In all my efforts to get sane a few years ago, I did a lot of stupid things. I’m sharing it with you here so you don’t make the same mistakes:
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/l4Xx_vjGnlo
–Don’t try to control your compulsive binge eating problem by fasting. You won’t make it through the morning, and then you’ll binge like you’ve never binged before.
–Don’t mix alcohol with pills that have the strength of four Advil tablets in an effort to kill your emotional pain as well as your physical pain. That sort of thing might kill you.
–Don’t hate the people in your life for the bad things they’ve done. Remember that they’re fucked up like you and that hating them will never make the pain go away. In fact, it’ll just make it worse.
–Avoid the late-night infomercials. Those things were designed for suckers, especially suckers who can’t sleep because they’re so overcome with fear and anxiety that they see knife-wielding ghosts around every corner. You might find yourself falling for it and spending stupid sums of money on fraudulent bullshit like this.
–Don’t spend every waking hour worrying about and rushing toward the future. You will miss all the beauty in the present that way, and that’s a damn shame.
—Don’t bitch about your job. You’ll just annoy people. Change yourself and your attitude first. Then, if you still don’t like the job, work on finding a new one and keep doing your best at the current job in the meantime.
—Don’t whine about how tough everything is. Life is supposed to be tough at times, and wallowing in it keeps you from moving on to the good stuff. To put it another way, stop seeing yourself as a victim.
It’s a video that fills a parent like me with rage: A judge giving his 16-year-old disabled daughter a vicious beating.
If you watch the video itself, it’s nothing but terrible. The father is pissed because his daughter was apparently grabbing music and videos off the Internet and proceeds to lash her for several minutes. For much of the video, you hear the daughter screaming. The mom is in the video, too, joining in on the beating, though the daughter claims her father forced her mother to do it.
The graphic video drew international outrage after it was posted by a woman who said she was the victim of the beating seven years ago and that her parents — including her father, Aransas County, Texas, Court-At-Law Judge William Adams — were the ones seen beating and cursing at her in the video.
On Wednesday afternoon, Judge Adams was temporarily relieved of his duties for the next two weeks, and a visiting judge will take over his caseload while the matter is being investigated, according to the office of Aransas County Administrative Judge Burt Mills. No court dates were scheduled this week, Mills’ office said. In an interview with KZTV outside his Rockport, Texas, home Wednesday, Adams confirmed to a reporter that he was the man beating his daughter with a belt and a board on the video, taped in 2004.
“She’s mad because I’ve ordered her to bring the car back, in a nutshell, but yeah, that’s me. I lost my temper,” Adams told the TV station. “Her mother was there, she wasn’t hurt … it was a long time ago … I really don’t want to get into this right now because as you can see my life’s been made very difficult over this child.” Adams continued: “In my mind I have not done anything wrong other than discipline my child when she was caught stealing. I did lose my temper, I’ve apologized. It looks worse than it is.”
Speaking via phone to Texas television station KRIS, a woman who identified herself as Hillary Adams, the daughter in the video, said she posted the video, and criticized her father for “making light of the situation.” “I just can’t believe he would say something like, he doesn’t think it’s a big deal,” she said.
She told KRIS she set up the camera to record the incident seven years ago, but waited for “the right time” to release the video. “Waiting this long to publish it has enabled me to look at it with hindsight and not be so caught up in the passion of the moment,” Hillary Adams said. “I think we do, my mother and I, we do need to try to move on past the anger and just concentrate on getting counseling and help.”
So let’s try to see his side of things…
His daughter appears to be a challenge, the type who drives a parent over the edge. I can relate, because my children can certainly drain me of all patience and sanity. But that’s how most kids get, and I don’t beat my kids over it. When you have children, behavioral challenges is one of the things you sign up for, so to speak.
If you can’t control your rage, maybe the problem has more to do with your ability to be a parent than anything else.
As you can see, I’m having trouble seeing his side of things.
The reason is simple. Most of us lose our patience with our children on a daily basis. We punish them for their transgressions. We even yell when the situation is particularly bad. But most of us keep our hands to ourselves. We don’t smash our children repeatedly in the face.
When I was a kid, my mother took her rage out on us plenty. My sister bore the brunt of the most vicious attacks. Usually the catalyst was over cleaning. My sister was required to do house cleaning every morning before school, and if she missed a spot, she paid for it.
My mother was going through a lot of her own hell back then, and she has admitted more than once that she wished she had acted differently. I forgave her a long time ago. Ours still isn’t a very strong or healthy relationship.
Seven years later, this guy doesn’t think he did anything wrong. No remorse.
Yeah, it’s hard to see his side of things.
I think I speak for all the parents whose kids drive them crazy from time to time; the parents who are driven to the brink but are able to control their fists:
Fuck this guy.
As my friend Joe Yuska said on his Facebook page, “I (and the human race) have no use for someone who beats their kids like this. And to top it off this guy is a judge. Maybe he’ll get locked up with some of the guys he put there.”
This weekend my kids learned that life can change for the worse in a split second, and that there are rarely do-overs.
Mood music:
Saturday we drove an hour north to Nottingham N.H. for an outdoor gathering of some friends in the security industry. Duncan was delighted to find they had a playground, and ran for the monkeybars. Before any of us had a chance to react, he slipped and landed on his wrist, breaking bones in two places.
We spent the afternoon at Exeter Hospital and the staff was terrific. They quietly moved Duncan to the front of the line (you should never leave an 8-year-old sitting in agony, after all) and got him x-rayed. They had to take him to the operating room to re-set the bones and now he’s walking around with an enormous splint on his arm.
He’s taking it like a champ, and in the hospital, when they had to repeatedly stick him with a needle in search of a vein for the IV, he was much tougher than I was at his age, when my veins were equally elusive during hospital stays for Crohn’s Disease flare ups.
But Sean was particularly upset to see his brother in pain like this, and it brought him to tears more than once that afternoon. On the car ride home, he kept talking about the suddenness of it all. If we could just go back that one second and prevent what happened, he said.
Erin and I explained that sometimes in life these things just happen, and the key from that moment on is how you react to the unexpected. In this case, we did the right things. We got Duncan to the ER quickly and have followed all the doctor’s instructions since getting home. But Sean still has trouble accepting what happened.
At one point I laughed and told him we’re shocked it took this long for one of them to break something.
By age 10, I had already been to the ER for a broken finger (I flipped my brother off and he promptly grabbed the finger and snapped it in half), a butter knife through the hand and a broken leg. The leg cast used to make my skin itch something fierce, and I tried to get at the itch by shoving my father’s golf tees into the hole for my toes. When they finally cut the cast off, a bunch of golf tees spilled onto the floor.
And this stuff was in addition to all the Crohn’s-related visits.
Either we’ve shielded these kids exceptionally well or we just have an abundance of dumb luck.
Sean wasn’t comforted by the explanation. He kept obsessing about how he wishes we could have traveled that second back in time.
We’ve all played that game. We love to go over the what-ifs and think about how much rosier life would have turned out if we had just done that one thing differently.
But it’s never worked that way. We break bones. We crash cars (multiple times in my case). We get sick unexpectedly.
Trying to go back never makes things better. Never has. The key is in how we respond to the rude surprises life hands us.
You all knew that already. Now Sean and Duncan know.
Duncan and I took my father to the last place on Earth I wanted to be Saturday afternoon: The family business in Saugus.
Some of you know it as the blue, white and gold striped building across from Kappy’s Liquor store on Route 1. I’ve been trying to keep him out of there since he was released from rehab. Given his slow recovery from two strokes, I didn’t want him climbing stairs.
I also didn’t want him doing work things that would raise his blood pressure. You could say I’ve been trying to insist he do something I would never do: Sit at home and stay out of trouble.
Mood music:
But by the end of the afternoon, it occurred to me that maybe — just maybe — some of us well-meaning family members need to loosen our grip.
The first clue was that he insisted on leaving his wheelchair in the trunk all afternoon. He got around using his walker. As often as he could, he lifted the walker off the ground and took some steps without the help.
Of course there’s the constant danger of an accident. Maybe he’ll slip and fall. Maybe his blood pressure will spike to dangerous levels and set him back further. But when he was contained like he was in the hospital and rehab, you could see the depression setting in.
Saturday he was in the best mood I’ve seen him in since the first stroke in May, and I think it’s because I did loosen the grip and let him do what he wanted: Go through 37 years of paperwork in his office. He knows he’s going to be home a lot more than he would like. He’s going through the drawers of his desk to find things to save and clean out the stuff that has no more value: Phone bills from the 1990s, for example.
We got in the office and I plopped myself down in a chair, staring intently at my Android phone. That lasted about 30 seconds.
“Billy, see those two book cases next to you?” he asked. “I need you to empty them and put everything over here…”
This was familiar ground. As a kid I worked in his warehouse. I pretended to work, anyway. Those who remember the younger me will recall a long-haired slacker with moods that would rise and fall like a hammer in the hands of a coke addict.
I always felt like I was in a cage, chafing against my father’s constant orders. I rebelled hard. I’d hide behind boxes in the back of the building, chain smoking when I was supposed to be filling out inventory sheets.
In hindsight, I had the same problem you see in a lot of idealistic college kids: I thought this work was beneath me. I was too smart for this shit. I was destined for bigger things. Or so I thought. Back then I often confused being educated with being smart.
My father’s lessons about hard work and the value of a dollar eventually caught on. I just had to have two kids and a mortgage before I got it.
This time, I put the phone down, got up and started the clean out. I found a couple empty canisters used to store blueprints and gave them to Duncan, who happily grabbed scissors and markers and set about building himself a couple missile launchers.
He was also in good spirits because we found a package of “carpet skates” my father bought for the kids a few years ago but shelved because he figured I wouldn’t be crazy about the boys sliding across the living room and smashing into furniture.
I found this picture of me, Michael and Wendi visiting Santa Clause sometime in the early 1970s. I’m holding the doll and sulking over something, perhaps the fact that my siblings got to sit on Santa’s lap and I didn’t.
I also found boxes of trinkets my father had collected from the Republican party over the years. It turns out that he got a lot of stuff in the mail for his donations: Gavels with Newt Gingrich’s signature, a medal with Ronald Reagan’s likeness carved into the center, autographed pictures of George W. Bush thanking “Mr. Brenner” for his support of the party.
Dad let me walk away with one of the Gingrich gavels. I never liked the former House speaker, but there’s something cool about holding a gavel in your hand. It now sits on my desk at the office, where I’ll probably bang it on the mouse pad during moments of fidgeting, to the annoyance of co-workers.
There had to be nearly 20 years worth of these trinkets. Some people, like me, would have proudly displayed them around the office. Not my father, though. Appearances don’t mean much to him. The trinkets sat unopened in white boxes on the shelves, buried under blueprints and billing forms.
As I was playing with the trinkets, Dad was finding a lot of things from the past, some of it painful.
There were outtakes from my late brother‘s yearbook photo shoot.
And he found my brother’s death certificate.
I’m sure he’s looked at it a hundred times or more, but this was the first time I saw it. Death certificates are cold documents with a thudding finality to them.
They say nothing about the life. Just the cause and location of death, age, occupation (student), parents, place of death (Lynn Hospital, which is now the site of a Stop & Shop) etc.
Last year, I spent a few afternoons in the warehouse across the street, digging through a bunch of rotting old boxes in search of old notebooks from my song lyric-writing days. I never found them. It turns out, though, that I was like the Nazis in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — digging in the wrong place. All the interesting stuff was sitting in my father’s office all along, collecting dust.
It could have been a morbid trip back in time, my father closing out the defining chapters of his life as he prepared to spend the rest of his days in solitary confinement.
But it wasn’t for one simple reason: That whole afternoon my father stubbornly moved around without a wheelchair, determined to do whatever the fuck he pleased, no matter what well-meaning loved ones were telling him.
He was preparing for the next chapter, and like many of his actions over the years, it was a teachable moment for me.
Saturday afternoon illustrated how significantly my family dynamic has changed — and how much some things remain the same. I took Dad on errands, pushing him around in his wheelchair; Sean and Duncan in tow.
The four of us Brenner guys together for an afternoon is a lot like Godzilla running around Tokyo. The difference is that our chaos is usually unintended. Godzilla repeatedly destroyed Tokyo on purpose.
It’s harder taking Dad around in his current, post-stroke condition. But it’s nice having control of the car. Dad behind the wheel was always a nightmare. I drive more slowly than he did, though my driving is clumsy in other ways.
As awful as it sounds, I kind of like pushing him around in his wheelchair. He’s always been there for us, and this is something I can do for him. Sure, he’d rather be walking. We’d all rather see him walking. But recovery is an unpredictable thing, and for now I feel like I can talk to him about the deep stuff and show him things in a way that was tougher when he was mobile and hard to pin down.
I took him to a jewelry store in Malden so he could get his watch fixed and see an old friend (the store owner, who hired me a couple times in the 1980s to stand outside his shop in a Santa Claus suit on Christmas Eve, waving to passers by). I took him to fill and later pick up his multiple prescriptions. I took him to Target and his office, though I refused to let him upstairs. We went to the old neighborhood, the Point of Pines, so the kids could run around on the beach and blow off steam. While they ran around, I wheeled dad past houses of old friends. He took us for dinner at the Porthole restaurant in Lynn. I had to cut up and mash his veggies, just like he did for me when I was a little kid.
As trapped in his body as he is right now, Dad showed in a lot of ways that he’s still the same guy he’s always been, including the loose cannon part.
As we stood at a Malden crosswalk waiting to go to the other side of the street, a car was coming. The driver showed no signs of slowing down to stop for us, so Dad flipped him off. The driver screeched to a halt and, as we crossed, I waved a sheepish thank you to the guy behind the wheel. The guy smiled and waved, clearly amused that a crotchety old guy in a wheelchair just flipped him off.
In the jewelry store the first thing he said to his old friend was that he was packing on the pounds. Dad is always quick to point out to someone that they’re getting fat, oblivious to his own past problems with weight-control.
At the office, he barked orders and asked questions of his employees as if he’d never left. They were just happy to see him out and about.
Everyone knows how Dad can get. But no one seems to mind. He’s done so much for so many people that most know where his heart is at. If anything, his antics are usually a source of amusement. Sean and Duncan, both of whom are at an age where bathroom humor is present and growing, eat it all up, chuckling at their grandfather’s antics as if they were watching “Despicable Me” for the hundredth time.
They accept their grandfather as he is. They study him in fascination, and they don’t pass judgement the way we adults tend to do.
By the time we dropped Dad off we were wiped out. But we were grateful, too, because there’s something special about the Brenner men striking out on their own for a few hours of trouble.
Things are rough in the Brenner household lately. Duncan’s ADHD is running hot, and so is my OCD. The resulting FUBARs are probably entertaining to the outsider, but it’s quite possible that Erin and Sean are ready to kill us.
The back-to-school grind is great in that the kids needed to get back to their routine. But by the time Duncan gets home he’s fried. Not good when there’s homework to do. He can’t focus, and we need to stand over him so he’ll do the homework. When I’m in OCD mode that’s not easy, because all I can think of are the chores that need to get done.
Duncan has also developed something of a persecution complex. If Sean or one of the neighborhood kids don’t want to do what he wants to do, they’re out to get him as far as he’s concerned. With other kids in general, he’ll inevitably find something to get indignant about.
Meanwhile, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Nothing awful, just the everyday challenges of life. The problem here is that I go into a zone where I can’t hear what people are telling me and I leave things lying around the house.
I wouldn’t describe these things as bad. It’s just stuff Duncan and I need to keep working on. We’re both still a lot better than we were a couple years ago.
I am starting to think the two of us would benefit from a trail of post-it notes. When I start going into a chore frenzy, a few well-placed post-it notes telling me to focus back on Duncan might do the trick. For Duncan, a trail of notes reminding him to change his clothes, do his homework and stop punching his brother might work.
Or not.
When I lose patience with Duncan, four words ring in my head: “You of all people.”
I of all people should be patient with Duncan. I was a problem child on a much deeper, darker magnitude than him. He’s a good boy. I should be a lot calmer when he has his meltdowns and gets uncooperative. Because I’ve been in his shoes. And yet I’m not patient with him at all.
I’ll just have to keep working hard at it.
Because he’s a beautiful kid, and he deserves that from me.
In the battle to manage OCD and all its byproducts, I’ve learned something that’s helped me a lot: To always see the blessings hidden within the bad stuff.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/X0jHPRO98lM
–When I lose people close to me because of death or resentment, I try to remember the good stuff we got to share and how lucky I was to have known those who eventually left me.
–When I feel the depressive effect of shorter days that come with summer’s end, (I’m prone to depression from a lack of daylight) I try to remember that the longer days will eventually return and that there are still things to look forward to in the coming seasons.
–When my children get loud and their chaos invades my personal space, I easily remember that my life is so much fuller and beautiful with them in it. I also remember, when they start talking, that a lot of funny shit comes out of their mouths. Some examples here.
–When my three-year-old niece is here and she’s in a foul mood, I try to remember that she’s still so stinkin’ cute.
–When my obnoxious instincts kick in and I take the needling of others too far, I try to remember that most of those around me forgive me every time and give me another chance.
–If I’m stuck in bed with a migraine or the flu, I can take comfort in knowing it could be — and has been – so much worse.
–If I’m feeling depressed — and my OCD ensures that I will from time to time — I can take comfort in knowing it doesn’t cripple me like it used to and I can still get through the day, live my life and see the mood for what it is — part of a chronic condition.
–When I stare into the mirror and see all the scars and wrinkles, I try to remember that another year of aging is another year life didn’t beat me down.
–When I look in the mirror and see that I’m thick in the middle, I try to remember that I used to be HUGE in the middle and that the former is better than the latter.
–If I’m feeling down about relationships that are on ice, I can take joy in knowing that there’s never a point of no return, especially when you’re willing to make amends and accept forgiveness.
–When I come home fried from a few days of travel, I try to remember that I used to fear travel and now it feels routine. It’s a step in the right direction.
–When I think I’m having the shittiest year ever, I stop and remember that most years are a mix of good and bad and that gives me the perspective to cool off my emotions.
–When I’m angry about something, I can always put on headphones and let some ferocious metal music squeeze the aggression out of me.
–If I feel like people around me are acting like idiots, I can recognize that they may just be having a bad day themselves and that it’s always better to watch an idiot than be one.
Bad stuff happens every day. But if you squint into the darkness and stare a little longer, a little light always appears.
Today is Duncan’s 8th birthday, and we’re all very proud of him. In honor of this special day, I share with you some of my favorite Duncanisms. Let’s begin with his retelling of the morning he was born:
Mood music:
What happened:
Erin’s labor pains came on violently and we rushed to the car. I sped out of the driveway and slammed the pedal to the floor as we approached the train tracks. As we went over the train tracks, the water broke. At the hospital, I accidentally slammed Erin’s hand in the car door.
How Duncan tells it:
“When I was being born, you drove over the train tracks and mom cut her finger from breaking her glass of water.”
Now for the random stuff I hear from my precious boy on a daily basis:
–Me: “You’re a good kid, Duncan. I’m proud of you.” Duncan’s response: *rolls eyes* “Go away, Dad. You’re spoiling my fun.”
–Casually uttered from the mouth of Duncan as he walks by, strumming his severely out-of-tune guitar: “Nobody puts Baby on the shelf…”
–Duncan, puzzled to learn that Darth Vader killed the Emperor in “Return of the Jedi”: “Where does he get off killing his own boss?”
–Duncan, catching me with my shirt off: “Really, Dad. Do you have to be such an ape?”
–Duncan, upon learning he’ll be an attendence monitor in class: “Wow, that’s great! And I don’t even know what an attendence monitor is.”
–Duncan pounced on me, pounded his elbow into my spine and kissed my bald head, telling me he just gave me a “love ambush.”
Duncan and his good friend Gabby
–Duncan, watching a rack of CDs fall on a girl in the bookstore (the kid was freaked out): “I hope those CDs don’t get a scratch in them.”
–I threaten to smack Duncan in the butt (I’d never follow through). His response: “You don’t want to. You don’t know where this butt’s been.”
–Discovered the password Duncan uses for his online “Poptropica” game is “Farts of Doom.”
–Duncan, in full tattle mode: “Sean threatened to punch me out if I talk during the car ride. Now go punish him.”
–“You’re a stupid old shoe everyone steps on cause it’s ugly.” — Duncan’s attempted crusher on his dad (He was angry because I got Sean some gum and he was feeling left out. In hindsight, I can’t say I blame him.)
–“Hanging out with you is challenging.” Duncan, after I wrestled him to the floor in a good-natured game of rough housing.
—Duncan, twirling his toy lightsaber: “You can call me Jedi Bob.” Sean: “I’d rather call you an idiot.”
–Duncan on Santa: “If you don’t believe you don’t receive.”
–Duncanism of the day: If the inside of my head was empty, I’d be light-headed.
At bedtime, I read Duncan a book about how to deal with your feelings when you’re angry. One page notes that it’s OK to get angry with God for life’s unfair twists, as long as you keep praying and get over the need to blame Him for everything.
Duncan says something stunningly insightful for a 7-year-old. Or, perhaps, he’s just proving again that kids have a clearer picture of the world than we grown-ups have:
“Dad, I don’t see how people could get mad at God,” he says.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because while we’re all busy getting upset down here, we have no idea what God is doing up there.”
That’s probably the best way I’ve ever heard someone explain that God has a plan and we have no idea why things happen the way they do.
But Duncan is pretty certain about one thing God’s not doing up there:
“I know this much,” he says. “God’s not picking his nose, because he doesn’t like that.”
On my facebook wall, an old friend, Taimee Leary Scarpa, posted this: “Hope you have a happy birthday. Hope you are able to fit in some fun before you start taping your windows for Hurricane Irene, lol.”
She was referring to the events I described in the post “Fear and Duct Tape.”
If anything, I’m feeling a mix of excitement — after all, a hurricane is something you don’t get to see every day — and slight irritation because we had some nice Sunday plans that are going to get spoiled.
But while the electricity is still on, I’m going to make the most of it and play some loud rock n’ roll. Feel free to join me:
Some people get depressed on their birthday. Not me. The fact that I turn 41 today is a freak of nature. But a year into my forties, I know I have more cleaning up to do.
Mood music:
Item: When I was sick with the Crohn’s Disease as a kid, I lost a lot of blood and developed several side ailments. I’m told by my parents that the doctor’s were going to remove the colon more than once. It didn’t happen. They tell me I was closing in on death more than once. I doubt it was ever that serious. Either way, here I am.
Item: When the OCD was burning out of control, I often felt I’d die young. I was never suicidal, but I had a fatalistic view of things. I just assumed I wasn’t long for this world and I didn’t care. I certainly did a lot to slowly help the dying process along. That’s what addicts do. We feed the addiction compulsively knowing full well what the consequences will be.
When I was a prisoner to fear and anxiety, I really didn’t want to live long. I isolated myself. Fortunately, I never had the guts to do anything about it. And like I said, suicide was never an option.
I spent much of my 30s on the couch with a shattered back, and escaped with the TV. I was breathing, but I was also as good as dead some of the time.
I’ve watched others go before me at a young age. Michael. Sean. Even Peter. Lose the young people in your life often enough and you’ll start assuming you’re next.
When you live for yourself and don’t put faith in God, you’re not really living. When it’s all about you, there no room to let all the other life in. So the soul shrivels and hardens. I’ve been there.
I also had a strange fear of current events and was convinced at one point that the world would burn in a nuclear holocaust before I hit 30. That hasn’t happened yet.
So here I am at 41, and it’s almost comical that I’m still here.
I’m more grateful than you could imagine for the turn of events my life has taken in the last six years.
I notice them now, and I am Blessed far beyond what I probably deserve.
I have a career that I love.
I have the best wife on Earth and two boys that teach me something new every day.
I have many, many friends who have helped me along in more ways than they’ll ever know.
I have my 12-Step program and I’m not giving in to the worst of my addictions.
Most importantly, I have God in my life. When you put your faith in Him, there’s a lot less to be afraid of. Aging is one of the first things you stop worrying about.
So here I am at 41. feeling a lot better about myself than I did at 31. In fact, 31 was one of the low points.
But I’d be in denial if I told you everything was perfect beyond perfect. I wouldn’t tell you that anyway, because I’ve always thought that perfection was a bullshit concept. That makes it all the more ironic and comical that OCD would be the life-long thorn in my side.
I just recently quit smoking, and I’m still missing the hell out of that vice. I haven’t gone on a food binge in nearly three years, but there are still days where I’m not sure I’ve made the best choices; those days where my skin feels just a little too loose and flabby.
I still go to my meetings, but there are many days where I’d rather do anything but go to a meeting. I go because I have to, but I don’t always want to.
And while I have God in my life, I still manage to be an asshole to Him a lot of the time.
At 41, I’m still very much the work in progress. The scars are merely the scaffolding and newly inserted steel beams propping me up.
I don’t know what comes next, but I have much less fear about the unknown.
