The Lessons I Learned from My Dad
I am not the man my father is.
I am trying. Some days closer. Some days farther.
He never sat me down and explained these lessons. He lived them. I’m still learning them.
Show up.
The kitchen table. The hospital room. The funeral. The picket line. The call from the son who won’t answer.
Show up.
Most days that’s the whole job.
My whole life I watched him do it. Not for cameras. Not for headlines. Not because there was something in it for him. He showed up because someone needed him.
I learned that grief doesn’t make you special.
My father buried a wife and daughter. He buried a son. Yet he never treated grief as a claim on other people’s sympathy. Instead, it made him notice theirs.
A mother who lost a child. A father sitting beside a hospital bed. A kid scared about what comes next. A son who lost his mother, his sister, his brother.
He always noticed.
I learned that power is not the point.
The people who chase power eventually confuse the office with themselves.
My father never did.
Whether he was a county councilman, a senator, vice president, or president, he was the same man.
The title changed.
He didn’t.
I learned that family comes first.
The train from Wilmington wasn’t symbolism.
It was every night.
He read to us. Showed up to games. Sat through hospital rooms. Waited up for children who were lost.
And when the day came that the country and the family could not both have him at full strength, he chose family. He relinquished the last chapter of how he wanted to be remembered. And he never complained about it.
Most of all, I learned that love is not soft.
Love is discipline.
Love is showing up at one in the morning when nobody is watching.
Love is answering the phone.
Love is staying.
Love is getting back up after life knocks you down and doing it all again tomorrow.
That love saved my life.
I’ve failed at many of these lessons, sometimes in very public ways.
He loved me anyway.
That’s the last lesson.
I am not trying to become my father.
I am trying to carry what he gave me.
And if I can do that, even imperfectly, that will be enough.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.
The Lessons I Learned from My Dad
I am not the man my father is.
I am trying. Some days closer. Some days farther.
He never sat me down and explained these lessons. He lived them. I’m still learning them.
Show up.
The kitchen table. The hospital room. The funeral. The picket line. The call from the son who won’t answer.
Show up.
Most days that’s the whole job.
My whole life I watched him do it. Not for cameras. Not for headlines. Not because there was something in it for him. He showed up because someone needed him.
I learned that grief doesn’t make you special.
My father buried a wife and daughter. He buried a son. Yet he never treated grief as a claim on other people’s sympathy. Instead, it made him notice theirs.
A mother who lost a child. A father sitting beside a hospital bed. A kid scared about what comes next. A son who lost his mother, his sister, his brother.
He always noticed.
I learned that power is not the point.
The people who chase power eventually confuse the office with themselves.
My father never did.
Whether he was a county councilman, a senator, vice president, or president, he was the same man.
The title changed.
He didn’t.
I learned that family comes first.
The train from Wilmington wasn’t symbolism.
It was every night.
He read to us. Showed up to games. Sat through hospital rooms. Waited up for children who were lost.
And when the day came that the country and the family could not both have him at full strength, he chose family. He relinquished the last chapter of how he wanted to be remembered. And he never complained about it.
Most of all, I learned that love is not soft.
Love is discipline.
Love is showing up at one in the morning when nobody is watching.
Love is answering the phone.
Love is staying.
Love is getting back up after life knocks you down and doing it all again tomorrow.
That love saved my life.
I’ve failed at many of these lessons, sometimes in very public ways.
He loved me anyway.
That’s the last lesson.
I am not trying to become my father.
I am trying to carry what he gave me.
And if I can do that, even imperfectly, that will be enough.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.
I can’t speak for the entire country, but I can speak for my own backyard.
My baseball-obsessed 7 year old hasn’t ever so much as touched a soccer ball in his life and now he’s spending his evenings out here pretending he’s Flo Balogun.
I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the impact this World Cup will have on this sport’s popularity in America.
By targeting Gavin Newsom with the DOJ Trump is showing us he has gone full Putin. We're living in dictatorship and we need to stop it if it's not too late.
"If I could time travel I’d kill Hitler”
“If I had time travel I’d stop my favorite politician getting assassinated”
You’re all thinking way too small.
If I had time travel I’d stop Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from dying on the moon due to Soviet sabotage, kicking off the Great Nuclear War and devastating half the planet.
A guide to ADHD time:
- "5 minutes" = 47 minutes
- "I'll be there at 8" = I'll leave at 8
- "Quick task" = 4 hours
- "I'll text you back later" = in 11 days
- "I'll do it tomorrow" = I will think about it tomorrow
Apparently this is "executive dysfunction."
You want to know something funny. When I was deep in my addiction I always thought I should teach a masterclass on how to cook crack. That’s how fucked I was.
I’m no victim. All of it is on me. I’m the one who fucked up a very privileged life. There’s no gaslighting. Addiction is never an excuse. May be an explanation but never an excuse. I put myself in that hell. And to be fair I pulled myself out, but not without an enormous amount of grace and forgiveness from the people that love me. I’m sorry you feel this way about me. I’m not asking you to change your mind. I just want you to know that I am responsible for a lot of things—- but not everything man. Love and respect.
I don't think I'll get over how much fun the hockey would've been if Colorado played Carolina in the Stanley Cup Final this year.
With that being said, man this is one hell of a series.
my town? slow
my eyes? glowing
my house? gold
my gravestones? neon
my lip? cut
my day? good
my street? mulberry
my man? bounce
my station? oldies
my fear? raw
my voices? robot
my days? dormant