Chipper Dreher

Tag: mental-health

  • River on a rock

    River on a rock

    There is a toxic poison that goes unnoticed by the FDA today.

    Technically there are a lot. But this one in particular has destroyed the health and spirits of great men, kept untold thousands bedridden, and, if left untreated, destroys from the inside out. It is gradual; the effects aren’t seen immediately—rather, they slowly mold and form and contort until they determine how best to eliminate their target. It is a river on a rock. 

    The poison, of course, is disappointment. To be more explicit, this refers to disappointment and the way by which we respond. 

    To begin, everyone in life will face disappointment. It is a common, uniting characteristic of being human. At some point as a child, you will be let down. Your birthday won’t go the way you planned, that kid you like won’t like you back, your parents will do something to upset you and cease to be perfect gods. However it begins, the inevitable start will quickly snowball into larger, and more grand, disappointments.

    The worries and issues become more pressing and more intense. The stakes get higher as one grows into adulthood and beyond; resultantly, the feelings and disappointments grow more intense. 

    And it works on a person like a poison. If one never fully recovered, or at least processed, the last disappointment, the next one that occurs a day later isn’t going to suddenly restart the count and begin anew.

    Instead, the bitterness amplifies and augments to include another heartbreak. Soon, without reckoning with the past, a fully grown man will find that they have so much anger residing within that the idea of another letdown becomes too much to handle. They find they would rather shy away from trying anymore; it’s too much. It seems that anytime they attempt to find happiness or accept that the best possible scenario could occur, reality comes striking down with more bad news. Maybe they weren’t meant to be happy. 

    So it goes, a downward cycle of what they consider lost potential. Disappointment strikes and the affected fellow becomes fixedly nostalgic for times when the lucky break did occur. For when life felt easier and more simple, when life was seemingly rational and logical. This, of course, is another fallacy, for life is absurd at its core. Life itself has no plan for us. 

    This is when many turn to religion or predestination. It is easier to put one’s trust in something larger than life, something that has a plan laid out for us, rather than try to do things ourselves and face another potential heartache. Life is so much easier when one gives up their “free will” in acceptance of a way of life that determines all will be okay in the end.

    The disappointed person becomes institutionalized by this thought process, similar to a prisoner who begins to crave the rigidity of a schedule, the career army man who can’t imagine life without orders. If life is all working out according to a predestined plan, that’s more room to take the foot off the gas and try to enjoy life.

    The crazy part is that this oxymoron can actually work in a backhanded way. Once the fear of choice and disappointment is seemingly alleviated, many will feel as though they can relax and enjoy themselves. This allows them to begin to make choices regarding their future again, but this time with the authority of a higher power—if it goes bad, it is just fate or God saying no. That is easier to bear than the thought of failing from your own devices or inadequacies. 

    Nothing I’m saying is new, Camus discussed this in The Myth of Sisyphus: “As in all religions, man is freed of the weight of his own life.” While he took his view toward religion, he still recognized and empathized with the need for it. He saw it as a method for man to make decisions without the burden of their self bearing the consequences.

    While appealing to a higher power works occasionally, I still feel as though this fear of disappointment can seep through the cracks that religion or predestination so hastily tried to pave over. Until we find ways to process failures and setbacks, we will never be truly happy or courageous, no matter what band-aid solution is used to alleviate the sting. 

    I am twenty-seven years old this year. In all honesty, I don’t feel I have much to show for my quarter century on earth. I embed myself in new jobs and industries, hobbies and interests as often as I can to learn new things and become more rounded as an individual—whether I do this out of fear of actually having to commit to something could be debated—but I still feel I don’t have much of a grounded, secure life.

    I haven’t found a long-lasting, meaningful career. I haven’t started a family. I don’t even have much money in the bank to show for my wandering ways. Last year, I thought, not a few times, that I finally found my way. Each time, I was let down. The gold in the rough turned out to be more rough. 

    I gained confidence in strange ways and lost it in stranger. I felt as though I could do anything for a while but found that most of the things I started up just fizzled out. I give myself credit for trying. I wanted to edit books, so I became an actual, professional editor. I wanted to start a company, so I did. I wanted to be a journalist, so I got a job with a local newspaper. I wanted to be a PM in construction, so I became one. 

    Unfortunately, many of those things have come collapsing since inception. I want to give myself more credit for doing it anyway, regardless of result, but I find it actually makes me sad. Here I sit at a coffee shop, a MacBook to my name and a job as a bartender as my only occupation. Close personal relationships let me down a lot last year and it feels as though I have less friends and inspiring people in my life this year than at the exact time last year. 

    As a result of how I perceive my current situation, each step becomes harder to take now; how much easier would it be if I played it safe. Remain a semi-broke bartender without insurance and hope that fate would come and rescue me specifically from the clutches of unhappiness.

    But how egotistical is that to think that fate would care about me. Nothing predetermined my path and nothing is coming to rescue me. I cannot sit back and say “oh well, whatever happens will happen” because nothing will happen until I myself move it into action. 

    At its core, disappointment is a spiritual problem. One that cannot be cured by physical ailments or mechanisms. Some turn to the bottle, some to exercise, some to retail therapy, some to actual talk therapy. No amount of talking, walking or drinking will cure the bitterness and fear inside that results from disappointment. It is an issue reckoned by spiritual movement and resolve. If the decision is never formally made to accept the doubts and fears and proceed regardless, to put aside the past and consider the future, happiness and freedom from anguish shall never be felt. Like sour candy on the tongue, the piquant feeling shall remain perpetually. 

    Bitterness from disappointment is river onto a rock, eroding any sense of self-worth or self-confidence. With each passing heartbreak, the torrent grows stronger and faster. It cuts further into land and becomes harder to stop. Soon, one may find their entire inner selves dictated by the current of the water rather than the foundation they used to stand on. Bitterness begets more bitterness, the water flows stronger. 

    Until a dam is erected to stand against the stream of hatred, no progress will ever be accomplished. Body and spirit must be in accordance if there is any hope to build the structure. The water will always be there, the disappointments will never stop. What we choose to do with the water is what determines our future. We can allow it to flow harder each day, accepting the futility of life and dreams. We can sacrifice and resign ourselves to a lesser fate than the one that is deserved. We can believe things are predestined and give up on making independent decisions entirely. We can skate by without ever truly attempting something again, better to live safe than get our hopes up and have them let down again. 

    Or a spiritual dam can be built.

    The thought of making decisions, while scary, can still be put to good use and eventually lead to a better future. We can put aside the bitterness of the past mistakes and grievances to try something new. Humans, throughout history, have always been dreamers. Our society has come this far because every generation has those who refuse to acknowledge disappointment and, instead, dream of better, finding ways to substantiate their ideas and keep the ball rolling. Until the fear of disappointment is alleviated, nothing will be accomplished. But once it has been handled, anything is possible. 

    And, admittedly, the fear is never truly gone. What determines character is the movement beyond fear and the perseverance of spirit. So long as that is held tight, life becomes a litany of possibilities.  

  • Acceptance

    Acceptance

    I’ve been rereading The Great Gatsby again and I feel like I’m finally understanding it. At this point in my life, I’ve taken a lot more lessons from the short novel than the last time I tried to finish it. It is more an essay on trying to run from the past and being unable to reconcile how it doesn’t define us but it does build us into the people we really are. Gatsby can’t acknowledge his past because he wants to try to build around the facade of high society. He can’t acknowledge who he really is without letting the past define him.

    In the last few months, I’ve had intense writer’s block. Nothing I write seems worthy of my expectations—it revolves around my time abroad again or it’s too sad. Quite frankly, I’m almost sick of trying to relive my memories from Germany. I feel like a one-trick pony who is only capable of telling moments that, at this point, happened five years ago. Half a decade of living in the past. 

    I let memories from the times I really lived distract me from life I experience now. 

    In the past, I would wake up suddenly, sweating—feeling as though I were back in some moment abroad that made an impact on me. A song would come on the station that reminded me of someone or something and I would have to turn it off as it was too painful to hear, knowing that I was currently in an unhappy, unfulfilling life when I knew what I was capable of feeling and experiencing. How can I calmly live a life of disappointment after two years of intense, piquant adventures. 

    Not every moment was happy. In fact, looking back at my old blogs I wrote in Germany, they seem downright depressing as hell too. That is a case of wherever you go, there you are and I can reconcile that. But I did feel sad in a place that made me happy, and I knew the sadness wouldn’t last. Every day felt like a new start there, I could step outside and choose to be in another country if I wanted. The friendships and relationships are magnified, intense and venerable. I had and have never made friends like I did there. The food was holistically flawless and delicious. The locals were friendly and caring. The sun was bright and happy. In short, life there was memorable, every single day of it. It was the hardest I ever lived and I wouldn’t trade a day of it. 

    But I write this blog not as another love letter to that life; I write it as a goodbye. 

    The only way for me to truly move forward in my personal and professional endeavors is to finally let go of those memories that hold me captive. I hold to my heart only ghosts of what once was. Those eternal moments that I was able to live and relive, dissect and repair have become bastardized versions of the actual truth. I didn’t feel this way toward those moments when I lived them; rather, I took them for granted.

    After five years, I realize that I have forgotten a great deal more than I thought. People that I once held close to my heart now barely register as strangers, places that I swore to remember silently flee from my memory. 

    For the longest time, I thought our past defined us. Memories were the real me and that, if I let them go, I would no longer be as cool or interesting or unique as I wanted to be. However, I’ve been facing the reckoning: the past is what makes us but it doesn’t define us. 

    That probably seems obvious to most people. Nonetheless, it is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way after twenty-seven years. I would go through something traumatic or impassioned and tuck the memory away as a defining moment for myself, reliving it whenever I had the chance to experience those feelings again and remind myself that that moment was who I am really. 

    Since returning from Europe, taking stock of my life, I’ve really done nothing important. Crippled with indecision, lack of purpose and conflicting motives, I have been content to revert back to the past. Memories are firm and decisive, at first glance, and it’s easy to cling to something firm in the midst of confusion. However, the memories I was reliving back in March 2023 are not the same as today. Today, they seem mistier, airier, esoteric. I don’t get the same, all-encompassing feeling when I reach back out to them. I have probably distorted the memory to fit my purposes now and how it happened is actually vastly different. I am escaping to a snow bridge, seemingly firm ground covering a large, gaping chasm. 

    It leads me to realize I must stop relying on these memories to get me through hard times. In reality, they are perpetuating my hard times. I must stop living in the past if I want to concentrate on the future for once. 

    I have finally hit a point in my life where I need to shit or get off the pot. Reality has slowly been catching up with me and now it’s arrived full force and, for the first time, I actually feel ready to face it. I have dreams and ambitions that I want to accomplish and I can’t do that if I’m constantly paralyzed with old memories of a man who doesn’t reflect the current version standing in front of the mirror. 

    I write this in the hopes that it might help someone else going through the same thing. Whether trauma holds you back or even happy memories that you love to comb through day after day, you have to acknowledge that the only way forward is to accept them. Know that the past is the past and what happened is what really happened, but until you are ready to get real with the story, you will be stuck in a loop.

     Accept who you are and how the moment affected you and understand you can’t move on without processing both. You are who you are and your past is your past. Once those two have been made into one, you can continue living presently and passionately. 

    I am going to finally move past what holds me back. I accept that those memories shaped me but they don’t define me. If I want the chance to be present, I have to finally accept that I am interesting and engaging as a human already, I don’t have to dwell on certain moments. 

    It feels as though a lot of possibilities are around the corner for me now that I’ve finally started to get serious about life and I’m excited. I don’t have the time to live in the past anymore—I am working on making my future as fun as possible. I hope I can get there.

  • The Mirror

    The Mirror

    I looked in the mirror today

    Dec 2024

    Tears are steadily running down my cheeks. It is Christmas, a day I have been dreading.

    Yesterday, my Grandmother passed away. Very suddenly. Just two days ago she was here; this whole month it felt like she was doing pretty well and then, out of the blue, I get a call from my mother saying the ambulance is coming. No warning really; her health just failed all at once. 

    I was at work when I get a text from her. “You have been a wonderful Grandson, I am leaving you and your mother all my cookbooks. Come down soon to get them. I love you.” That was it. She texted while heading into the ambulance and I didn’t see it until a couple hours later. I broke down behind the bar and had to go home early. This was the day before Christmas Eve. My mother called me early in the morning, no earlier than 4 a.m., telling me she had passed quietly and easily in her sleep, surrounded by her sons. 

    I knew the call would be coming and, being too numb and tired to process it, just went back to sleep. 

    Today is Christmas Day. I am five-hundred miles from any close family; my friends have returned home to be with their people and no one is around today or tonight. Worse, I still have to go into work. This was the kind of circumstances you hear about only in movies, I had never heard of the holidays being quite so depressing, yet here I was.

    Crying on Christmas without support and without the woman who played a big part in raising me. 

    I was fairly drunk the entire day. I woke up with some whiskey. I went to work and had a few. I went to sleep after a lot. There haven’t been many days as bad as this one. I would be heading back to Florida soon to help my family pack up her house so thankfully I wouldn’t be alone for much longer. 

    But today, as I look at my reflection, it is hard to see behind all the tears. 

    I looked in the mirror today. 

    Jan 2025

    In the small hotel glass pane, I wipe off the steam from the shower that I ran to keep myself warm. The polished white, marble bathroom has a thin layer of condensation tenanting across the slick surface while the exhaust fan roars steadily above. 

    It is early January. The city of New York sitting encapsulated in a frozen sheath of ice, wind and snow. Blustery gales streak between building blocks, rubbing any exposed skin raw and pulling irrepressible tears from sensitive eye ducts. Below, the East Manhattan streets are somewhat quiet; the tourists have mostly gone home to avoid the brutal climate and so we feel as though the city belongs to us. 

    After this trip, reality will once again settle upon me as I am going back to school and work; the business and pleasure of the holidays is reaching its eclipse.

    After returning home a few days after Christmas, I revisited my Grandma’s house and was allowed to view it one last time before it would likely be sold. I stayed in Florida for a week before my family and I embarked on a short cruise down to some areas in the Bahamas. We all agreed we needed to get away for a while and their solution was to disconnect on a boat; I couldn’t argue the logic. 

    It was actually quite a nice time, I felt sick and worn out after the events of the last few weeks but still managed to enjoy it. My dad seemed to be having some trouble relaxing, seemingly having health problems more than usual and looking extraordinarily tired. My mom was obstinately, deathly worried about both of us. But the cruise passed without incident, I won $500 in the casino and felt gratified; this would be my spending money in NYC. It was really quite relaxing when it came down to it.

    We returned home and, after a day or two, I was headed up on my Southwest flight to LaGuardia. Today is the last day of my trip. 

    In a word, magical. That is how this trip has felt. For the first time in years, I feel returned to new heights, to a feeling of normalcy and fulfillment. Each day presented new wonders and experiences. I had never been to NYC before this but I am keenly aware that, now that I have witnessed it, I could not forget it. I would have to return permanently. 

    While we are staying solely in Manhattan, we found we had no shortage of things to see and do. I finally was able to patronize the MoMa, a dream of mine for years. We mixed touristy things with off-the-beaten-path experiences in which we just walked around the streets until we found something that caught our eye.

    It seemed each street corner was a new world, each block the zenith of wonder and imagination. It was a place in which jazz ran through the streets and romance danced along the sidewalk. The smells from warm, intimate restaurants wafted gently from the buildings to our noses and captivated our attention. We drifted along and along, walking to no end. 

    Up on the tenth floor of this Marriott, I feel hope. I see myself and I see a light in my eyes that hasn’t been seen burning for quite some time. This is a new year, a chance to reawaken my passions and finally embark upon the next chapter of my life. If I can put everything behind me, I think I have the strength to rebuild from the ground up.

    I looked in the mirror today

    Feb 2025

    It is the second week of the semester; I’m not doing well. 

    My excitement to return to school turned sour. My one saving grace in this program were the cool, understanding professors who were very hands-off and results driven. This semester, already, it was the opposite. I was back in Freshman year classes it seemed; mandatory attendance, creating LinkedIn profiles, building resumes, group projects and overall a lack of trust in me as an individual and a sense of micromanaging. I am twenty-six. I am considering dropping out and just simply leveraging my current degree into a job in the field instead. 

    Worse news, yesterday my mom called me. With a shaky voice, she slowly revealed that my father was in the hospital. He collapsed in the bathroom one night after trying to take the trash to the curb. He was standing normally then suddenly he woke up to find himself lying on cold tile. The doctors were running tests but, at the moment, were unsure of the exact problem. I could sense the colossal weight of worry upon her back and I tried to fly back down to take care of them but she wouldn’t let me.

    So here I sit, just returning from MTSU in my car while there my father sits, helpless in a hospital bed, strapped to monitors. 

    So much for a good start to the year. I just lost my grandmother and now it felt as though the rest of the family were slipping through the cracks. 

    I looked in the mirror today 

    Feb 2025

    Feb 18 to be exact. A day of extreme highs and lows—they seemed to occur a dime a dozen this year. Let me breathe for once without the other shoe dropping. 

    In the last month, a lifetime had occurred. My father, in the hospital, was diagnosed with multiple Pulmonary Embolisms and put on blood thinners and other medications to flush the blood clots from his body. One had occurred near his heart, the rest gathered lower in his legs.

    He was exceedingly lucky that he made it to the doctor when he did as this is an extraordinarily deadly diagnosis for someone who does not seek help. No surgery was necessary and, after a few days in the hospital, he was released and relegated to bed rest; a sentence he did not particularly enjoy, rather, outright raged against. He refused to sit and heal, he was back in the gym after a couple weeks. That is the man who raised me and I couldn’t help be a little proud, even though what he was doing was incredibly dumb. 

    I quit school. Without much of a lifeline I might add. I talked to a professor that I had really trusted, one who felt more similar to a mentor than a formal teacher and asked him if he agreed with my idea of dropping out and finding a job anyway. He did. More than that, he offered advice and references for other jobs and made it clear he was looking out for me. I was touched and feel forever thankful to him. 

    Today, Feb 18, I had an interview with an employer that I had met while bartending.

    I was originally slated to begin an internship with him in the summer, but I laid my story out to him and asked if I might have a permanent spot within his organization, rather than just an internship. I wanted to speed up the timetable and work now in lieu of spending thousands more at school for another Bachelor’s. I would be learning on the job anyway, I am more useful if I learn the ropes from personal experiences, I argued. 

    I was convincing enough and he agreed with my argument. I had secured a job with my first contact in the industry and would be starting at the end of the month. I would still bartend on weekends but the weeks would be spent working in commercial construction. 

    Today, Feb 18, I got a surprise call from my mother late at night. 

    Originally I let it go to voicemail as I wasn’t able to answer. But she called again. Two consecutive calls are usually reserved for emergencies and I knew this probably was not going to be a fun talk, especially seeing the hour of her calling; it was late, probably around 10:30 or 11 p.m. at least. The night was completely quiet, it had started snowing and a thin layer of white powder dusted the skies and grass. Small, diaphanous flakes blanketed the ambient noise– no sound emanated from the world. 

    Bracing, I dialed back. My uncle had suddenly passed. In the hospital while simply waiting for a routine surgery. The doctors say it was a heart attack. She relayed all this information calmly and delicately, an unsteady peace surrounded by chaos. In the back of the call, I heard the shower running. With a queer voice, my mother said that my father had been in the shower since getting the call himself and refused to come out. It was the greatest shock to all of us. Two members of the Dreher’s gone barely two months from each other. Who could predict such a thing. The small family was a bit smaller.

    Thick flakes slowly transposed atop the thin ones and sat whispering on the window’s ledge. I opened the door and stepped outside. Within the confines of a streetlamp, I let the steady snowfall cover me and color me with a pure white.

    I looked in the mirror today 

    April 2025

    It is 5:30 a.m. What am I doing up? Oh yeah, working construction. What do I do all day? Collect panic attacks. 

    Staring at my reflection in the dark, morning air, I don’t see anything good. In fact, I see only sadness and turmoil. I think my hairline is receding. My skin looks gray. The stubble on my face forms a haggard beard.

    Construction has been the opposite of what I hoped. I’ve been in it for a couple months now and it has been a steady downhill trajectory. I was thrust into a position in which I was given no training, help, or guidance. I stepped on a nail yesterday that went right through my boots. I have almost been hit by falling debris more times than I can count. There was a hole in the ground in which I almost broke my ankle, I only noticed it at the last second. And still, my bosses deem it fit not to help in any capacity. I could speak for hours about this job, but I am sick of talking or thinking about it. Read my other blogs for my experience in construction.

    Rest assured, this was not my answer. I felt bad for wanting to quit but I felt even worse contemplating staying here any longer. I need to get out while my hair still has its color.

    I looked in the mirror today. 

    June 2025

    Summer is just beginning.

    I’m back at my bartending job, for now at least. It was a hard transition though, if only due to my ego and pride. I had just led a team of seven workers and we had accomplished quite a bit, looking back. While I hated it, I will acknowledge that I was effective in reaching the goal laid out for me. The contractor groups had liked working with me and gave us extra leeway with certain things, we made a ton of money and the team had said they liked working with me—even if they had said it in Spanish. It was a T&M contract project I was working on and, before leaving, I noticed we had made well over what the management had expected. 

    In some twisted form, I was proud. I had been well-liked among my crew and had finally earned the respect of upper management due to the money I was making them. I proved to myself, if nothing else, that I had the potential to be an actual leader one day. It was a good feeling to solve problems and I realized that I was capable of more. I could do more. I don’t know how I want to capitalize on this yet but I want the pride to remain. It is the most valuable skill I picked up on site.

    However, the environment was not for me.

    I was so incredibly unhappy that it became impossible to ignore and I had to step back for my health. It was an amicable sendoff and, now, I find myself back at the place I was bartending before. Except now, I had gone through an unbelievable, permanent transformation over the last few months.

    My shoulders pushed back confidently, my demeanor is inherently calm and inscrutable, as if I was still speaking with a hesitant or aggravated supplier. I was returning to an organization in which they had remained the same and even declined in the same span during which I had grown exponentially.

    I am proud of the change that occurred in me. I became someone that handles well under pressure and strengthens others leading by example. If I do not fold, it will be easier to uplift those who need more guidance. This is something that no one will ever take away. I felt a self-confidence burning within that had never existed before. Even in the darkest of times, I still feel a resilience of spirit. 

    Southall did not seem to notice or care about this change. I was granted an imaginary position in which I was given all the responsibility of a certain aspect of the bar program so management wouldn’t feel any need to step in or care. They were able to take credit for my accomplishments and then blame me when things failed. It was a win-win for them and, soon, I felt an ambivalence for this place that I had never felt before. 

    I had always been treated fairly before but now, it seemed things were different. I was not someone to be simply pushed around anymore and, as a result, I was being pushed out. It had turned corporate and uncaring, a by-the-books new manager taking the place of a beloved, lead-by-example old one.  Rather than acknowledge his legacy, the new director did everything in his power to diminish the legacy that had been previously built.

    It became like an early season episode of The Walking Dead, personal favorite employees were being fired left and right for trivial offenses. No one was safe.

    This was not the outlet I had left only a few months previous. This was an uncaring, indifferent beast who relied on the numbers game; surviving only on profit margin and rearing wildly when reservations were low. The hunger became insatiable, profits weren’t high enough. Eat more. Fire more. The numbers went higher, it became an addiction. The belly had to be fed, the wills and personalities of employees irrelevant, only earnings mattered. Slow night? The beast attacked, more firings. More lies. More pay cuts. Increase the service charge taken by the house on every ticket. Continue to feed the machine. Push out old workers, they cost too much. Hire those with less experience, they work cheaper. Busy night? Cut anyway, they just get in the way of margins. 

    I have to find a way out. 

    I looked in the mirror today. 

    August 2025

    A summer spent and wasted. I can’t recall a single day at work over another. Pride wouldn’t let me accept just any bartending position. I had been a leader, how could I be a simple cog in the wheel again?

    I was spoiled by my experiences and knowledge of my potential.

    I hated that place more than I hated the idea of being a lowly employee again. While I know I had more potential than just being a bartender, I would have to find another bartending job if I wanted to pay the bills right now. Even if it felt like starting over and being low on the totem poll again, it was worth it to me.

    I found a job that I know is probably not for me, but it is a distinguished bar in the Gulch area of Nashville. A bar that has made it to magazines, articles, blogs, awards and “best of all time” lists.

    That seemed fair to me; at least I would grow in my knowledge of something and continue to learn. So I put in my two weeks at Southall today. I will not work the full two weeks, but they don’t know that yet. If they can lie to me, I can lie to them. 

    After this summer, I feel emotionally stunted and, quite frankly, empty. One day after the other of the same dull routine has thwarted the light that was burning in me in the beginning of summer. I no longer feel excitement; I need something totally different. Every door that opened in my route to Nashville has closed on me and I consider my future life here. My lease ends in January and I don’t think I want to extend—it’s time to reignite my passions that I once had long ago. I want to again enjoy life and the things I do. 

    I looked in the mirror today

    Dec 2025

    It is December now. The leaves fell from their posts and collected on the frozen earth, drying and crunching as the brumal night air siphoned away the moisture. Soon thereafter, the mowers and the landscapers arrived for one last scything before the winter. The cold grass clipped, saplings pruned back, and weeds trimmed while the blowers gathered the refuse into large piles, ready for pickup and collection. Large, black trash bags are filled, one at a time, with the remnants of the summer season, the life which once brilliantly shone now being stuffed and packaged, either to be burned or composted. Now, the streets are once again as barren as the trees. Cold wind whistles through the skeletal branches. 

    And yet, I’m finally happy. 

    Where I once felt myself ready to leave and begin anew, I’ve now found a home in the country music capital. It’s as though fate were just waiting for me to accept it and let my guard down for once; I feel reborn and the secret lay entirely in one undeniable fact: I surrounded myself with inspirational people.

    In my life, I have a history of flocking to comfortable, but rather uneventful and damaged, friendships and relationships. I think because I’ve always been so ill at ease with who I am as a person, it felt affirming to find others who could validate those feelings and commiserate with.

    And while that has been nice in many ways as I allowed me to ground myself within a emotion that was not quite happy but not quite sad, I was never being pushed to actually grow as a person. It was a middle ground that felt safer than reaching for better.

    Rather, they almost seemed to hold me back mentally. I could be content to acknowledge how sad I was, but that was the extent of the growth allowed with many acquaintances. They wanted me to remain on their level and we could lament together, but only so long as trauma bonding remained the nucleus and gravitational pull between us. 

    I never felt I had the strength to fix myself or take anything about me seriously, and it’s no wonder; I was with people who didn’t take themselves seriously either. In the last couple months, my life has been one dynamic, world-bending change after another and, along the way, I have had the absolute grace and luck to meet incredible people who choose to remain around me and continue to improve my life.

    Along the way, I made a promise to myself that I would never again speak the words “one day”, words which have ruled and dominated over me my entire life. Since having free will as an adult, every big life goal of mine was subjected to a “one day” mentality in which I would get to it one day down the road.

    For one reason or another, it seemed to be impossible at the moment but in the future, somehow, it would be completely feasible and easy. It took me until this year to realize that is simply not the fact, but I’m grateful I discovered that so soon. I believe some people go their entire lives before comprehending their lives will not magically improve. Dreams will not suddenly be handed to them when they are ready. 

    Something I have always wanted to do was get involved in the literary world. This October, I decided to hit the pavement with publishing companies, reaching out to as many local houses as possible to try to vie for their attention and prove that I had some sense of knowledge within this realm, seeing as I’ve been reading and writing since I was two years old.

    Finally, I struck gold and have had the incredible opportunity to copyedit actual, real novels soon to be published, and get paid for the work along the way. In the process, I started an LLC. Any work I do will be under its umbrella to build my portfolio and eventually expand into more ambitious territory.

    My friend and I talked about starting one for so many years and I decided it was about time to get it going; he’s on board. I am still woefully ignorant to so many things I should probably know when starting a business, but I’m taking it one day at a time and I’m finding that it is one of the most rewarding things I have ever accomplished. I wake up each day excited about new ideas that I could incorporate into my own company and new ways to make money.  A friend of mine wants to get involved in it as well to write and publish some cook books of his. 

    I am finally giving music a bit of a try. For the first time in my guitar-playing career, I’ve begun to take lessons and discover more about a subject of which I am wholly fascinated. My friend and I have begun writing songs together and the writer’s block I’ve faced for the last few months is eclipsed by the creative fever I feel today. I have played impromptu gigs with friends or just by myself since Germany and the internal satisfaction I get from it is unsurpassed by anything on earth, so I figure I might as well explore more of that side of me as well. While I won’t likely be playing on Broadway anytime soon, I do feel as though playing live is in my future. 

    Another life goal of mine was always to be a volunteer firefighter. I get intense satisfaction and fulfillment from acts of service and, as I get older, I am more concerned with giving back to people rather than remaining a one-man show that just takes and takes. Firefighting seems the perfect way for me to try helping my community. It’s rugged, sexy, dangerous and everyone loves them. I have a meeting with the fire chief of Williamson County tomorrow morning to discuss if this is really for me and I couldn’t be more excited. If I’ve always wanted to do it, why wait? Why would things be any better later? 

    I’d rather do it right now and stay overwhelmingly busy as too much of my life has been brushed with excessive free time, a quality I once doted and bragged about. But, in the last couple months, I’ve lived life to the fullest and firmly decided being occupied and getting lost in my hobbies, dreams and interests is much more interesting. Both to me, and others. If I’m a little more tired than normal, so be it; but so far, I feel only invigorated. Sadness and indolence is not a cool, deep character trait, but a defense mechanism against processing the shit that happened to you. It is a form of self-assurance in which, if you are meanest to yourself, no one else could possibly ever hurt you again. Unfortunately, it’s duct tape on a car crash. It’s a false sense of security that will make the repairs cost even more down the road. Most of all, sadness is unsustainable.

    I have chosen to remain in Nashville for another year. It makes more sense for me to continue to narrow my vision and focus on specific ways to grow, rather than try to move and start over without any resources. My new studio apartment is beautiful and, best of all, my newest tax write-off.

    It is such a new feeling: taking myself seriously. Somewhere along the way, I realized maybe I’m good for something after all and carrying myself differently has opened up so many more doors than I ever thought possible. If it’s just a mirage, so be it, I’ll take what I can and continue to learn.

    As I look in the mirror today, I am pleased with the reflection.

    Drinking less, my cheeks have thinned down a bit. Eating more protein and lifting heavier, I feel genuinely fit for the first time and I’m in the best shape of my life. Sleeping with someone I love, my eyes no longer look like they belong to a caged animal–sharp and jagged. As I look in the mirror, I like who looks back.

    After everything this year, all the hardships, the nights I cried to sleep, the loneliness and helplessness I felt, the lack of vision, the anger and betrayal, I think it actually meant something. It was leading me to a conclusion. I’ve been enough all along. 

    I have the skills to accomplish what I want, and now, I have the clarity and the confidence to see it.  

    That being said, good riddance 2025. You’ve lasted too long.  

    Thank you to everyone who has made this year special for me and helped me through some of the worst moments of my life. To those who made it an informative year, I appreciate the lessons.

  • linearity

    linearity

    My life has been everything but what I expected it to be at this point. All the dreams I put on a shelf over the years silently sit, drooping morosely over me. I stare at them wistfully and, between glances, watch the minutes of time fleetingly pass beyond my nose.

    I am still young, but it is the kind of youth that no longer offers as much leeway and grace toward deemed irresponsible behavior as before. When I act in a way that was passable merely a couple years ago, now I am met with scorn and contemptuous glances from my peers. I am 26 with have no definable career path; I have very little money with which to begin some fantastic journey and I am unmarried without kids. 

    Admittedly, for the dedicated reader, they will surmise that I never have really strived for most of these typical, traditional goals. My only true, real, firm loves in my life have been traveling, hiking, climbing, fitness, writing and music. I have other hobbies but these are goals and ideals that, insofar, I have dedicated 26 years of my life to their pursuit. I haven’t always done the best job but I have tried absolutely to continue to find a way to involve them in my life. 

    I think really I just do this to avoid responsibility. The heavy crown of stewardship and obligation is one to which I am very averse. Deep down, it has felt a bit like an escape mechanism; never having a real job, never looking to settle down with one person, never looking to stay put in one location for longer than a couple years— things that normal seeming adults are able to do effortlessly. 

    Lately, I have been trying to do some self reckoning. This year has brought with it intense, somewhat painful change that I was clearly not ready for and now I find myself confused and mired in lack of purpose. For 23 years, life was linear. Even at moments when I didn’t find much hope in the future, I still felt as though I were on the right track. Building, creating, striving for something better.

    Perhaps it was just the educational complex that carried me forward but I felt as if each moment was leading toward my inevitable future and pregnant with the promise of change for the better. After graduating, my time abroad in Germany continued in this sense of direction. I had always wanted to go abroad and, of course, this was the next logical step. Self-doubt and uncertainty were yet to plague me as I stepped off the tarmac in Munich and I spent the next 22 months engrossed in a foreign, transient lifestyle to keep me constantly engaged and unconcerned with the premise of any next steps. 

    But suddenly I was back in America, walking through the Gainesville airport to a home that I no longer felt was my own. No plans made themselves available to me. I spent a year drifting from goal to goal. I tried another seasonal job but there was no love there. I tried a master’s program but UF somehow managed to suck the joy out of that with their application process. Suddenly, 9 months had gone by since my departure from Germany and I felt myself more confused than ever in my entire life. I applied for every marketing/communication job under the sun but was met with an obstinate silence from any and all employers, another door closed in my face. 

    It seemed all opportunity had slipped from my fingers. Friends from college had professional jobs and were making their bones in corporate America, friends from Germany who stayed when I left found housing on the economy and permanent jobs on base, allowing them a new, enduring life as an expatriate. And yet, there I was. A dead-end job, worthless Bachelor’s degree and no clear path. 

    I seemed to find a promising path in Nashville, arriving soon after New Years in 2023 and buckling down to a profitable life in Construction. I went back to school for a bit before coming to my senses and comprehending I was simply kicking the can down the road and unnecessarily delaying my future by, once more, hiding in the comfort and delusion of education. I was 25 and already had a Bachelor’s degree, this was a lateral move that would likely not really be useful so I simply got a job in the industry and took the risk. Once again, not for me. 

    So now, we come to the present moment. I have fallen back on bartending to finance my search for a dedicated future. In the meantime, I have realized that one thing for which I have potential is writing, and thus have begun to narrow my field for jobs or even simply mentors in this industry. While, to me, writing is an intensely personal and intrinsically creative exercise that cannot be taught, I believe some of the finer aspects may be elevated such as writing stronger dialogue or creating more narratively-focused sentences and I now only seek the opportunity to learn more about this skill. 

    Travel writing was always a dream job of mine growing up; I idolized authors such as Rolf Potts, Peter Matthiessen and, of course, the great Ralph Waldo Emerson. They were a big inspiration and informed my love for travel and the minimalist attitude by which I try to abide. I realized that, in theory, I could write just as well as them if I truly applied myself and so have begun by telling stories of my travels abroad. While they are usually very simple and arcane, it has been indispensable practice for me and highlighted my shortcomings as a creative person. 

    I feel as though it will one day reconcile my goals of living as an expatriate and perpetual travel with personal ownership and imaginativeness.I have had great trouble deciding which avenue I want to pursue in my life because I feel as though I’m capable of so much and, as a result, stand frozen in time. 

    Life is made from the ‘in-between’ that occurs while we wait for moments that never come; it wasn’t until lately that I feel I’ve truly comprehended this statement.

    I have sat immobilized for two and a half years, waiting for a return to form of linearity and, as a result, have plucked myself from the shifting waves of time; a detached traveler treading water among the distant moors oblivious to the swelling, swirling rip current silently governing the tides. I have been made unhappy due to my own indecision, yet sit and wait for a guiding force or extenuating event to take the control out of my hands and tell me where to go. And, obviously, it’s never going to come. I am to blame for my aversion to the present and consequences thereof. 

    I have not been present-minded for two years as I have waited for moments that never come. Life need not be linear and each moment that I spend waiting for the veneer of that superintending feeling to return is a moment wasted that shall never return. My future lies in my hands and I must begin to act it rather than continue to hope I will be saved by some great force or action. 

    Do we need a narrative through-line to keep us motivated? Do we create it or is it given?

    With all the metamorphosis and change I have faced in the last two years, I am obviously gearing up for something great. I have survived the toughest challenges and lack of purpose, yet still remain here stronger than anytime previous in my life.

    A quiet confidence seeps into my being and allows me to conduct myself with poise and strength while seeking new challenges without fear or trepidation and I feel maybe this has been my purpose for the previous difficult seasons. I must be here for a reason. I put myself here for a reason, whether I realized it or not. 

    Perhaps, life is still linear after all.