Category: Essays

As a parent with anxiety, I can already tell that raising two young children to have confidence in themselves, and to approach new and uneasy social situations with bravery, is going to be difficult for me.

I had a difficult childhood, complete with a fatherless upbringing and abuse, which affected me in various ways, including low self-esteem. I didn’t participate in many extra curricular activities due to my anxiety. I struggled in school for that reason, too, both socially and academically.

Now I have to work up the courage myself to encourage my kids to participate in healthy activities when it doesn’t come natural to me. The thought of even being on the sidelines of sporting or music events gives me the a lot of stress. What a strange thing to follow you through life. I guess this an example of generational trauma, in the mildest sense.

I had a flashback this morning as I was getting the kids ready for school that reminded me of a time in my life when everything was so unsettled and chaotic. This seems to happen to me a lot more whenever summer starts to give way to fall, when I can smell the change of season in the air and the evenings get a little bit shorter. The memories of back-to-school anxiousness come flooding back and I get a pang somewhere in the recesses of my brain. Usually I’m transported back to being 13 and crying in the dressing room at Sears while trying on school clothes, but today’s memory was different. 

A couple of decades ago, after my third term at an enormous university, I flunked out of engineering school. It used to be a pretty big source of embarrassment for me, but after many years of learning about myself, I’ve come to understand the difficulties I experienced then were less a personal failure than they were the very obvious result of my crippling anxiety and undiagnosed ADHD. I no longer look at that time negatively, but rather an inflection point in my life when I had begun to understand myself better. 

For the next two and a half years after dropping out, I worked various service jobs and other menial labor for minimum wage, which was $5.15 per hour. I had worked as a pantry cook, gas station attendant, cell phone sales rep, water purification system sales rep, surf and skate shop associate, and I even working for an asbestos abatement contractor one summer. I was always broke and things weren’t going so great, to say the least. Often I found myself wondering what could have been and fell into a major depression. 

There were a few more twists and turns over this time period that I won’t get into here, but this week marks the 20-year anniversary of me going back to school and restarting my educational journey at a community college. After two years there, I transferred back to university and finished a bachelor’s degree, only to find myself working in a kitchen again because of the Great Recession. During this time, I applied to graduate programs. I was accepted at a top 3 public university, and a couple of years later I received my master’s degree in urban planning. As a result of that, I was finally able to gain a foothold in some meaningful work that actually paid a living wage at the ripe old age of 29. And the rest is history, or so they say. 

I likely would have avoided a lot of this hardship had I had financial support, well-connected parents, or even health insurance and medication for my anxiety. However, the fact that I did it on my own is a great source of pride now. I look back fondly at my time at community college. In a lot of ways, it was my best higher ed experience of all three I attended. But more than that, it laid the groundwork for the life I love now. 

I was having a text conversation with my brother this evening. He hadn’t heard of ChatGPT yet, so I showed him an example and he told me that this reminded him of that song by Tool about California being flushed away into the Pacific Ocean.

I said, “Arizona Bay?”

“Yeah,” he said.

I asked ChatGPT again: “Tell me about the song ‘Arizona Bay’ by Tool.”

This was its response:

>”Arizona Bay” is not a song by Tool. However, it is a term coined by the band’s lead singer, Maynard James Keenan, and it is the title of a comedy album by comedian Bill Hicks.

>Bill Hicks was a renowned American stand-up comedian known for his thought-provoking and often controversial material. He frequently discussed topics such as politics, society, and religion in his performances. “Arizona Bay” was recorded in 1996 and released posthumously in 1997, following Hicks’ death.

>The term “Arizona Bay” itself refers to a hypothetical scenario where the state of Arizona, along with parts of Southern California, would be submerged underwater due to a massive earthquake, resulting in the creation of a new coastline. Hicks used this concept as a metaphor for his vision of a better society, one that would emerge after the collapse of the current societal and political systems.

>Maynard James Keenan, being a fan of Bill Hicks, drew inspiration from his work and incorporated some of Hicks’ ideas into Tool’s music. Although “Arizona Bay” is not a song by Tool, the band has paid tribute to Bill Hicks in their performances and even sampled some of his comedy bits in their songs.

>So while “Arizona Bay” may not be a Tool song, it holds significance in the band’s history and the influence of Bill Hicks on their music and worldview.

Normally I try to keep things fairly light and impersonal here. I may tend toward the dark or sarcastic from time to time, but over all, I’m usually a pretty happy person. However, lately I’ve been feeling a little more easily bruised, overly sensitive, and just generally melancholy. I’ve been wanting to write a little more at length in hopes of lifting some of the weight up off from me, but life’s been pretty busy lately up until right now. And so here I find myself after some dust has settled.

If you’ve just joined me, or stumbled across this place, my blog, or even if you’re just passively following me from some federated service, you’ll probably want to take a pass on reading any more of this post. Fair warning: this is just my petty ramblings for my own personal therapy, nothing more. 

So, as I said, I’ve been experiencing some mild depression lately. This is pretty out of character for me given that it’s mid-summer. It’s not the same old SAD-induced stuff I’m used to experiencing in brief episodes during the wintertime when I’ve long been trapped indoors for weeks and Vitamin D deficient. My skin has been sun-drenched and the evenings have been long. By most accounts, I shouldn’t feel like I do. 

Although nothing super weighty has happened in my life recently, I’m coming out of a few bad years. I thought I got through most of my feelings, but my grief still pokes its head out from time to time, and sometimes smaller things add up to more than their constituent parts, especially when they’re piled up on top of that previous stuff.

What’s been bothering me more recently, for example, is that some summer plans have just not gone so well. I took my four-year-old son to Michigan recently to celebrate my step-dad’s 60th birthday. And to be completely honest, I didn’t really want to go at first and had to really rally and build up my motivation because the last several trips home haven’t been the most positive experiences.

For example, a few years ago I flew back home in support of my mom when she was going through post-op chemo for breast cancer. I went back again a couple of years later in 2021 when my brother went into hospice, where he then died a couple weeks later from the brain tumor he had been fighting since being diagnosed in 2014. Then, last year, some drama unfolded between my youngest (living) brother and his now ex-wife over some custody issues with my nephew, all while my whole family was there vacationing.

So, I might be excused from not being totally thrilled at the prospect of returning. Although much of it was well beyond anyone’s control, it sometimes feels like bad energy just surrounds the place, and I’ve begun to dread going ‘home’ for these kinds of visits because something is always.going.down. My wife even refused to go back this year given past years’ experiences, so she stayed here in Oregon with our daughter.

Despite all this, I did my very best to put my negative feelings aside, for my dad’s sake, but also for my son, who still hadn’t met any of his cousins yet. So I put on my game face and tried my best to just roll with it. And it all really had been going pretty well, too, until about halfway through the trip when I had an argument with my brother and my parents.

It started when I had something come up at work while we were up at their RV park vacation home, so I had to finish a few things remotely. No big deal. I had already discussed with my parents that I’d have to work a little on this trip, so it wasn’t completely unexpected. They were just happy we were there.

So when this bit of work came up, my dad asked if he could bring my son down to the beach for a while. I agreed, enthusiastically. My dad’s a great guy and really good with the grandkids. We had just been to the beach the day before and we all had a great time. I figured it would be great bonding time for all of them. Thumbs up. So away they went. 

When I finished my work about an hour later, I walked down to the beach to join them. At first, I thought everyone had left because I didn’t recognize anyone there. But then I noticed my son’s voice from afar. Surprised, I saw that he was swimming a long ways from shore. And although he was wearing a life jacket, he was about 35-40 feet out from the beach, essentially unsupervised.

It turned out that my dad had left to take a friend back to camp and he put my brother in charge over my son. However, my brother wasn’t anywhere within line-of-site of my son when I arrived. He was in the water, but on the other side of a floating dock, completely out of view. My son, who cannot swim, was playing by himself in 15 feet of water without an adult watching over him. 

How long had he been out there? How long had no one been watching him? I struggled to make sense of what was going on. At first, I gave my brother the benefit of the doubt. I just watched. With me there watching, I knew my son wasn’t in any real danger, but I observed to see who was paying attention. As time went on, it became clear that my four-year-old son was really out there all on his own.

No one was paying any attention to him for at least the 5 minutes I was observing, long enough for something to go horribly wrong. I watched long enough for me to have seen my 4-year-old son struggle to get out of the way of other kids much older and larger than him, playing and jumping off the floating dock in his vicinity. Some kids were jumping right over his head, and he showed signs of struggling to stay above water. It was at this point that I called to him to shore, my brother still out of view on the other side of the floating dock.

Once back to shore, I kept my cool and didn’t yell, but I told my brother in a bit of an upset tone that my son shouldn’t have been that far out, and that he definitely shouldn’t be left unattended like that. He quickly got offended by this, arguing that my son wasn’t unattended. He acted as if it would’ve been impossible for anything to happen to him while wearing a life jacket.

I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The icing on the cake was when my brother said something along the lines of “you’re welcome for entertaining your kid for the last couple of hours.” This just left me feeling very hot given that I had just spent 5 hours with his son without my brother the day prior, like he was doing me some enormous favor by spending an hour with my son, his nephew. I know he was just deflecting the fact that he failed to provide the most basic level of care and oversight to my son. 

I was upset at him, but more than anything, I was upset with my dad for his negligence. Later, my brother told me that my dad didn’t even tell him that he was leaving. I was flabbergasted. My dad’s brother died by drowning at the age of 18, so this fact surprised me even more.

To top things off, my parents sided with my brother, and my dad basically denied any wrongdoing. My mom has always been protective of my youngest brother, but this was just over the top. She blamed me for stirring up things unnecessarily. 

I went over the situation again and again in my head to analyze whether I had done something wrong or if I had overreacted. I felt like I was being gaslighted. I wanted to leave, but I was trapped because I was far out in the country and didn’t have a car. And to make matters worse, my dad’s 60th birthday party was to be the next day, the entire purpose for the trip. 

Thank God nothing happened to my son, but I kept coming back to those first few moments when I saw him out there in the water alone. My stomach turns at the thought. But to be made to doubt the own validity of my feelings instead of acknowledging a mistake and just apologizing? I’m not exaggerating when I say that this experience had me looking back and questioning my own upbringing. 

It all left me feeling completely disappointed and disrespected by people I thought had more common sense than this, people whom I thought I could trust. I am still working through a lot of feelings about it.

I spent the evening and much of the rest of the next day removing myself from the situation, staying in another camper. The following evening, I smoothed things over with my brother for the good of the order. It felt like I was lying to myself in doing so, but I didn’t want to ruin my dad’s big event. I’m still feeling deeply hurt by what went down and I’m having trouble trying to figure out how I can move forward given that it’s gone completely unacknowledged since. 

I left Michigan still pretty salty, but was trying to forget about it, focus on the positive, and look forward to a camping trip I had planned on the Oregon coast the following week—this past weekend. I booked the trip six months ago because state parks open up their registration that far in advance and the good places fill up pretty much instantly out here in Oregon (maybe it’s the same elsewhere, too). I knew the trip would be difficult with a young family, but I really thought we would have a lot of fun, too. Turns out we were not ready for that kind of trip. 

After days of preparation and loading the van to the roof liner, it was five hours by car until we reached our destination. My first mistake. My one-year-old daughter screamed and cried for at least half of that trip downstate, likely setting some kind of record, but also laying the groundwork for a pretty rough trip.

Both kids thankfully fell asleep right before we got there, which allowed me and my wife to setup camp fairly quickly and undisturbed. We thought we had gotten over the hump, that we could just enjoy our time there, but unfortunately we were wrong.

The coast ended up being pretty cold at night, dropping down into the upper 40s and low 50s, but it was the 35 mph wind gusts that really did us in. My wife, who had on several layers of clothes, a sleeping bag, and blankets, couldn’t handle the cold. Then, my daughter kept waking up periodically throughout the night before waking up permanently at between 4 and 5 a.m. each morning. As a result, we were all pretty miserable the entire time despite being in such a beautiful place. After two nights of that, we promptly packed up the van and checked ourselves into the nearest Best Western. 

For the most part, that went a lot better, albeit with an underlying air of defeat that permeated everything we did the remainder of the trip. Still, $500 later, we had a pool, a hot tub, and a couple warm beds to sleep in. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Everywhere we went, the kid (my daughter) screamed. Hour trip up the 101 for a hike? Screaming child. Trying to grab some grub at a local brewery with great food and beer? Fussy, crying, screaming child. Spending time at the beach? Screaming child. I think she had just had enough of the road trip life. We all did. I lost my cool at one point and raised my voice, which I regret, feeling completely wiped myself. Most ironically, my son had a great time through all of it and didn’t want it to end. But for me, these experiences have made me want to stay home for the next couple of years.

I would sometimes think how great it was that I had the opportunity to really plan for my family. That unlike my mom, who was thrust into motherhood as a teenager, I started a family in my late 30s because I had lived so much, settled into my career, and was so financially stable. But then other times, I am just so completely drained that I think I must have been crazy to think this would be easier.

At any rate, the month of July can go to hell. I will remain within a 15 mile radius for the foreseeable future. I love my family and I love my life, but this summer is testing me. Until next time. 

Love, Dad

Long couple of days, but feeling more alive today after some rest and lots of coffee.

Got in about 2 a.m. (5 a.m. Eastern) the night before last. Had a couple hour delay with our connecting flight out of Seattle. All told, a 13-hour travel day with my 4 y.o.

Carried him (40lbs) and his cargo about a mile according to my watch. My legs and arms definitely feel like they got a workout today. I guess that’s how we acquire that coveted “dad bod”.

Overall, Pax was a trooper though, and is a great traveler despite me having kept him up way past his bedtime.

At one point, he spilled a half-full glass of apple juice all over himself an hour into our 4.5 hour flight from Detroit and had to fly pants-less (pictured here) for the remainder of the flight. I dried him off with a clean pair of undies I brought in my carry-on, and away we went. I don’t think he minded so much.

If I could talk to my teenage self, I would try to convey just how much value there is in being in a field that’s in high demand, and to maybe try to focus on getting a creative role in such a field.

For the most part, I like what I do as a planner, but there is very little creativity, and the options are extremely limited in terms of where we can go. It hamstrings your ability to move about the country or world, or work remotely for yourself, when you have a career in a field that is so competitive and tied to locations.

When looking for a job as a planner, not only does there have to be an opening where you want to live, but also the competition is incredibly high for these jobs. Hundreds of people applied for several of the jobs I’ve held. It took me 5 years of applying to land a job in the Portland region because I didn’t live here already or know the state and local land use policies. I had to take a job in an allied field for a few years in order to make my way into a planning role within the same organization.

The universities just produce too many of us land use urban planners, selling it as a much more interesting and desirable role than it actually is. What we’re sold is this idea that we’ll all be designing livable cities and helping communities become better places. But in reality, It’s mostly thankless work, often viewed as obstructionist to people’s hopes and dreams, and very bureaucratic. We are blamed for things beyond our control, when in reality we implement plans driven by elected officials and their constituents in the community. Too much of our jobs are dictated by accommodating the automobile, too.

It took so much struggle and hard work to get where I am now, in both my career and in getting to my current location. I am only now at a senior level in my 40s when many of the people with whom I went to grad school left the field altogether long ago to chase better jobs, in better locations.

Right now, my wife and I are still pining to move abroad for a couple years with our small children. But I am struggling thinking of anything I could do to make a living. There really is no way for me to do my current work and go on such an adventure. I can’t help but think that if I had gone into another role, I would have a lot more flexibility. I am having some regrets about my life choices in this respect.

I bought my house in 2016 before I was married or had kids. Coming from the Midwest, housing prices were pretty crazy out here in the Portland region. Not like the Bay Area by any means, but I only had my own income. I was pre-qualified for a mortgage based on my Midwest salary the year prior. I had very limited options, so I bought a short sale fixer upper. 

When I moved in, the place was in really rough shape. It had been a rental and I’m told that the last renters had multiple animals, including a potbelly pig. I keep a copy of my inspection report, not only as a list of things that need to be done, but as a reminder of how far it’s come. I’ve done most of the work myself, something I’m pretty proud of considering most of our neighbors even hire out their yard work. Blame it on my blue collar Midwestern upbringing. I’ve invested a lot of sweat into the thing. I have an emotional attachment to the place. 

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot to do. It’s still got some pretty ugly laminate flooring downstairs and an old, dated kitchen from the 80s. And there are a few partially completed projects around the house. Those don’t bother me too much, although I’m certain my wife might have something to say about that (she says we’re not buying another house that isn’t “done” — I don’t have the heart to tell her that it’s not ever “done”).

What bothers me is that it can feel like the walls are closing in on me now that we’re a family of four. Our house is 1300 square feet and it feels like we’re always right on top of one another. But for us to move into a larger house, we’d be looking at tripling our house payment.

The plus side of this is that our housing costs are very low. Most of the houses like ours are selling for about double what we paid. Our monthly housing costs are one-half to one-third of what many of our friends pay. For now, this is suiting us fine, especially considering that we have two children in daycare that costs us a couple thousand dollars per month

Some other financial positives are that, as a result of keeping our housing costs low, we’re able to save 20% for retirement and also put away a few hundred dollars per month for the kids’ college funds. We don’t have a lot left over at the end of the month, but we have an emergency fund that we almost never have to touch and don’t have to budget every penny we have. 

We don’t have any pressure to move except for our own desires. I’m trying hard to ignore my feelings, but I think social media hasn’t helped (one more reason to perhaps get off it). Since I come from a place where housing prices are way less, I get so see a lot of people back home posting photos of living in beautiful houses. I’m trying very hard to ignore my own jealous feelings and to deny my very American drive toward “more, more, more”, but on the other hand, why should it be so tough when we are considered upper middle class? I know we have so much more than most. I am grateful for what we have. Still, our homes are more than just backdrops, they frame so much of our daily lives. I am still trying to sort my feelings out on this stuff.

You ever look in the mirror and wonder, “who the hell is that?” Seems every day my beard gets a little grayer, my skin a little worse, my body a little more exhausted. I’m trying to age gracefully but the thought of death has been living rent free in my mind since my younger brother passed two years ago and the signs of time passing don’t provide much comfort.

To be fair, things have been better the last few months. I’m getting good sleep, waking up earlier, showing up in all aspects of my life. In a lot of ways, I feel on top of things, and have a lot that is going well for me. I think I’m a pretty good dad most days, I try to be a good husband, I’ve made a good home for my family, I’m making advances in my career. 

Still, I have lost a lot of myself since becoming a father a little over 4 years ago. My life is so focused on others that it’s hard to ignore that I often don’t recognize myself anymore, not just physically but also in spirit. I am no longer a naive young man with too much to say, I’m a middle aged guy unsure that he has anything to say at all.

I know that this is just part of parenthood and that things will never be the same. I also know that I’m in the thickest, deepest part of these woods just given my two kids’ ages. I don’t take for granted that they will never be this age again. I really do try to pour myself into this life and enjoy it at the same time. I’m happy nearly every single day. I find moments of peace and pleasure in small things. I don’t wish this time away for anything.

Sometimes, I just wish we had a little more help. I just know that I need to block out more intentional time for myself. 

My wife and I are watching Fleishman Is in Trouble on Hulu and I’m really impressed by the writing. No real spoilers here, but I do talk about some basic plot info and some experiences of a supporting actor if you want to skip reading this.

The main character of the show is Toby Fleishman, a recently divorced middle aged hematologist. His successful ex-wife, a New York City talent rep for performing artists, just disappears one day and doesn’t come back, leaving him and his preteen kids in the dark about her whereabouts. He and his kids are in shock and struggle to make their way in a new life without her.

Although Fleishman’s experience is the main plot arc, we also learn about the various struggles his friends are experiencing in mid life.

One of his best friends is Libby, and I find her character especially relatable. Her character is about my age in real life, has been married to a lawyer for a long time, and is having a difficult time getting the recognition she deserves as a female writer at a men’s magazine. She watches as male writers get promoted as she’s passed over.

On the episode we watched last night (S1 E6), Libby was out at a once-a-year party with old friends whom she knew from studying abroad in Israel in college. She’s drinking and having a great time, but as the night turns late, her husband begins to get snippy with her about wanting to leave. She insists on staying while the husband storms off.

As she gets more drunk, her feelings about life start to overwhelm her on how dull life becomes in middle age.

She begins to realize how good her life was when she was young, about things she took for granted. In her search for success and carving out an adult life, she somehow missed that she had so much power in her freedom, which she things she let go of too readily in exchange for stability and security. Now the spice of life has left and all she longs for are the unknowns, the freedom of figuring it all out.

Personally I’ve been feeling some similar things, although not as deeply. I love the life I’ve created, but there certainly is some personal growth involved in settling into life while also trying to meet some of those core needs and desires we all tend to put aside when starting a family and getting on with a career.

It’s a struggle to figure out which needs and desires are reasonable when you have to make sacrifices. That can be a tricky negotiation, one that I’m still figuring out and will likely continue to figure out forever. In my heart I know it’s necessary to carve out some life for myself on this never ending path toward self-actualization. It’s the guilt that can come with that negotiation that can be so difficult to get over.

I don’t know what’s in store for Libby’s character, but it’s comforting just seeing characters in my life stage, at this moment in history, working through similar feelings. In a way, it affirms my feelings that I should be giving myself permission to feel what I feel and explore who I am instead of letting guilt force my hand.

It was what feels like a lifetime ago, but I still have some lingering trauma left over from my teenage years when my mom married my stepdad. I know she didn’t mean to do any harm and was in fact trying to do something positive for herself and her kids.

She moved me and my brothers out of the city and into the country. It wasn’t cross-country or anything, but it was still far enough away to lose all of my existing friends and to feel very isolated. We were also unable to walk anywhere given the location. Basically the middle of nowhere. Tough on a city kid who was used to running around the neighborhood everyday until the street lights came on.

I was also bullied for being quiet and different back then. And looking back, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of that had to do with politics that I was too young to fully understand. Even looking at my report cards, I definitely think I was treated differently coming from a more liberal family. I even remember our physical sciences teacher telling us that radio carbon dating was a hoax and that God put dinosaur bones in the ground to trick us, but the world was much younger. Imagine having such a twisted worldview and proselytizing about it to children.

My wife didn’t fully get it until she visited my parents with me this past year. She used to roll her eyes at me. Thought I was being dramatic. But she could barely handle being there a week before she went crazy. I woke up one morning to her walking up and down my parents’ 200 meter driveway with the baby because the road is a county collector, too busy with with fast cars coming and going between cities. Lots of blind curves and no sidewalks. Besides, nowhere in which to walk.

Don’t get me wrong. I like being outdoors and visiting rural areas. I even daydream sometimes about having more space, especially since the houses are larger and more affordable the farther you go out. But I don’t think I could ever do it permanently, especially to my kids.

Now that I live in a larger metro area, the conveniences are many, but more than anything I think it’s about being surrounded by people with similar values. There’s a lot of diversity in our area, education is important, and there are good jobs and opportunity. Say what you will about how the right and left should talk more, try to understand one another, but I had a really hard time with oppressive rural attitudes and I would die inside if my kids ever had to live through anything similar.