, but the reality is that I do not.

We have been faced with a lot of challenges lately as a family with my wife now having had her 3rd surgery in four months and it has been hard! Really hard!

But, there has been a lot of good that has come from it as well and has been something that I have been able to really point out to the boys.

There have been a lot of teachable moments over the course of the last four months, one starting with and continuing with the point that life is not fair. It just is not and that is a fact. But as I remind the boys daily, we have choices.

We can choose to get down on our luck and frustrated or we can choose to realize how blessed we are and have been.

And then last night, after getting my wife home from her shoulder surgery a friend asked me, when do I get a break, because he was genuinely concerned. Reading the text message stopped me in my tracks, because I do not really get a break. I do, but rarely.

I force myself to ride the Peloton for at least 30 minutes a day, do 10 minutes of stretching and at least 5 – 10 minutes of meditation a day. But that is about it.

The pandemic has really forced me to stop and realize what is important. I no longer want a long commute to work, I really didn’t want it when I was doing it, but I really do not want one now. I want more family time, I crave it more than ever before. And what I am realizing, is that in that family time or when I am on the bike, I am getting a little break.

Life is truly about perception. What one might view as not getting a break, another might realize, that they are getting many little breaks. So I try to remind myself, that everyone views life through different lenses. I myself, have struggled with finding the good in a bad situation, I admit it. Now, I am forcing myself and teaching my sons that even though life can be a struggle sometimes, there are many positives there too.

So today, as I took the week off to take care of my wife and spend time with my boys, I am choosing to take a break. I have to check emails periodically and I am getting non stop text messages, both from friends, family and work, I am choosing what I want to respond to. And though this isn’t a relaxing break, none the less, I am taking the time to focus on my kids, take care of my wife and to relax some.

So this morning as I responded to my buddies text from last night about when do I get a break, I told him that I was on the bike and taking my first break of the day. It is all about choices. It is all about forcing yourself find the good in a bad situation. I am choosing to take a break from social media and the noise. I have chosen to delegate work to my team. Today, I am choosing to take a break!

Read more

Our lives over the last few weeks our lives have been centered around this simple thought: Hope & Fear & Uncertainty, and it feels that literally all at the same time. That seems to be our life right now. And the the uncertainty of it all is driving me beyond crazy.

Hope is simply defined as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Hope, is what we are basing our lives and decisions on now. Hoping for positive test results. Hoping that the brain tumor does not return. Our plan is that we live today as if were our last and that tomorrow we are given another day to try to live the best life that we can.

Fears are defined as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” Well, there is a lot of pain that has already been caused both physically as well as emotionally and mentality because of the brain tumor. But we are trying not focus on the fear of the unknown. But fears can lead one down a tough path and the loss of focus to important things as well, like focusing on what we have today.

The uncertainty that we face, each and everyday has been tough. Talking with medical providers, both one’s that my wife is under their care or friends that we know. And the answers seem to very. And if anyone does a google search, well we all know how that can go too. But the feeling of uncertainty is real. It is scary. And it is a valid feeling.

All of these feelings are valid, hell, they all interchange at some point in time.

As we have started to transition from the scary feeling of the seizure to brain surgery and the removal of said brain tumor. We now move into “what is next?”

And the answer is simple, we don’t know. No one does.

Does that mean that the tumor will return, well, there is a greater chance that it does than it does not. That is just a fact. And if it does return, there is a greater chance that it comes back as a higher grade brain tumor. But the flip is, there is a chance that the brain tumor does in fact not return.

And in the most simplistic break down possible for our lives.

Hope – that we never mention said brain tumor again.
Fear – that the brain tumor will return and return worse than first discovered.
Uncertainty – what if? What if this brain tumor kills my wife? I still have two young boys, am I ready to be a single dad again? Can I handle it? God forbid, I have to date again.

There is a lot of uncertainty. The unknown is scary as hell. But, we have to plan. We have to plan for today, as well as tomorrow. We have started a To Do list, as my wife hates the phrase Bucket List. There will be big things on it, like a trip post covid to the Grand Canyon, as well as making sure that my wife goes to everyone of my son’s baseball or soccer games.

Our focus has shifted a little to more of the making memories and keeping our son’s lives as normal as possible. And today that is easily done, but in the future, it might not be. But today, we make the most of it. The sun is out, all the snow is melted away and we are focused on spending time together.

Tomorrow, well we can worry about that tomorrow.

Hope & Fears & Uncertainty.

Read more

Where to begin? Seems like a loaded question, yet a statement that has been used a lot recently when explaining the last 4 months.

I was going to start with virtual school for the boys, but let’s skip that for another day. And instead, let’s touch on my wife’s first surgery and then in another post, probably next week, the discovery of the brain tumor.

Three months ago, my wife had a scheduled procedure, which we thought was going to be routine and in 6 weeks, would be 100% healed and better than ever. But, that was not meant to be.

My wife woke up from her procedure in recovery with severe shoulder pain. Now, for the record and without going into the procedure, her surgery had NOTHING to do with her shoulder, not even close. She was told to give it time.

7 days later, she is getting an MRI and being told that her should was dislocated and then the MRI revealed other issues too.

So a quick recap, my wife went in for a surgery, that wasn’t related to her shoulder, yet comes out with major shoulder problems. The shoulder issue was so bad, that she had to be seen by orthopedic that repaired my shoulder last year and surgery was scheduled.

And with that, when people ask about her shoulder, we usually start with, “where to begin?”

Everyone has been left asking the same question, “what happened to her shoulder?” And short answer, we don’t know. We don’t know what happened. Seems strange, but that we just don’t know.

Next up, the discovery of my wife’s brain tumor and how we found gratitude through all of this.

Read more

So, I took a little break from blogging. Not intentional, partly it was due to a server issue and I was just too lazy to fix it. The other, well life happened.

Over the next few days, I’ll share a little of what has been going on:

  • Virtual school for the boys
  • My wife’s 1st surgery
  • The discovery of a brain tumor in my wife
  • Hopes & a lot of fears
  • Financial planning
  • And anything else, because did I mention that my wife has a brain tumor?

Read more

I’ve been asked by many friends and even my Mom for that matter, what is it like parenting During the Coronavirus? And, it is a fair question, but my response today, might be different than in 2 weeks from now.

Since December, I had started to watch what was happening in China with the Coronavirus. After some conversations with my wife, we slowly started to purchase meat and other non perishable goods for our family. And yes, we bought extra toilet paper (I’m from the south and that is what you do in an emergency) and paper towels. I don’t know why I took this approach, but I did.

Fast forward to last week, March 11th. That morning my wife and I talked about the strong probability that the boys would be out of school for an extended period and that if they made it to March 16th, it would be a miracle. For the record, both my wife and I work in the healthcare field, so we are seeing and hearing about things in a more macro and global way. Well, March 12th, we got the news, school was shut down for at a minimum, 2 weeks due to the Coronavirus.

So now, we have a date, a plan, etc. We made 2 more quick grocery store orders, did an inventory of meat, frozen vegetables, etc. We sat the boys down to explain to them what was going on, provide reassurance to them that they were ok and safe. That we had enough food in the house and that they were going to be home for a few days, but they could not play with their friends.

That night after the kids went to bed, my wife and I sat on the deck drinking a glass of red wine. As we talked about the current events and what was unfolding, I simply said, I wish that I could talk with my Grandfather about this, as he lived through the Great Depression. And then my Mom texted me the simple question “how are you parenting during the Coronavirus?”

Understand, my Mom and I talk or text daily. So my reply to her, she already knew. I gave her a rundown of our supplies in the house and then I told her that I was working on a school schedule for the boys at the house. And that I was going to have to both work and be a teacher, at the same time. Her reply is what I expected “I raised you well.”

You see, I’m nervous. Hell, I’m beyond anxious. We are dealing with an unknown. Right now, our state is looking at an 8 – 20 week shut down of school. Will the kids even go back? Little League is shut down. Major and Minor League baseball too. Life as we know it, within reason, is shut down. Yet, when my kids come to me and ask me questions about the Coronavirus, I try to answer honestly and as best I can.

The Coronavirus is going to change our economy. Our society. Our lives. This will take years, in my opinion, before we recover. There will be books written about this and the outfall from it. History will judge the actions of our President and our people. My Grandchildren will read about this one day.

And for me, as a Dad, I just hope that I’m parenting for my kids, the best that I can through the Coronavirus. I hope that I am able to provide comfort and wisdom. That I can provide structure and reassurance. I hope that I can mask my concern and fears and one day, when they read this, I hope that they know that we did everything that we could to prepare for this.

Read more