5:38 AM. The clock's digits blink like the eyes of a tired predator. This isn't like me, I mutter. My body is a rusty machine, worn down from an 8-mile hike yesterday in the mountains. Every muscle is a taut wire, threatening to snap. The stiffness, the "oh hey, I felt that" moments, remind me of the years ticking away. Coffee, the black elixir of the gods, claws me back to life. I'm here again, documenting the raw mess of life because I promised my future self.
Today is Freedom Day in America, but freedom feels like a distant echo.
Growing up, everything was clear, sharp like a razor. I was coasting, feeling the rush until I crashed into a pit of despair, endless and bottomless.
The forties is like clawing my way up a steep hill, every inch a battle. Memories cling to me like shadows. Dating post-divorce as a single dad is a cruel joke, like trying to solve quantum physics with a crayon. Figuring out who the man in the mirror is—a stranger with my eyes—is a wild, twisted story.
But isn't this life?
To feel every jagged edge, to write every bleeding word, to live every chaotic moment?
I wrote about that in "Nowhere To Go." Every brutal transition, every scar, can spark a wildfire of passion, a desperate search for your voice. It’s liberating when you realize your story is a labyrinth without an end. You just pick up the pen and carve another path.
Change is a constant, and this week is no different. My first children's book is set to come out in September. You can support the mission by donating here. My goal is to get this book into the hands of 5,000 kids. It's a heartwarming story for kids to cope with divorce, born from bedtime stories spun for my little girl.
Freedom. It's a word, a myth, a promise.
In my future vision, I wrote:
I'm a NYT best-selling author.
I take my 13-year-old daughter to Europe.
I have a house in the mountains with large glass windows
I have a beautiful wife who reads is healthy, and understands the deep work
I have 200K subscribers on my newsletter
I don't know why these things called to me, but they did. So, I look at them every morning, my North Star.
Freedom. It's something we have to forge with our own hands. Once we dig deep, past the layers of fear and doubt, we find that everything we need is already inside us.
So yeah, this is why I write.
Because in the chaos, in the raw and unfiltered moments, that's where the magic happens.